X-Men: The Last Stand Review (Spoilers)

[matt_zimmer]

Boy my back was killing me today. Sitting through this movie almost made it worth it though.



X-Men: The Last Stand

First off, what's with all the hating? I'm not sure if the movie was better than the first two or not but I sure liked it. Yes, they changed some stuff from the comic books but comic books are frustrating for me. I didn't mind.

I liked the movie. Not as much as the Spider-Man movies but despite being directed by Brett "Hack" Rettner I thought it was good. Like the first one it started off with a couple of flashbacks. I was pretty impressed with how they managed to tie everything up at the end too before smacking us with a double-cliffhanger which was quite funny. The wobbly chess piece and Charles' return were both a delightfully wicked place to end the last movie of a trilogy. Since a Wolverine movie is coming (and MAYBE a Magneto one) I want to see if they have ANY intention of answering these two questions.

The mutant cure was a great idea for a film although I'm a little bit sad they didn't manage to wedge Apocaplypse in there since they streamlined the origins of Dark Phoenix AND Juggernaut. I think it might have killed the movie though so I was okay with it.

The good:

-The fight scenes were REALLY good and more epic than either of the other two movies. You'd figure with a title like "The Last Stand" that's to be expected but all the internet hating kept my expectations low.

-Lots of soap opera stuff which was always fun.

-Like the first two movies it continued the trend of not making the mutant paranoia by "normies" over the top. People in picket lines screaming "MUTIES! DEATH TO ALL MUTIES!" on the old Fox cartoon show always made me cringe. Magneto? He can be as arch as he wants to be as far as I'm concerned. Ian MacKellan can sell it. He was as great as he's ever been.

-They killed off Cyclops pretty quickly. I HATE Cyclops and James Marsden is an annoying actor and I was glad to see him punked.

-Loved Kelsey Grammer as Beast.

-Funniest scene in the movie was after the bridge being moved the family in the car locking the doors. It's funny cause no matter HOW pointless it was every single one of us would have probably done the exact same thing.

The not so good:

-The movie was a little too vulgar for me. I thought Kitty Pryde was so cute so when she called Juggernaut a phallic name I kinda cringed. Kids today.

-The Dark Phoenix stuff was nowhere NEAR as epic as the cartoon or the comic book. I know that couldn't really be helped because they jammed so much stuff in here but Jean instead of coming across as a fallen Angel comes across as a sociopath. Meh.

-This is more my problem but I couldn't keep all of the evil mutants straight. I didn't even recognize Pyro in the crowd scene outside the clinic. The movies have too generic actors in many of the roles.

-Storm's "big" role. I have nothing against Halle Berry but it seems almost like her contract negotiations squeezed Patrick Stewart out of half of the movie. I know Xavier has died a billion times but Stewart (along with Hugh Jackman) was the STAR of the first two movies and his role here was WAAAY too minor. And it's not like Storm's new high profile actually led to any great character stuff. She was basically just in more scenes and had more lines. That may satisfy an actor's ego but it does nothing for characterization.

-Logan wasn't as cool as he was in the first two movies. That said, I was surprised at how many people he was allowed to kill in this movie. They must've been gearing the audience for the spin-off.

I was pretty impressed that the trilogy actually had a pretty definative ending. Yes, the last two scenes could propel a sequel but they still managed to tie up a bunch of stuff. Rogue getting cured was sweet as I always thought she was one of the few mutants who got a raw deal out of her powers. I was just kind of disappointed for the reasons she did it. She should have just talked to Bobby beforehand. But people are stupid and she IS just a kid. I liked Jean going out in Wolverine's arms. And I like that the president of the United States isn't a villian now.

As for the last two scenes, seeing Magneto is old man's clothes was REALLY depressing but that wobble of the chess piece sold me on that scene. I FIGURED Xavier wasn't actually dead but DANG did he turn out to be majorly wounded. I want to know what happens next but I think this IS actually the last X-Men movie. I can't wait for the Wolverine spin-off. I liked it. ****.

Comments

[stewie-14.livejournal.com]

What we saw in the last scene wasn't wounded Xavier. He had taken over the body of the guy with no higher brain functions. The one from the video that the Prof showed in class. It's not his body. Thought why he still had his own voice is something no one should ask.

I liked it, but I wish they hadn't made it. I'll explain that later.

[90scartoonman.livejournal.com]

"What's with all the hate"? I think your negatives FAR outweigh the positives, which explains the hate.

Brushing aside Cyclops, instating Storm, giving so much time to Wolverine, and putting in many semi-developed plots just leaves it disjointed. It had good action, but I felt like it was just an action flick and not a whole lot of substance. Jean was a non-character halfway through, and the only fresh, interesting face we got was Beast (you didn't seem to like the guys on Magneto's side, and besides a few laughs here and there, they were eh).

Glad you liked the cure thing, that's what Whedon's using in his Astonishing X-Men (Dr. Rao was a character he created), but you wanted Apocalypse on top of that?! Sheesh, this movie did too much anyway. Rogue's plot was horrible because there wasn't enough time developed to it.

Part 1, damn LiveJournal

[stewie-14.livejournal.com]

If you're going to make a movie, and spend over $200 million on it, why not get it right?

-If your director (who deserves a truckload of credit for handing you this wonderful franchise) wants to do some other movie first before doing his THIRD X-Men movie, let him. Wait another year or two to make yours. It wouldn't be a bad idea to avoid oversaturating the market. If people want to see X-Men in 2006, they'll be clamoring for it in 2008.

-If the stars won't sign on for more movies after the third one, throw your hands in the air and exclaim "Actors!". Then say you just can't make the movie. And don't do it.

-Just because all the decent stars, the director, the writing team, the editor and your mom don't want to get away from you for a while doesn't mean you have to kill the franchise and make this movie "The Last One."

-If your academy award winning diva actress complains about wanting a bigger role, before you just give her a bunch of awkward time-filling dialogue consider whether your fan-base really even cares if she's in the movie. Do comic book/superhero/action fans give a shit about Halle Berry? NO! We might like Storm. But after hearing that she's not doing a S. African or S. American (or whatever the Hell she is in the comics/cartoon) we move on to someone more interesting. You wouldn't even need to throw in some line explaining "where Storm at". Just make no mention of her. Only Halle and her agent would notice. Fans, once someone told them about it, would say, "Halle Who?" You'll save millions. And noone need look foolish, as so many do now.

For once, push the edge of the envelope, break the mold, defy low expectations, and don't release a summer blockbuster. I know, I know. What the Hell do you do all winter without a tentpole? How about not living in a tent? Try building a house. Use the money for that 1 movie that won't break even until DVD and make 10 movies that audiences weren't expecting you to. Make 10 movies that have a shot at intriguing people. Or even make a bunch of crappy horror/slasher films. There are so many teenagers out there. And they're so stupid. They actually want to watch that stuff. But make one of those 10 movies something slightly unusual. It doesn't have to be "different" or "good". Just something that wasn't really easy for you to do. It'll give you street cred. Those of us that like movies (Americans) will appreciate that you actually tried to entertain us.

-----

I didn't like Halle Berry getting a bunch of extra lines. Some of which should have been said by other characters. Others shouldn't have been said at all. It was like she was playing Storm, some combo of Cyclops/Jean/Professor, and Jar-Jar all at once. "Close the school!" Then, after inhaling, "Let's keep it open!" And all this meant that Cyclops had to be killed off. Quickly. Now, it's true that there wasn't much to him before. I liked him, but all you people that didn't care about him have a point. But do you mean to tell me that you liked having such a stupid pointless death for a major character (it's true) AND extra Halle Berry? It can't be.

Oh, and half the movie being about Logan and Jean's star-crossed love affair was stupid. The love triangle worked to a limited extent when it was a passing thing. It wasn't played as a crucial plot element of the first two movies. It was a character thing. Something I could ignore while the awesome was happening.

Let's see, killing Professor Xavier. And Jean. That's really more of the whole "the director left (studio wouldn't let him come back) so everyone wants to leave with him" bit. But it that any reason to just kill off a bunch of characters? Why end the story here? Shut it down for a while. Years. Or forever. Whatever. Never make another X-Men movie if you're so God-damned determined to do so. But why make it the end of the story? End it on a high note. Let me believe in my mind that Xavier is still leading the X-Men in the fight against Magneto and all those asshole humans.
You jerks.

Part 2 Next.

[style92.livejournal.com]

For me, I thought the movie was going great in it's first act. But immediatly after Xavier dies, it goes downhill and gets real mediocre real fast.

Here are some of my biggest problems with it:

It suffers from "fan writing." Or amateur writing. So many no pro writers work like this: They have a great begginning of the story, then they have an idea of how the story should end. But what happens in the middle? they are usually really nebulous on this. this happens in X3. Look at Magneto's story. He's pissed off both at the notion that normies think mutants need a cure and that even though the cure is "voluntary" normies are using it forcibly on mutants. He then decides to gather a force, and attack the facility that makes the cure to destroy it. But look at how that story is distributed in the film. Everything up through "he gathers a force" happens at the beginning of the movie, but he doesn't end up attacking until the very end. So why is he fucking around in the woods so long? You see, it probably would have been a better idea to let the "end" attack on Alactraz happen in the second act and allow the story to develop from there, as everyone faces the consequences of it.

By all rights, Wolverine's story should have been Cyclop's, it would have made more sense with him. Though Phoenix did make the wicked suggestion that Wolverine had been surreptitiously mind neutered by Xavier as well, and if developed that would have really changed the map of this character, and given him a chance to question his allegiances. But they didn't develop it.

And Xavier and Magneto's endings. I don't mind that Xavier died or magneto lost his power. But the suggestion that they're gonna take that all back pissed me off to no end. Magneto, because there was no class to it. It had a slasher horror pick ending, like in Freddy or Jason movie, where even though they die, the movie winks and suggests they'll come back. It's hacky, and I didn't like it for Magneto. And Xavier's ending is so star trek Spock/Data cracky resurrection nonsense that I could barely believe. Yeah, he is patrick stewart, but come on.

Alright alright alright. I liked beast. A lot. And I liked the first act of the movie a lot. I thought what they were setting up with the cure and Dark Phoenix was great in that first act, but the rest of the movie just really let it down. And I thought the final fight was lame.