X3 - X-Men: The Last Straw

[cine]

At the theater this weekend, when the credits roll, when the audiences begins to filter out of the exits... keep your seat. And then, perhaps, share this little secret with a few of your friends: the movie isn't over.

I forgot this.

yeah, not to worry. you missed like 20 seconds. it was kinda cool but im sure a lot of people here will be underwhelmed after all the anticipation for something potentially awesome.

it was pretty good.. nothing i'd race to see again.. the line "i'm juggernaut.. BITCH!" got the biggest applause. the nerds got their stan lee sighting.. yadda yadda.. i'm not a big x-men buff but it was good enough for a popcorn flick.

[Myxo]

Spoilers.

Jean killing Xavier? Yeah, that was a fuckin outstanding scene. I thought her struggle with Phoenix was really well done. Beast was done really well. Overall I really enjoyed it. I think I'm with Cinephile. It wasn't anything terrific but well worth the price of a full price ticket & popcorn. I'm out of the superhero movie loop ATM. I'm sure there will be a Wolverine film. Any word on when/if that's happening?

[Gamblour.]

I thought this was terrible. The emotion and development of the second film is reduced to nothing. Storylines come and go and some are totally pointless (Rogue v Iceman v Kitty), as well as certain characters. A lot of the writing was bad, for instance the "Just like chess, you always send in your pawns first" immediately followed by the redundant "This is why you send in your pawns first..." What the fuck? I got it the first time.

Juggernaut was the best part, suprisingly. And what exactly is the scene after the credits?

[RegularKarate]

I'm with Gamblour, but even moreso...

Spoilers, but believe me, you couldn't spoil this movie any more on the spoilinist day of your life even if you had an electrified spoilin machine

To the people who actually liked this film: were you drunk, high, forced to say you liked it at knife-point?

This is undeniably the WORST memorial day weekend movie ever made.  It is also perhaps the LAZIEST big-budget picture ever made.
Hands down, Ratner out Ratnered himself.  I hated him before, but I almost feel bad for him now.

For those who haven't seen it, this is not an overreaction, DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY OR TIME!!!!!!!
There were a few good laughs at how fucking awful EVERYTHING in this movie was.  other than that, it's pretty unbearable.

Here's the list:

- They decided to turn Xavier's school into Hogwarts
- They decided that Jean should come back with the power to turn everything retarded.
- They decided not to spend time on even THINKING about where to put the camera or how it would cut together, just a mess of mind-numbingly boring shots.
- It's full of laughs at the serious parts (Jackman's worst moment of his entire career, when he gives the "speech" to the four mutants we couldn't give half a shit about, the really bad macho lines, the moments when people would talk, etc...) and crickets for the awful awful jokes which are inappropriately littered throughout this dreadful what felt like five hours.
- McKellan manages to keep Magneto cool through the first half because he's just that good, but once they start giving him lines, it's really hard to get past.
- It's a WONDER everyone involved didn't walk off the set when they were given this script.
- The story was pointless and uninvolved.  At no moment could one really care AT ALL what was happening.
- This list could go for five pages, but I'm getting heartburn just thinking about how bad this movie was.


Seriously, I knew it was going to be bad, but I had no idea it would be THIS bad.  I'm amazed that anyone here could actually claim to have liked it.  Even the dipshits who clapped at the Super Ex-Girlfriend trailer came out groaning about how bad the movie was.

I'm baffled at this, really... it's so fucking bad... it might be worse than The Forgotten.

edit:

Jean killing Xavier? Yeah, that was a fuckin outstanding scene.

This was perhaps the most poorly executed and ridiculous scene in the entire movie (with exception perhaps of that part where the bird-boy flies away and Powder looks out the window, jerking off).  Anyone else might have made a scene like that cool... I think Mcfucking G could have made that scene cool, but for whatever reason, this scene was LAME ON TOP OF LAME.

[Gold Trumpet]

I saw this with a friend at a midnight showing. I knew and loved X-Men enough as a kid to not mind going, but I didn't see the first two movies. (which I believe are likely pretty good) Still, I knew all the characters and the essentials of their relationships.

Of course my viewing was horrendous. I covered my ears at every ridiculous piece of dialogue and shut my eyes at every inflated "heartfelt" scene. The movie was crammed with so many plots I thought I was getting the entire cartoon series in one sitting! Storyline was cramped and every character was forced to show long-standing emotions through quick (and painful) dialogue. Even Wolverine managed to have his share of dumb scenes. Only Beast came out unblemished for not having one line of bad dialogue and having the most entertaining fight moves. Still the total experience sucked.

After the movie I of course played down my feelings to my friend. He paid my way in to have someone go with him. The good surprise was he hated it too. He's a devoted fan and couldn't believe how ridiculous the series got. His feelings were mutual to mine.

[Kal]

Ok everybody can give Ratner shit, and maybe the movie sucks (havent seen it yet), and maybe the reviews are really bad... but it openned with 44 million dollars the first day, 2nd biggest openning ever after Star Wars 3.

Not bad. And I think Ratner, Fox and everybody else will be happy despite whatever bullshit reviews say. It will make over 100 million in the first weekend.

[MacGuffin]

'X3's' Rogue Is Acting Out
Anna Paquin's latest characters, mutant and otherwise, struggle to grow.
Source: Los Angeles Times

In "X-Men: The Last Stand," Anna Paquin plays Rogue, a super-mutant facing existential crisis. Capable of absorbing the life force of whomever she comes into skin contact with, the character must either carry on as an all-powerful untouchable — someone who can help save the world but can't kiss her boyfriend — or opt to be "cured" of her otherness via a medical procedure at the core of the movie's mutant-versus-human conflict.

It's hard out there for a comic book hero. But life isn't all about summer blockbusters and tight-fitting leather X-suits for the Canadian-born New Zealander, who won a best supporting actress Oscar at 11 for her role in "The Piano." She's already worked with many of the best actors and directors in the biz and tackled theater, winning a Drama Desk Award.

That stage experience netted Paquin, 23, the title role in writer-director Kenneth Lonergan's movie "Margaret," due later this year. For the comedy "Blue State," Paquin has also moved behind the camera as executive producer.

In "X:3," your character has a lot on her mind.

Well, that's Rogue's whole thing. She's intense, emotional, introspective. Always has been.

In that sense, "The Last Stand" is atypical of most comic book adaptations.

That's the balance that "X-Men" has always been able to keep. There's a great deal of emotion and strongly held belief behind every action sequence, behind what they're doing. I think that's why people have continued to be interested in the movies — why the comic books have lasted, like, 30 years.

How aware were you of that comic geek stuff when you signed on?

I had just done "Almost Famous" and was just graduating to those young woman roles. And then they were like, "We want to put you in the middle of our gigantic action movie." I was like, "Um, OK."

You started acting so young and you're —

— and maybe I'm naive. If I am, I hope to stay in my nice little bubble of youthful optimism. People say, "Oh, you have a nice balance of big and small movies." That's just dumb luck. As an actor you take what you can get.

But you chose to work in the theater. How does appearing on stage stack up to working in film?

There's nothing like taking your character through their journey every night on stage. Sometimes, for brief moments, sometimes for entire shows, you enter into this state that's like transcendental meditation.

You performed Kenneth Lonergan's "This Is Our Youth" in London and now you're his "Margaret."

I'm on every page of the script. It was the best thing I ever read, so I was intimidated.

Who do you play?

She's 17, enjoying testing how her sexuality affects other people, and tries to get the attention of a bus driver played by Mark Ruffalo. He runs a red light and hits a woman — she dies in my lap.

It's pretty profoundly disturbing. [The character] lies to the cops about what caused the crash, has a bout of conscience and then decides to tell them the truth. But by then, nobody cares. So she starts acting out. It's self-destruction left, right and center.

Rogue's self-discoveries en route to adulthood lead her to act out as well. Is it fair to see the roles as bookends?

Definitely. We actually shot "Margaret" in the middle of shooting "X-Men" — I got a 10-week hiatus. As far as doing those kind of roles, that's the stage of development that I'm up to, a lot of the roles in general that I take explore that.

What was it like playing the character for a third time?

Rogue's basically in my blood. I've lived with this character for seven years. It's a big part of my life. Getting back on set, seeing everybody, it comes out of muscle memory.

Bryan Singer chose not to direct this "X-Men" installment, then Brett Ratner was hired just before shooting began. How'd he do?

Brett, he was very respectful about allowing us to remain with the characters we've already established. He was aware that he would never be as familiar with the characters as we were.

Don't get me wrong. He'll nit-pick and do 25 takes to get what he wants. It must have been a somewhat daunting task to jump onto a movie two months before it starts with a cast that's already been doing it for two movies. You gotta hand it to him on the confidence front. He made it his own film but kept the cohesion of the trilogy.

How long do you expect to stick with the franchise?

I don't know how long it will be before people get sick of me running around in black leather. I don't flatter myself.

What led you to take on executive producer duties in "Blue State"?

Over dinner with my older brother, we started talking about how much fun it would be to start a production company. A few years later we decided, "Why not?" He got financing, I wrapped "Margaret" and "X-Men." We finished [in early May].

How did you like being on the other side of the camera?

I loved it: getting to make all the bigger creative decisions, being in the loop and getting to have an opinion, finding my instincts were pretty OK after being in films for 14 years.

You feel your input as an actress doesn't matter?

Ultimately, if you're not your own boss, you don't get the final say.

What's the comedy about?

This young Democrat played by Breckin Meyer vows he'll move to Canada if Bush gets reelected — and you know how that turned out.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

The only justification for seeing this lack luster film was seeing that internet video of the dubbed X-Men episode reference "Do you know who I am? I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!"

[modage]

overstuffed, underdeveloped.  not a complete train wreck but worse than i thought it would be, even from ratner.   

[Kal]

Lets no forget that we all knew this was going to happen. However, if you consider that its ridiculously entertaining and that the special effects were good, the movie is not a bad way to spend a couple of hours. That also makes it better, the fact that it wasnt long enough to make you sick.

I enjoyed it and I wouldnt see it again soon or analyze it much. What is the point? It's Ratner. It's (((((((SPOILERS))))) Magneto losing his powers and everybody else that matters dead. Who the fuck cares about the ones that are left? I was right when I was insisting that they were going to be cured, and why this would probably be the last one. Not because they said it, but because between Ratners fuck ups and the fuck that nobody is left, there is no sequel.


Can somebody tell me what is the scene at the end of the credits? I missed it.

[A Matter Of Chance]

I am going to have to go with general concensus and say this was awful. The writing was dismal, and I don't mean just the dialogue. Ratner went to great lengths to involve this rediculous style of unbearable pans throughout the whole thing that just got annoying, not interesting. Halle Berry's Storm was a hackneyed joke, you could feel her demands for more screentime leaking though the character. Once again this year, Ian McKellen is the only really good thing in a pretty bad movie. **1/2/*****

[RegularKarate]

a complete train wreck

I agree

its ridiculously entertaining

you're ridiculous for having been entertained

[Kal]

several million people would disagree with you... its not good, it won get good reviews or prizes, but its visually entertaining for almost 2 hours... if not why did you go at all to see it? or better, why did you stay? when you are BORED then you leave.

its ok to express your opinion but coming back again and again to trash the movie and everybodys opinion is kinda stupid... every person has their point of view... not agreeing with you doesnt make them right or wrong.

[RegularKarate]

several million people would disagree with you... its not good, it won get good reviews or prizes, but its visually entertaining for almost 2 hours... if not why did you go at all to see it? or better, why did you stay? when you are BORED then you leave.

its ok to express your opinion but coming back again and again to trash the movie and everybodys opinion is kinda stupid... every person has their point of view... not agreeing with you doesnt make them right or wrong.

I probably HAVE been overtrashing this movie, but I can't understand people who claim they enjoyed it.  It just doesn't compute.

You're also off base with that "several million people would disagree" bullshit.... you seem to think that ticket sales have anything to do with whether people LIKE a movie.  People came to see it because they DIDN'T KNOW it sucked... they enjoyed the first two and there were lots of shiny commercials for it and thought the third would be good.  Everyone that walked out of the sold-out theater I saw it in was commenting on how much it sucked.  As I mentioned before, these are the same "average joes" that were chuckling at the My Super Ex-Girlfriend trailer.

[Kal]

Im not saying you are wrong. But you forget that the majority of the people dont analyze movies like we do, and they dont give a fuck. Give them some cool special effects, some girls, some action, and they are set. The movie is entertaining because at no point you are bored watching it. You may think its stupid, poorly directed, or that it doesnt make sense, but at no point the movie gets dense or boring. I for one only went because I needed to get my mind of a lot of work and stuff, and it worked. It served its purpose. If I start analyziing it, it sucked, but if I just enjoy the visual aspects and the fact that its a comic book, then I dont mind. Yes, XMEN and X2 were much better besides the fact that they are comic books, also maybe Spider Man, but this in my opinion served its purpose. And so far honestly, outside Xixax, I didnt see people hating the movie. I think the average people like it and thats what they went to see. And as far as Fox is concerned, that is what matters and that is why they made it and why they could make X4. This film has the 2nd largest openning day in history and it will for sure have one of the top 3 openning weekends ever. So believe me, nobody gives a shit what we say about Ratner or the film. It served its purpose with me and most of the people who made it and saw it.