X3 - X-Men: The Last Straw

[Kal]

you can find some in variety and billboard, whenever you want...

leave me alone, will you? i dont want to talk to you anymore, and i dont like just ignoring people so lets just stop talking.

[hedwig]

[w/o horse]

went to the midnight showing for shits and kicks but it turned into the runny kind of shits and if you've seen it
you know what i mean
there were horrible lines
and we all started laughing
morgan was drunk he made the best joke
'it's mystique' made me laugh every time
what a fucking horrible ending
singer would never have allowed that script to have gone through i'm just a sayin

[samsong]

this movie sucked.
beast fighting was fucking sweet though.  i was a big fan of the cartoon on tv and so having nostalgia of watching the show back in the day was fun and made me smile but other then that... shit, man.  whatever.
and seeing that bitch from Hard Candy in it just made it that much worse.  it was funny when she called juggernaut dickhead though... because... you know, his helmet looks like the tip of a penis.  cronopio'll tell you, since he's obsessed with cocks and all.

sometimes, i really hate movies.

[Reinhold]

the movie sucked. i wasn't expecting great cinema, and my expecxtations were especially low re: ratner. this still managed to dissapoint me. it was comically bad in parts.

samsong basically said what there is to say.

beast was good in general. a lot of the fight scenes were pretty entertaining... unfortunately, they were the high points of the movie.

stay through the credits (or have a basic understanding of the comic) for an X4 plot tease.

[MacGuffin]

Mark Beall's Geek Beat: What the Geeks Thought of X3

America has had a weekend to digest the new X-Men film, and early indications are positive. The numbers are big and the reviewers are happy. Once again America has reminded the industry why they've been pouring all this money and effort into superhero films.

Lest we forget in the midst of the Age of the Silver Screen Hero, much of the credit and thanks goes to those fans who have frequented the comic book shops these past decades, keeping our heroes in business long before Hollywood made them blockbusters. If it weren't for the True Believers, Marvel would have closed shop years ago (they flirted with monetary disaster on more than one occasion) and who knows where Professor X and his students would be now. So what do the dedicated have to say about the latest installment of Marvel on screen? They were worried in the run-up; afraid of what director Brett Ratner might do. I've been in touch this weekend with some serious geeks, folks who know Professor X better than Patrick Stewart, and they've got some great opinions on this stuff -- so I'm going to let them do the talking. The Geek Beat is proud to present our very first Geeks' Referendum!

Erik Hendrix was the first to send a response to me, and he jumped right out of the gate with a forceful opener: "I'm going to have to go against the grain and say I absolutely loved it. The film captured a great deal of who the characters were and how they would react in certain situations - that is what Ratner did best."

Erik's opening point is a solid one, and cuts perhaps right to the heart of why we geeks love these films often in spite of our own misgivings -- there is just something fantastic about seeing Professor X, Wolverine, Magneto, and the rest of our favorites stomping around on the screen being ... well ... themselves. You can't tell me you don't get chills every time Wolverine slides his claws out.

Erik also made a quick but accurate observation about the amount of mutants in the film: "I also loved the inclusion of so many more mutants, after all that's what X-men is about. Even if many of them did not have very much screen time, it is great to see the presence of more mutants. It definitely made the movie feel more like the comics." Yes, Marvel is full of mutants running in and out of the pages. Sometimes mutants we haven't heard of for years pop up for a quick three page cameo and then disappear again. As Erik points out, this is the Marvel way.

The final point Erik made before signing off was another gem, and one I think all comic fans need to keep in mind: "all Comic Books reinvent themselves, they re-tell the stories, and they retconned out plots they don't like. The movies are just another re-telling of these superheroes..."

Dan Portnoy (who happens to run a nifty little website) got a little more in depth, sharing his thoughts on particular elements of the film. He pointed out something many may have overlooked: "the special effects to make Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen younger were great -- so subtle but perfect." He also fairly points out a high point in casting: "The fantastic surprise of the film in found in Ellen Page's portrayal of Kitty Pride.  She was incredible!"

Get ready for a big quote here, because Dan jumped right into the heart of the Phoenix Saga, a storyline familiar to all X-Fans which got a rather truncated and re-imagined version for the film. Here are Dan's thoughts:

"I thought the movie did a great job with regards to Jean Gray and the beloved Phoenix.  Tweaking some of the major points of a form of schizophrenia vs an alien was a bit of a betrayal but they did stay true to the characters essence -- unhinged, unsure and misguided ... Anytime Phoenix "shows up" the effects are great -- they just don't do enough with her in the last scene, she has to have a psychotic break before she gets involved."

Dan's verdict: "Overall, X3 is easily worth the cash for the theater experience ... I can live with the adjustments but my preference would be to get Brian Singer back on board and ditch Storm, provided there's another one."

Cinematical reader Cangrande may have nailed many fans' opinions right on the money: First, "Not as bad as I feared. A mess, but a mess of good stuff. Everyone will say, rightly, that the Phoenix is enough story for any film. Any three films, really. The cure is plot enough for any film. Both great ideas, but given short shrift in the race to end the franchise."

Jonah Spangenthal-Lee spoke up for those fans who felt ripped off by this final film. Jonah is a freelancer who wrote me a scathingly beautiful attack on the third film. I only hope he posts his full thoughts somewhere eventually so you can read them all, but I'll share some of his best points here with you.

In short, his opinion can be summed up in one thought: "There are plenty of lukewarm reviews of X3 going around, and I want to be the first to say loud and clear that paying money to see this film is a mistake.  It's not only a terrible comic movie, but it's just plain bad film making. "

Perhaps most interesting in what Jonah had to say was a clever observation about the character deaths. "We already know Wolvey is moving on to his own film, right? As for the rest: "X-3 is a big old f* you to anyone who decided to invest in characters played by actors deemed too expensive to keep around.  Yes, Cyclops dies(offscreen no less), the all-powerful Phoenix dies, Professor X dies, Rogue gets rid of her powers as does Mystique ... This is clearly a passing of the torch to a younger and less-expensive cast. Wait for it. We'll get a Generation X movie, or New Mutants, or something.  This is too good a cash cow for Fox to put to pasture."

Jonah is correct insofar as sequel potential goes. A next generation mutant film (such as Gen X or New Mutants) has already been strongly rumored. Was Fox so wanton with deaths because they were planning on a setup for the next group of talented youngsters?

Jonah has a lot more worth sharing with you, but I'm running out of space here. I'll end with a great summation from him: "This is a mistake, plain and simple.  Brett Ratner was a bad choice. He's not a good director. He clearly doesn't know how to work with actors (see any actors delivery other than McKellan or Stewart), and when you should have a film that's really about this great collection of characters and their own individual quirks, why the hell would you want your movie to feel like it was directed by a committee shouting through a bullhorn?"

[picolas]

the special effects to make Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen younger were great

does anyone have caps or youtubes?

[A Matter Of Chance]

the special effects to make Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen younger were great

does anyone have caps or youtubes?

No, but I am sure we all know what it looks like when someone has a jurassic layer of makeup on

[Neil]

Well, First off i would like to say i had the typical opening night fan boy bull shit audience, and I'm not exaggerating when i say that i almost left after the crowd went fucking nuts during the snakes on a plane trailer...It was just disgusting...On a side note, i think snakes on a plane has gotten to point where it's like a trend, everyone thinks it's ok to think it's cool, or something, which is just upsetting me, and i just wonder what is up, hopefully some one here can enlighten me...I mean i acknowledge that it's silly/funny or something, but the hype this gets is just unreal.

Ok, X-3, was fucking equally as silly...it was just bad, for the most part i agree with what a majority of people were saying, but i couldn't get past the story line...I mean seriously,

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS - Professor x gets killed, and i almost left, then wolverine, saves the day I mean fuck, his bones are made of adamantium, and he has the power to heal quick, give me a fucking break, fuck the forced love plots...And to top that all off magneto loses his powers...fuck...I understand that the so called "cure" was just something that oppresses the mutant gene because at the end magneto gets his powers back, and the little Xavier clip blah blah blah...but how can anyone like this writing?  I mean i understand that it's a movie and they can take the story and change it a bit, but shit this was like making a movie about the civil war and then making the south win...can any comic book reader really appreciate this?  Not to mention they basically say "OH NO WE FUCKED WITH YOUR HEADS, AND KILLED PEOPLE YOU DIDN'T EXPECT AND TOOK AWAY POWERS FROM THOSE SAME TYPE OF PEOPLE" then at the end they say "WHOA NOW, JUST KIDDING, GOTCHA!" which i think is a pussy way to end it...I was as bad as the ending to "the grudge" or something...As for the whole juggernaut thing, i don't guess i get the whole "I'm juggernaut, bitch" thing, so i thought that was pretty dumb, not to mention when bullet tooth tony was standing next to everyone, the little camera trickery was just laughable...the kitty, iceman, and rogue plot seemed like something that they decided to throw in for length purposes because everyone saw it going no where, and it did just that.

I was so sickened by the writing i couldn't even focus on the directing...I can't recall coming out of a theater with this much dissapointment...

And yes i realize that my posts are mixed up and jumbled, but I'm too lazy to edit them and shit, so it just spills out, i apologize.

[killafilm]

It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  I think there were even some great little moments, like Rogue and Wolverines little moment.  It really felt like what should've been two awesome movies somehow became one mediocre one.  So yeah fuck Fox.

[Ravi]

I don't think I've ever seen so many Xixaxers fork over money to see a Ratner film.

[polkablues]

I don't think I've ever seen so many Xixaxers fork over money to see a Ratner film.

Seriously.  Pigs are flying over the frozen tundras of hell this week.

[Gold Trumpet]

I was able to watch lengthy parts of the first two X Men movies. Of course, seeing it on TV is why I only saw parts but I'm going to rent them both soon enough. I did like what I was seeing so I'm enthused to come back to X-Men 3.

I remember one critic ad libbed back in 1959 that Testament of Orpheus was a congratulatory film by Jean Cocteau for himself. Testament was wrapped in the identity of Cocteau's two previous films in the trilogy and hallmarks of his entire career. The critic went on by saying the film was a meandering journey of identity and memory but felt too self serving to be artistically rewarding. Pablo Picasso, a friend of Cocteau, makes a very short appearance in it so only really adds to the criticism. X Men 3 is a congratulatory film alright, but a congratulation work by a studio for maxim profits. I can in no way see how Bryan Singer would have allowed for such a breech in patient storytelling if he helmed this. The film is redudant with explosions and character revelations.

The greatest insights into this film is the strategic planning of advertisement coupled with a perfect release date and getting it helmed by a director (for hire, nonetheless) with a publicist who actually gets his dumb comments widely publicized. Die hard fans better begin to make excuses because the studios truly sold this film out to draw new audience blood. I know people here remember the cartoon, but 15 year olds don't. They do remember Halle Berry looking hot in sexy attires though. Thus the first two films serve the greatest purpose for this overreaching success of this film.

[samsong]

i love Testament of Orpheus.

[Gold Trumpet]

i love Testament of Orpheus.

I can't say my experience of watching it was very rewarding. I could explain why to a certain extent, but I won't. I really don't know Cocteau's work in reference to serious study. I just know his films but I do want to give his films some respect before I comment. My comments above are just paraphrasing another person's remarks to serve another purpose. This is hardly the place to joust on Cocteau.