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So this Memorial Day weekend, director Brett Ratner brought us X-Men III: The Last Stand. It was chock full of big explosions, huge set pieces and more mutants than you could swipe an adamantium claw at. But…did Mr. Ratner bring us a solid, convincing story? Did he give us sharp-eyed direction and engrossing characters we could care about?
Sadly, the answer is no.
There are about to be spoilers galore, so if you’re one of the two people who haven’t yet seen the movie(the other being Osama bin Laden, whom I’ve heard is sequestered at the moment…then again, he probably had an operative bring him a bootleg of the film), you may want to skip this article. However, if you’re one of the folks who feel they spent two wasted hours at the cinema, and are quite upset because you’re never getting those precious minutes back, come along and ride on a fantastic voyage…
Full disclosure: To be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to this film in the slightest, in spite of being a really big fan of the first X-Men movie and respecting the moderate mish-mash of the second(I’m sorry…X-2 had so many mutants in it, I wasn’t sure if I was actually watching X-Men or Legion of Super-Heroes). The teaser scenes of X-3 didn’t pique my curiosity enough, and for some reason, even the Golden Gate bridge scene appeared to be shot on a low budget. If you’ve been watching movies as long as I have, you’ll understand what I mean when I say that even if you didn’t know X-3 was being helmed by a different director than Bryan Singer, you could feel it. It’s the same thing as watching the movie Powder: even if you didn’t know that Disney film was directed by a previously convicted child molester, during certain scenes you could feel at the core of your being that something was wrong with the way said scenes were shot.
And of course, the Danger Room clip that aired on Youtube.com—the opening scene of the film, and therefore most important, since thematically it sets the tone for the rest of the picture—made me feel particularly uneasy in the amateurish style in which it was shot.
But enough of feelings…this isn’t therapy(so to speak), in spite of the addition to the cast of tv’s own Dr. Frasier Crane, Kelsey Gramm-er, as the Beast. I chose to take the plunge and go see the film, hoping against hope that I could come out of the theater at show time’s end and brag to my friends that hey, it wasn’t as bad as we all thought. Ratner did a good job, and I was quite impressed that so many cool things happened that I wasn’t expecting. Instead, I spent over two hours on the phone afterwards with various friends, kvetch-ing about the many unfulfilled moments, character inconsistencies, and plot holes of what is purported to be the last in the series(and if you stayed until after the end credits, you’ll know that there’s no way this will be the end).
Problems aplenty: First off, the Danger Room opener. 20th Cen-tury Fox(when will you guys update your name? Surely X-3’s $120.1 million opening weekend allows you to afford it) threw enough money at this film to get it done, so how come we can’t even be shown one complete Sentinel which the X-Men are fighting in the homage to John Byrne/Chris Claremont’s classic "Days of Future Past' story-line? In any trilogy, the last film in the series is the chance to finally show the fans everything they’ve wanted to see, but we couldn’t afford to/didn’t have time to show in the previous outings. Instead, we get treated to the most fake-looking severed robot head in the history of filmdom. When Data’s head was blown off his body in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Time’s Arrow Part 2”, that was more convincing—and that was a tv budget, folks! And let’s not get started on the absolutely sucktacular Colossus morphing effect. He looks more like highly polished glass than steel. In the first X-Men film, the majority of SFX were handled by Digital Domain. In X-2, it was Rhythm & Hues. In X-3, we are treated to the definitively sub-standard work of MPC and Weta Digital. Perhaps Fox did try to save some dimes somewhere after all, but visual effects for a movie such as this are not the place to start.
(Historical side-note, to show how to get more SFX money: During the filming of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Paramount adamantly gave director Nicholas Meyer a threadbare amount for effects, and refused any more. “Shoot with what you have”, he was told. Meyers’ response: he shot exactly what he could and no more, leaving the film looking as if a first-year film student had put together the FX. When the P-execs saw the film, they asked, “Where’s all the effects?” “This is what you gave me to work with, so here it is,” he responded. They immediately ponied up a few million more. Problem solved.)
X-Men characters and motivation, and plot holes galore: Let’s start with simple geography. Canada, location of the Arkalay Moun-tains, is more than a day’s journey from upstate New York(location of Professor X’s school), without traffic. California, location of Alcatraz penitentiary, is only six or so hours from upstate New York by plane. When Scott Summers(Cyclops) receives a mental distress from Jean Grey(Phoenix), he is able to get up to Canada on his bike in mere hours. Later on in the film, the X-Men seemingly can’t make it to La-La land in their hypersonic jet in under an hour. Not to mention, when Wolverine and Storm head up to Arkalay after Cyclops and find Phoenix, they only sort-of wonder what happened to Scott, in spite of finding his abandoned glasses. Once Phoenix is back at the school, it is forever before anyone even thinks, “By the way, what the heck happened to Scott?”
Another storytelling non sequitur: In spite of the deliberate and steady development of the relationship between Magneto and Mystique(Ian McKellen and Rebecca Romijn), in spite of showing us their relationship has a very strong father-daughter type of bond to it, in spite of the first two films showing us how protective of each other the two characters are, in X-3 as soon as Mystique is struck by the “cure” for mutancy and becomes wholly human, Magneto turns his back on her without hesitation of any kind, and leaves her to be captured by human authorities. He is even so glib as to toss out the line to Pyro, “And she was so beautiful”. Sloppy writing and directing on both counts.
More sloppy/lackluster writing occurs with the introduction of Angel(Ben Foster), who is brought into the story solely to be the catalyst for the announcing of the drug which halts the mutant gene. He is seen again only in two scenes far too late in the movie to have any true emotional impact on the audience. All other minor charac-ters which are either reintroduced or introduced(Jubilee, Multiple Man, Psylocke) are barely given any discernible screen time. Hon-estly, blink and you’ll miss ‘em! The multi-talented and stunningly beautiful actress Shoreh Aghdashloo(best known as the wife of a Middle Eastern terrorist two seasons ago on 24 and as Ben Kings-ley’s wife in House of Sand and Fog) is relegated to little more than Warrington Worthington II’s(Michael Murphy) doctor-on-call and damsel in distress when Magneto’s Brotherhood invades the testing center for the mutant cure. Even the character of Leech(Cameron Bright), whose very blood is the key ingredient in the cure(the writers never truly explain how Leech’s blood is the primary component…again, laziness) is little more than a cipher, showing up only to set up part of the threadbare plot and to be saved by Kitty Pryde(Ellen Page) from Juggernaut(Vinnie James). To which I must say: since when is Juggernaut A)not Professor X’s half-brother and B)English? Also, how impossibly pathetic is it when the movie’s only really poten-tially cool moment is Kitty Pryde of all people(for most of us, a low-rent version of the Avenger’s Vision) saving non-memorable charac-ter #306 from the Juggernaut?
Continuing the rant on incongruities and plot holes: Obviously not enough time was spent by Worthington II’s researchers, as the cure is not permanent. Although forcibly injected by the Beast with the drug himself, Magneto’s powers begin to return to him at the end of the movie. We can only surmise that Rogue’s “normality” after volun-tarily taking the drug will be short-lived, as will Mystique’s. Cyclops’ death was off-screen, and now we know Professor X’s consciousness did indeed survive his epidermal weather stripping by Phoenix. See? Last movie in the series, my butt. The only being who legitimately died on-screen was Jean Grey herself, and who knows if that’s even guaranteed.
Now, on to Kelsey Grammer as the Beast. I tried. I really, honestly did try to take Mr. Grammer seriously as Hank McCoy, one of the lamest characters ever committed to the four-color medium. But two things ruined it for me: first, when he delivered the Beast’s “classic” line “Oh, my stars and garters”(at which point I pictured Kelsey immediately looking off-camera at Ratner and yelling “That’s it! Pay me now! NOW, you bastard! Cash my check or I walk!”) and then when he started leaping and bounding during the final battle, the first shot of him so obviously being done in front of a green screen on wires that it was actually painful to look at. I love Kelsey Grammer, he is a fine actor…but no Beast, he. Why not just bring back Alan Cum-ming as Nightcrawler? Oh, right…gotta keep the budget down some-how, and of course we can’t afford to cut Patrick’s or Halle’s or Hugh’s or Famke’s salary. Hell, we even have to toss some bucks at that Shawn Ashmore s.o.b.! However, we can show some lame-ass unnamed mutant during the final big showdown for about fifteen sec-onds, whose powers mimic Nighcrawler’s exactly, down to the {bamf!} teleportation effect! Way to go, Ratner!
Sadly, even the music score by John Powell sucked. There was not one uplifting moment, not one heart-pounding crescendo, not one moving motif. This unfortunately continues Powell’s string of unmemorable scores from such films as Antz, Face/Off, Bourne Identity and its sequel, and the more recent United 93.
Rebecca Romijn has gone on record as saying that she won’t miss the 4-plus hours required of being painted blue, now that the series is over. What if the series is renewed?(and given its opening weekend, along with the money it will make into the next—remember, nothing big hits until Superman Returns later this month) More than likely, a new actor playing Professor X, since the good X-gentleman’s consciousness now resides in a body which pretty much doesn’t look a blasted thing like Patrick Stewart(more budget cutting in advance—very creative!) Ian McKellen will probably return, possibly based more on the success of his Magneto solo movie which is currently gestating. Hugh Jackman may or may not be affordable at that time, given that his Wolverine solo pic is in on the fast track to develop-ment. The producers won’t have to worry about hiring back Famke or James Marsden(Cyclops), as they’re “dead”. And if Rebecca’s asking price is too high, don’t expect to see more of her impossibly fine self either.
So what we’ll have is another threadbare storyline(directed by Ratner to be certain, again given the take of this opening weekend, since $$$ is the final crucible by which all loyalty in Hollywood is tested) starring Halle, Ian, Hugh, Anna, Shawn, Kelsey and Ben Foster. Aside from the initial four, certainly nothing to stop and write home about.
It will be interesting to see how X-Men III’s fortunes play out by next weekend, however. Most people I’ve spoken to have not been impressed with the film, and as we all know, word-of-mouth is at times the most powerful advertising for a film, or an inescapable kiss of death. Some films prove to be W.O.M. proof however, and this film might fall into that vein. However, I can guarantee that unless Bret Ratner is replaced on the next film and the storyline promises to be powerful and thought-provoking as well as action-packed(think: the first X-Men movie!), I won’t go to see it. And hopefully, oh my broth-ers and only friends, neither will you. Send Hollywood a message: no more half-ass attempts to win my buck. Deliver solid stories, or stop making these films at all.
2008. Hurry, Batman…we need you more than ever.
X-Men 3
It's time: take a stand against lackluster sequels!
Either it was a really bright day out...or everyone's really pissed they didn't read the script before signing their contracts.
So we take out the terrific Nightcrawler, and replace him with this loser of a character? This was Ratner's plan for success?
Wolverine is about the only character that doesn't get mistreated by Ratner.
I admit it: I would've given up 3/4 of my soul to be able to paint just an inch of her body.
Finally! We get to have a big action scene...featuring Kitty...Pryde? Wait, wh-what...?!
The "Dark Phoenix" storyline is considered one of the greatest comics stories ever told. Naturally, Ratner chose to jettison it and hand Jean Grey a much lamer backstory.
"Stop...please! I'm...not...Brett Ratner--!"
