My X3 reviews.
May. 22nd, 2006 09:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
litheraThe short review with no spoilers:
- OMG tone down the music. Not everything is momentous.
- Why is this movie 97 minutes? There is enough here for more. There are scenes I saw in ads and trailers that aren't here. Are we saving for a director's cut?
- Stay through the credits.
- Storm not as sucktastic but still needs help.
- The Phoenix effect is pretty neat looking
End summary: 5/10 - Go see a matinee.
Where to start?
The begining of this movie is great. It feels well paced, we get some nice developments and there is a great but subtle effect where Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen are de-aged. It is a very interesting moment and it is sort of bitersweet to see them getting along. You can tell even from the begining that Ratner has the ability to copy Singer's style but there are still moments where it doesn't quite resonate.
The thing is, the movie starts to pick up steam and you never slow down. Things start happening and the characters don't have time to react to them at all before something else more intense happens.
Beware - serious spoilers. I'm not kidding.
There is a Danger Room sequence with a very nice effect with Rogue and Colossus. The Sentinel is cool but I felt as though there should have beenmore. Here is where it really starts to feel rushed. You feel as though there should have been more to this. There are a few awesome moments and then it is over and we're moving on to Scott angsting. This is a movie about Dark Phoenix and you figure this should be a place for him to shine. No. You get like three scenes with him and then... He's gone.
He's so dead that you don't even get to /see/ him die.
And no one seems to care. No one seems to really give a good god damn.
But we don't have time to care because Jean is going crazy. If there is one thing I like about this movie it is Famke Janssen's performance. She's /excellent/. She just doesn't have time to do anything. For the most part, she stands on the sidelines and looks somewhat intimidating. Jean goes all crazy with Logan and the moves on.
The next thing you know, the most dramatic scene in the movie happens and the Professor is dead. And while people react to it, there isn't really anything that makes you feel that this death is important to anyone but Logan. In fact, Logan has somehow become the center of the X-men. Leader, guy everyone listens to... It is very obvious that they know the fan favorite and where the money is... Logan. There is some fine acting with Patrick Stewart, even in the end, but once he's gone there is a hole in the movie and no one fills it. They try to shove both Logan and Storm in there but it just doesn't work.
And then there is the Bobby/Kitty/Rogue plot. If there were more time given to it... I might not be so annoyed. I... I can't decide if I'm okay with Rogue taking the cure or really kind of pissed off. I'm pissed off because it seems like this should be a /huge/ thing but it really gets like... ten minutes of screen time. And most of it is very surface.
The best character and the best use of powers, I think is Kitty. She is creative, she has a personality and she's an asset to the movie. Mystique has some great bits in there before she comes to her cured end, but she's gone far too quickly.
The end bits were obvious and it felt as though they were really just pushing this whole Logan is the hero, Logan is the saviour, Logan and Jean should be together. Ehn. I like Logan but they're shoving him into a role that feels forced. There is a scene after the credits that is worth staying for but it really feels like Fox backpedalling from their earlier "THE END NO MORE" statements.
In the end, there were nice bits, nice laughs and a /lot/ of geek references. (Even an X-men Evolution character.) There was a lot of plot but no story - no heart. It is worth seeing and it wasn't the let down I thought it might be but it wasn't at all the ending that this trilogy deserved.
- OMG tone down the music. Not everything is momentous.
- Why is this movie 97 minutes? There is enough here for more. There are scenes I saw in ads and trailers that aren't here. Are we saving for a director's cut?
- Stay through the credits.
- Storm not as sucktastic but still needs help.
- The Phoenix effect is pretty neat looking
End summary: 5/10 - Go see a matinee.
Where to start?
The begining of this movie is great. It feels well paced, we get some nice developments and there is a great but subtle effect where Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen are de-aged. It is a very interesting moment and it is sort of bitersweet to see them getting along. You can tell even from the begining that Ratner has the ability to copy Singer's style but there are still moments where it doesn't quite resonate.
The thing is, the movie starts to pick up steam and you never slow down. Things start happening and the characters don't have time to react to them at all before something else more intense happens.
Beware - serious spoilers. I'm not kidding.
There is a Danger Room sequence with a very nice effect with Rogue and Colossus. The Sentinel is cool but I felt as though there should have beenmore. Here is where it really starts to feel rushed. You feel as though there should have been more to this. There are a few awesome moments and then it is over and we're moving on to Scott angsting. This is a movie about Dark Phoenix and you figure this should be a place for him to shine. No. You get like three scenes with him and then... He's gone.
He's so dead that you don't even get to /see/ him die.
And no one seems to care. No one seems to really give a good god damn.
But we don't have time to care because Jean is going crazy. If there is one thing I like about this movie it is Famke Janssen's performance. She's /excellent/. She just doesn't have time to do anything. For the most part, she stands on the sidelines and looks somewhat intimidating. Jean goes all crazy with Logan and the moves on.
The next thing you know, the most dramatic scene in the movie happens and the Professor is dead. And while people react to it, there isn't really anything that makes you feel that this death is important to anyone but Logan. In fact, Logan has somehow become the center of the X-men. Leader, guy everyone listens to... It is very obvious that they know the fan favorite and where the money is... Logan. There is some fine acting with Patrick Stewart, even in the end, but once he's gone there is a hole in the movie and no one fills it. They try to shove both Logan and Storm in there but it just doesn't work.
And then there is the Bobby/Kitty/Rogue plot. If there were more time given to it... I might not be so annoyed. I... I can't decide if I'm okay with Rogue taking the cure or really kind of pissed off. I'm pissed off because it seems like this should be a /huge/ thing but it really gets like... ten minutes of screen time. And most of it is very surface.
The best character and the best use of powers, I think is Kitty. She is creative, she has a personality and she's an asset to the movie. Mystique has some great bits in there before she comes to her cured end, but she's gone far too quickly.
The end bits were obvious and it felt as though they were really just pushing this whole Logan is the hero, Logan is the saviour, Logan and Jean should be together. Ehn. I like Logan but they're shoving him into a role that feels forced. There is a scene after the credits that is worth staying for but it really feels like Fox backpedalling from their earlier "THE END NO MORE" statements.
In the end, there were nice bits, nice laughs and a /lot/ of geek references. (Even an X-men Evolution character.) There was a lot of plot but no story - no heart. It is worth seeing and it wasn't the let down I thought it might be but it wasn't at all the ending that this trilogy deserved.
