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X-Men 3: The Last Stand
Dude, where’s my X Factor?
2006
Review: June 1, 2006
Director: Brett Ratner
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen, Patrick Stewart, etc.
Probably for the best.
THE SETUP:
They’ve invented a “cure” for mutation.
DISCUSSION:
The majority of this review is going to be made up of mega-spoilers, because spoiler-type shit starts happening early, and I want to pick apart the movie for the people who’ve seen it. If you haven’t, you’re best off shopping elsewhere for a review. I found it to be missing the crucial X-factor, which in this case are the little moments that explore what it’s like to be a mutant or develop the bonds between characters, thus giving the entire enterprise a resonance that made the series special—until now. I found the whole thing jam-packed with special effects, too focused on the two biggest stars, disrespectful to major characters we’ve been with all along, superficial, and seriously lacking in the stuff I wanted to see. It’s like having a brand of dessert you really like, then going to the store and finding all that is available anymore is a Lite version that just doesn’t taste as good. So there you go. Now the real bitch session begins. Oh incidentally, the further I get away from seeing this movie, the more my vague dislike turns to active hate.
HARDCORE SPOILERS FROM HERE ON > > >
Here’s the deelio: I have never read the comics, was lukewarm on the first movie, but REALLY liked the second. A friend of mine at work gave me a synopsis of the whole Dark Phoenix shit and I was like “Yeah! Bring in ON!” because I loves me some Famke, I think she’s fabulous, and I was really looking forward to her laying some heavy shit on her former colleagues! It ain’t happen. There’s also very little Famke, and when there is, all she does is glower. But let’s track back for a sec.
Okay, so Scott [laser eye or whoever] goes out to the old lake and Famke comes out of the water. Then we see Famke suck the life out of him [why? Is she pissed at him? We are told that her id mind is the center of her powers—so what we should be looking at is Carrie on steroids, which is not completely out of control. I have no problem that she killed her boyfriend [husband?], but shouldn’t there be some sense behind it?]. Anyway, so Halle and Hugh run out to the lake [to trace a psychic clue, not because anyone cares about Scott] and find Scott’s glasses, as well as Famke. They take Famke back… but apparently didn’t even bother to search for Scott. And they HAVE HIS GLASSES IN HAND, so they know he was there. It is apparently DAYS later before they even think to consider what happened to him. Okay fine, I know no one liked Scott, but he’s been there since the beginning, and come now, we owe him a little more than just killing him off without a thought, don’t we? Not to mention how out of character it is for everyone else to simply NOT GIVE A FUCK that their longtime friend has been killed. And this is all in the first ten minutes.
Okay, so then we have all this exposition ladled on about how Jean’s power is in her id, so Professor X [Picard] created mental blocks in her mind to allow her to consciously control it. Because if not controlled she will be the strongest mutant ever. Now… this id persona was called Phoenix even BEFORE she was reborn? Um… well that sure was prescient persona naming, wasn’t it? What were the chances? That sounds like something that was changed from the comic books. Anyway, of course she escapes. Now, does this whole storyline sound FUCKING AWESOME? It does to me, but I sincerely hope it doesn’t for you, because you will find that it goes absolutely nowhere.
Meanwhile, professional creepy boy Cameron Bright [Birth, see it, bitch] himself suppresses the mutant X gene, making HIM the cure. So we have a number of ideas about whether mutation is a disease that can be “cured,” raising all sorts of parallels to debates over what it means to be gay and what should be done about it—none of which are adequately or interestingly addressed.
Next to die [this is a conclusion, gotta kill off a bunch of characters! But sorry—no time to consider the consequences or emotional heft of taking them out] is Mystique, who everyone thinks is awesome. I also think Rebecca Romijn herself is pretty awesome [I love her for Femme Fatale], and while the callous way the characters cast her aside is addressed, the callous way the MOVIE casts her aside is another matter. But not out of keeping with what’s been happening so far.
Meanwhile Picard and Magneto go to Jean’s childhood home in order to apprehend her. She has a legitimate beef with Picard, and disintegrates him. This, and lifting things, is basically all she does. She really gets off on lifting things. Wolverine and Halle do a tiny bit of grieving, and this is the most emotional part of the movie—just not nearly emotional enough. Dude, the fucking beloved leader of the X-Men, the person who has been a father to many of these characters in some cases almost all of their lives, is now DEAD, but whatever, let’s just throw a little ceremony with a few perfunctory remarks, and get on with it. Our characters apparently do not have the capacity for grief or reflection.
Meanwhile Magneto, who continues to wear his helmet even though they said in the first movie the only reason for it was to protect against the now-dead Picard [is it a tribute?], goes to this church and recruits a bunch of surly mutants who all have tattoos and wear leather. They take Jean and head off into the woods and plan to destroy the cure. There’s a lot of blah blah blah until it’s time for the big showdown.
So Magneto [are we to understand that he’s getting more powerful with each movie?] rips the Golden Gate bridge off its moorings and flies it over to Alcatraz. As a friend of mine said, why didn’t they all just pile into a minivan and they could just fly that over? You might also note that all the cars on the bridge are GM cars. So this is our big showpiece. Our big, contrived, somewhat pointless showpiece. Please note that it’s sunset when the bridge is flying but the dead of night when it sets down one second later. Then the X-Men arrive, and there’s only six of them? What happened to the others? And please notice that the kid with the wings DID fly 1,500 miles across country without getting tired and in just a few minutes. Blah blah blah battle battle, etc. After it’s all over we finally find some time for Jean to do something, and she starts doing her favorite thing, lifting shit into the air. She also disintegrates a bunch of stuff. But like, why now? It just seems completely arbitrary. Anyway, Wolverine kills her and… why couldn’t they just have given her the cure? Then she’d live. Because that wouldn’t have “emotional heft,” and yet the entire movie is too ham-handed to have any emotional heft, so who cares?
I walked out of this movie thinking it was mediocre, but I’ve grown to pretty much hate it the more I think about it. What’s missing primarily are just the little grace notes of life at the school for mutants or between Magneto and his fellow baddies. Things here move so quickly and robotically there’s just no time to get involved. Not to mention the way the movie insults any connection you may have had to some of these characters by killing them off without any remorse or reflection—or having it MEAN anything. And maybe I’m unusual, but I just don’t care about Wolverine. I think he’s really rude [because he’s tough!] and not that interesting. And I don’t think his whole power is cool. And Storm is a big nothing… so to have the movie REALLY center on the two biggest stars and virtually ignore everyone else is also insulting. And like I said, this movie just wasn’t showing me what I wanted to see, which was Jean Grey. That whole storyline was just a big nothing. Ugh.
So, this is a way to pass two hours, it’s just too bad that this had to happen in the final [and, WHY final?] entry in what had been a pretty good series.
SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
You know you’re going to, regardless of what I say. You’ll see.
