The biggest disappointment so far has been X-Men: The Last Stand. I don't know if we can entirely blame Brett Ratner for this mess, since it sounds like a lot of the principal work was done before he came aboard, but this was such a hack job, I figure why not blame him? (Maybe that's Entertainment Weekly's fault.)
My big problem with this one was that it was SO obviously a transition movie. With seemingly dozens of new mutants to fill out the story, it's amazing any of them got screentime. And I hated the way characters that you've followed in the first two films (Mystique and Cyclops for instance) got such short shrift. But, hey, they had to wrap this one up so we can get on to the Wolverine movie, damnit!
As for the whole Phoenix storyline, I never followed X-Men in the comics but I hope to hell there was more to that "epic" storyline there than there was here. Her character spent most of the movie standing around looking quizzical/angry and not doing much else (unless, of course, she was in lunatic destructor mode). And then we're supposed to care when Wolverine has to kill her at the end to save her.
And, ultimately, who were you really supposed to side with in this movie? The government's plans were just as evil as Magneto predicted, but his methods of dealing with it are beyond the pale (and don't get me started on the absurd "move the Golden Gate Bridge" attack strategy). So the X-Men are noble and fighting the good fight, even if they're defending a corrupt government plan, but they're out there killing fellow mutants whose only crime is that they believed Magneto's line of BS. (Those guys at the end weren't Brotherhood… just cannon fodder, as Magneto acknowledges.)
Then we get a denouement that wraps everything up in a nice pretty little package at the end… the school's going to continue under Storm's guidance (yeah, that seems like a good plan), and scary little Leech is just a happy little mutant after all. Oh, and Beast is now our UN representative for Mutant Rights. Never mind that whole "we're going to cure you whether you like it or not" thing… we're all friends now, right?
And this thing made $122 million its first weekend? Damn.
My big problem with this one was that it was SO obviously a transition movie. With seemingly dozens of new mutants to fill out the story, it's amazing any of them got screentime. And I hated the way characters that you've followed in the first two films (Mystique and Cyclops for instance) got such short shrift. But, hey, they had to wrap this one up so we can get on to the Wolverine movie, damnit!
As for the whole Phoenix storyline, I never followed X-Men in the comics but I hope to hell there was more to that "epic" storyline there than there was here. Her character spent most of the movie standing around looking quizzical/angry and not doing much else (unless, of course, she was in lunatic destructor mode). And then we're supposed to care when Wolverine has to kill her at the end to save her.
And, ultimately, who were you really supposed to side with in this movie? The government's plans were just as evil as Magneto predicted, but his methods of dealing with it are beyond the pale (and don't get me started on the absurd "move the Golden Gate Bridge" attack strategy). So the X-Men are noble and fighting the good fight, even if they're defending a corrupt government plan, but they're out there killing fellow mutants whose only crime is that they believed Magneto's line of BS. (Those guys at the end weren't Brotherhood… just cannon fodder, as Magneto acknowledges.)
Then we get a denouement that wraps everything up in a nice pretty little package at the end… the school's going to continue under Storm's guidance (yeah, that seems like a good plan), and scary little Leech is just a happy little mutant after all. Oh, and Beast is now our UN representative for Mutant Rights. Never mind that whole "we're going to cure you whether you like it or not" thing… we're all friends now, right?
And this thing made $122 million its first weekend? Damn.
Comments
I was so happy she was dead. And insulted that this was supposed to mean something to us, that we cared. She killed everyone for no reason! In fact, I was so annoyed, I insulted the moviemakers by walking out during the credits. Take that! And then, they nail me AGAIN with the scene at the end of the credits--which I missed of course.
Too bad about the last scene too. The only emotion I had was when Charles was "killed". Now even that one bit of emotion means nothing.
Transition movie is right. I didn't realize it at the time.
I disagree though about Magneto's "poor" group buying into the rhetoric. They seemed like thugs just looking for violence for violence sake. Who cares about the cause?
As I understand it, the Phoenix story line in the comics was everything we expected it to be in the movie. But maybe that's just comic book geek hyperbole.
I might have overstated the case for Magneto's thugs. I'm not feeling sorry for them... I just don't think they're any great force to be reckoned with.