X-Men: Last Stand

Went tonight with Doyce, Kate, Lee, De, and Stan …

There’s nothing about X3 that a movie or two more wouldn’t have solved. The flick’s biggest problem is about five too many plotlines, the result of which is that nothing really gets resolved satisfactorally, just proceeded beyond.

The movie does, in fact, borrow from many X-plots from over the years, including (depending on who you talk to) a healthy chunk of Joss Whedon’s recent “Cure” storyline, but also ….

Well, let me drop below the fold for possible spoilers. As a quick, unspoilered summary, though, let me say that it’s a decent enough action flick, a scosh better than the first, a scosh less coherent than the second.

Oh, and be sure and sit through the credits.

http://www.boulderdude.com/2006/05/xmen_3_last_stand.html

… well, there are, of course, healthy bits of the Dark Phoenix saga (dramatically revised, and probably appropriately for a single film). We also have a large passel of Morlocks (most of whom go unnamed, but who get many of the best lines and shots), and even some Sentinel action.

(And, for what it’s worth, while Whedon did the most recent “cure” storyline, it is not quite original with him. I recall, for example, Storm being depowered for quite some time in the Claremont late 80s due to a mutation suppression gun developed by Forge for the government).

Ian McKellen does his usual best as the charming, ruthless, and ultimately self-deluded Magneto. His outfit still looks dorky. Patrick Stewart plays himself quite nicely, and some recent “Professor X isn’t all puppies and kindness” plot bits are echoed here, too. Hugh Jackman, getting top billing, plays Wolverine well, though the character gets twisted in way too many direction. Halle Berry has improved as an actress (having had nowhere to go but up); the shallowness of her Storm is, again, as much an issue of direction and scripting as anything else.

James Marsden‘s Cyclops is nicely anguished, and is, mercifully, quickly moved out of the story, avoiding the “Scott is a sulky stick” problems of the previous two movies. Famke Janssen‘s Jean Grey gets lots of great poses but little decent acting. Kelsey Grammer does a reasonable job as the Beast, though when he’s not CG, he moves with unfortunate stiffness (due to very heavy makeup).

The list of other actors with any significant presence is long — which demonstrates the initially mentioned problem with the film, a plethora of plots and roles that rob focus from any one point. Rogue gets to play the “I don’t want to be a mutant” card, but does so in a kind of whiny way. Iceman lacks self-confidence, I guess, while Pyro is looking for a fight. Juggernaut is nice, and there’s little attempt to work his character beyond the 4-color; his fight scene with Kitty Pryde is very nicely done (and the best for the latter’s screen time, too). Angel is cute but looks better “live” than in full CG; he also suffers from “wow, he can just carry someone by lightly holding his arm around their shoulders” syndrome. Mystique has some great lines and plays some pivotal plot points — but, ultimately, is unnecessary to the overall story. Callisto is nicely done, as is Colossus and Jaime Maddox and … well, the list goes on and on and on …

Other notes:

1. A sad dearth of outre mutants. At the Xavier service, nearly everyone looks perfectly human, as do most of the other gatherings of mutants. Looking at the lines of mutants waiting for Cure shots, I don’t recall any who looked particularly odd (except for Rogue). Granted, make-up and CG take money, but if nearly all mutants look human, that sort of takes away from the whole not-fitting-in thing, right?

   Even in Magneto’s camp, where there are more non-human-appearing mutants, most of the oddities are from the gang/goth appearance of the Morlock types.

2. Um, okay, so Leech can take away powers. Does he warp reality? Is the Beast’s hair and coloration some sort of constantly active power that can be cancelled by an energy field? Why would his hand turn “normal” while in Leech’s field, and immediately grow/change when removed? Yes, it illustrated a point (kind of), but it didn’t make any sense, any more than the idea that you could then somehow bottle it into seemingly endless chemical production (lots of Cure guns).

3. I appreciate that, either for budgetary or aesthetic values, they didn’t want to do too much CG flight in the movie. That said, people on wires don’t look like they’re flying or super-leaping. They look like they’re on wires. Very few of the flight and jump scenes worked for me.

4. So how did Magneto’s army get from the Sequoias to the Marin end of the Golden Gate Bridge? By bus?

5. Faux granite isn’t difficult, if filmed from far enough away. Close-ups look like gray paint with black and white speckles. Just so you budding tombstone craftsmen know.

6. While I said that this could have been two or three movies (Dark Phoenix, The Cure, various love triangles), it does eventually semi-gel (or at least get semi-resolved at the end). I will look forward to the deleted scenes in the DVD, as well as word for how many evolutions the script went through. Fact is, rather than extra movies, turning this into 3-4 hours length could have padded the different stories out just fine …

7. Kid Omega? I know Kid Omega, and that’s no Kid Omega.

   Actually, that said, the lack of naming of the various folks along in the movie was annoying. I believe the chief female deputy in the Brotherhood army was supposed to be Callisto — except that’s never stated. And which one was Psylocke again?

   On the other hand, we got Stan Lee and Chris Claremont, and a naked Mystique, so I suppose that’s sufficient fanboy service.

8. Anyone notice that all the comic book shots that turn into the Marvel logo at the beginning are all from X-Men comics?

9. Ironically, the “Last Stand” sobriquet is quite comic-booky, as it hardly turns into a last stand a la the Wild Bunch. Indeed, the movie ends on an oddly upbeat (and abrupt) note. “And they all lived happily ever after.” Except, of course …

   … that there’s plenty of fodder there for future movies in the franchise (Magneto, Xavier, Trask/Sentinels … and, heck, nobody actually found Cyclops body, did they?), except that the word has been and remains that this is the Last One. Which then is kind of odd to have ended with so many potential plot threads dangling.

A nice evening, to be sure. Not a classic film, by any means, but a worthy summer action flick.

UPDATE: BD’s take on it.