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First of all, if you’re not aware, this film went through a bit of developmental hell. When Bryan Singer initially accepted the offer to helm Superman Returns from Warner Bros., he was told by Fox that he wouldn’t be allowed to do both movies since they wanted a summer ’06 release date for Last Stand. At that point he said goodbye, and after some tossing around, Brett Ratner was made director.
Now, I had mixed feelings about this film going in. Part of me wanted it to be successful, since that means possibly more X-Men movies down the line. But part of me wanted it to fail miserably, just to show the bigwigs at the studio that you can’t throw together a script, randomly pick a director, and produce a successful movie that’s more about scheduling than story. As it turns out, the film broke the record for Memorial Day weekend opening ticket sales. As of today (June 6) it has yet to bring in a profit after production costs, but the summer is young.
So, all in all, a fine effort by Ratner, considering what he was given. The film itself has some strong points, but also many weak ones. Allow me to elaborate:
Spoilers!
What didn’t I like? First of all, the performances were frankly lackluster. I got the impression from each of the actors that they were almost doing an impersonation of themselves playing their character—almost as if they’re doing an in-character appearance in a breakfast cereal commercial. There was no real “oomph” behind any of them, particularly Wolverine, Xavier, and Rogue.
Also, I thought a lot of the effects were sub-par, particularly the wirework on Beast. I realize Kelsey Grammar isn’t the most athletic actor, but there should have been some more CG done on him instead. Actually, that goes for a lot of the mutants. Particularly in the Alcatraz fight, none of the mutants introduced really have particularly cool powers. They basically all just run around and climb on things.
I have a sneaking suspicion that they killed of Cyclops because they didn’t have the budget to animate his optic blasts more than once. I had really hoped he would get a chance to actually do something in this picture, since he’s one of my favorite characters and the de facto X-Men leader. No such luck.
The handling of a few new characters was also, frankly, lame. The series has been thankfully careful with minor characters until this installment, but now they just let it go. Callisto has super speed and can detect mutants? That’s so… random. If you need a mutant-detector, introduce Caliban. If you need someone with super speed (because you want a cool fight scene with Storm at the end), bring in Quicksilver. And the guy with the spikes that come out of him? What was his point, just to kill Dr. Rao in a freaky way? If that’s so, why wouldn’t he kill Worthington the same way, instead of bringing him to the roof and throwing him off? Oh, because then Angel wouldn’t have a chance to rescue him. That’s just poor writing.
Don’t get me started on the horrible disappointment that was one of my favorite characters: Jamie Madrox. I was very excited to see him introduced (even as a villain), but then he was basically thrown out. A note to the writers: If you have a person on the bad guy team who is a one-man army, the bad guys will probably use him in their fight instead of leaving him in the woods somewhere as a “diversion.” Even if Jamie was left to draw the fire of the US troops, shouldn’t he have had a chance to actually fight them—and possibly win, as his numbers keep increasing? That seems like a more effective shock for the guys at home base than just watching the crowd dwindle to one man who promptly surrenders.
I also thought Colossus was shafted. He gets one line, he does some Fastball Specials. He did no ass-kicking, smashing, trashing, or general Colossusing anywhere in the film. His contribution to the X-Men lineup seems to consist of turning into metal and standing around while wearing a very homosexual-looking costume. Again, writers: I know you’re looking for big effecty fight scenes. You happen to have Juggernaut and Colossus in the same place, at the same time, on opposite teams. I’m just sayin’.
Finally, the score was awful. The X-Men theme was never very good, and I always thought it was amateurish, but in the previous movies it was usually fairly understated. In Last Stand they tried to use it like it was Indiana Jones’ theme. And it’s not even close.
What did I like? Well, I thought the storyline was great. The mutant cure as a worldwide issue, and the moral conundrum that it involves, was for me a great example of the heart of X-Men stories. I always find the comics strongest when dealing with human/mutant relation issues, and it so far has worked just as well in the comics.
Also I thought Iceman and Shadowcat were used terrifically (despite the ridiculous love triangle thing). All of Kitty’s combat tricks have been done a million times in the comics, but in the film environment they seemed fresh and surprising. Even Bobby’s fight with Pyro was great, and I liked that they built upon their relationship from the previous film.
I did like some of the minor character appearances. For example, Leech was perfect. And Arclight (although they could have used Avalanche for a more authentic Brotherhood lineup) was handled well, despite some slight alteration to her powers. I also quite like the spike-throwing guy, who seemed to be a weird takeoff of Marrow. I do think Logan should have taken him down a lot quicker: He’s freaking Wolverine. Where did that guy get the combat experience to hold off Wolverine?
I even kind of like the way they handled Jean Grey. I think the explanation for the Phoenix persona was a bit trite—rather than Xavier explaining it all in ten seconds in the lab, it would have made a better story if they’d uncovered the reason for her existence throughout the course of the film. But her portrayal of Phoenix as a sort of runaway id personality to Xavier’s imposed superego was great. And man, can she disintegrate people with the best of ‘em.
Magneto has the best line in the movie: “She was so beautiful.”
The ending was fantastic (with the exception of the happy Wolverine-in-the-flowers shot). Did the cure work? Does it wear off? Are some mutants just too powerful? Will Magneto return? I thought that was surprisingly clever since the whole thing seemed pretty final. And of course, there’s that little shot after the credits. As soon as I saw the room I knew what was going to happen and I almost jumped out of my seat. Yay for paying attention to what people say!
Well, I’ve gotten a bit long-winded. So long story short, it was ok. Unfortunately, “ok” is disappointing. I hope that if they continue the series, they improve on the writing and give the director some time to do things right. Knowing the way things work, though, I’d be willing to bet it’s going downhill.
