Late to the party: X-Men 3.

[bluestarultor]

I just have to say this:




I mean seriously, this movie is a train wreck in slow motion. It manages to be at the same time short (1:44), plotless, and boring because of too little action. The action sequences are all criminally short for a fucking action flick, yet there's enough of it to keep jack-all from happening for half the movie, the other half being boring, dragging conversations. Also, I get that it makes sense for Cyke to die if Jean's going to die, but does it have to be the first Goddamn thing they do with the movie? Seriously, Scott appears with a beard from his heroic breakdown, drives a motorcycle out to the lake where Jean died, kisses her, and poof. Killed offscreen.

On top of that, what the fuck made the writers think I'd give a flying fuck about the B cast? I get that you have all the same actors in all the same roles, but short of staring out a couple windows and showing up for the ending, Anna Paquin as Rogue is literally not in this movie. Instead, there's this huge focus on Iceman and Shadowcat, who were respectively only important in the second movie and never before this point, along with Colossus, who's only around so they can whip out the Fastball Special a couple times. There's jack for characterization for the new additions because they get jack for screen time, the whole movie pretty much following Wolvie and Storm on the good side, just so Wolvie has someone to disagree with (politely this time), plus a healthy dose of Beast just to show the government bullshit that those two don't have access to, and Magneto on the bad side. This is especially disappointing given how much fucking emphasis was put on Archangel only to have him show up a grand total of FOUR FUCKING TIMES the whole movie, one of which is as a kid in the very beginning to lead you to believe he's actually going to matter.

The only decent bit of this is surprisingly not Patrick Stewart, but Kelsey Grammer, who does some great work as the Beast. It's impossible to think of it being Frasier under the blue makeup because he just does it so damn well. Out of the new cast, he easily gets the most screen time and the man works it.

The worst part is that short of screwing over half the cast that matter and all the cast that don't (Scott and Jean die, Wolvie has to kill Jean, Rogue chose the "cure" in the official cut, Mystique is de-powered and left to rot for her sacrifice, all the new additions to the baddies are killed), the ending and hidden ending drop everything essentially back to the status quo, with the "cure" apparently not being as permanent as everyone thought, because Magneto is shown moving a bit of metal with some concentration, and Professor X decides to possess some random guy's body in a hospital somewhere where, in the ultimate vestigial addition, Moira MacTaggert happens to be working just so someone can recognize him.

The movie could have been great. It really could have. I was excited about the large cast way back when it came out because I expected them to all come together in a huge, epic brawl. But the epic battle is literally SIX GOOD GUYS against Magneto's army of faceless goons and what isn't devoted to Logan and Storm, Beast and the government, flashbacks, Magneto and crew, or Rogue doing fuck-all as Bobby and Kitty grow closer just because they had to crowbar some teen drama in there somewhere is either unsatisfying and short action sequences equivalent to having one potato chip or long, boring conversations where the writers seem to have founded an art of making witty banter shallow and boring and utterly pointless just to fill in some foreground noise to pad the time before they're forced to make someone say something relevant.

Looking at the deleted scenes, they HAD some footage that could have improved this thing by extending the action, just so you could say it was a good action flick, and an alternate ending scene where Rogue couldn't bring herself to take the cure, and a couple changes, like Scott, y'know, surviving for a bit longer than three minutes, and this really could have been great. As it is, it's an utter disappointment.

[Meister]

Late to the party as you may be all of this is completely accurate. At least the first two movies had characters that were a little more complex and ambiguous than "good guys: blond, angel wings, shiny fur, bad guys: goth convention, ugly." To say nothing of how they made sure to ruin a perfectly good and somewhat surprising moment (showdown, Iceman) with a generic one-liner and catered to the meme crowd and ugh terrible fucking movie.

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

It's impossible to think of it being Frasier under the blue makeup because he just does it so damn well.

Though seeing as how Beast has always mostly just been a big blue fuzzy Frasier Crane I don't really see what the big deal here is except the most perfect casting ever. Which, once again, is still the only good thing to come out of that movie and it was naturally and woefully underutilized.

Anyway, I would say that Superman Returns was probably the main reason this movie ended up being so bad, as it took both Bryan Singer and James Marsden out of the equation. Thus, instead of Returns being unsalvageably terrible and X3 having ended up possibly being good, both ended up unsalvageably terrible.

[BitVyper]

I can't understand why all the other characters in the movie seemed to be trying to counsel Rogue to not go for the depowering. I mean, Christ guys, her "gift" is literally that she is not allowed to have physical contact with another human being ever unless she particularly wants to hurt them and mind-rape herself. I understand that trying to "cure" the mutant condition is wrong, but this is akin to telling a terminal patient not to take life-saving surgery because clearly god wants them to die. You don't need to go making her feel like she's somehow a weak person for doing it.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Nah the best part is when Mystique gets forcibly depowered and turned into Magneto's perfect propoganda tool but he's like "nuh uh, I'm going to leave you here becasue that is villainous! *twirl moustache*

[Meister]

The best part is how they spent a sixth of the budget on special effects for the Golden Gate Bridge scene and completely missed how it's very obviously the middle of the day at the start and night at the end. The only other movie I can think of that managed that is Plan 9 from Outer Space.

[Marc v4.0]

They should have just ran with a Kelsey Grammer as Beast movie series instead of a Third X-men Movie.

I'd watch 6-7 Beast movies before I could even begin to consider that it might be getting old.

[Arhra]

Originally Posted by Meister

The best part is how they spent a sixth of the budget on special effects for the Golden Gate Bridge scene and completely missed how it's very obviously the middle of the day at the start and night at the end. The only other movie I can think of that managed that is Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Let's not forget that Magneto did not think of moving the bridge about a hundred meters further and crushing the base instead of having tons of guys charge the defences pointlessly. That is just being lazy, Mr Magneto!

[Sky Warrior Bob]

There was a party?

Really?

Frankly, X3 is one of those movies I will never watch properly. I've seen the beginning, middle & end (it ends up on FX quite a bit), but I have never watched in its entirety. The closest I ever got, was that I did DVR it, and then I fast forwarded through the entire thing, just seeing if anything was worthwhile. (It wasn't.)

Well anyway, thanks Bluestar Ultor. I now understand the plot. Thank you ever so much for that. {/sarcasm}

SWB

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by POS Industries

Though seeing as how Beast has always mostly just been a big blue fuzzy Frasier Crane I don't really see what the big deal here is except the most perfect casting ever. Which, once again, is still the only good thing to come out of that movie and it was naturally and woefully underutilized.

It's partly that, but the disconnect is that this was a much more serious role and he does an amazing job with it. Yeah, he's already been typecast as the intelligent guy, and his voice is basically made for the part, but his career was entirely comedic up to this point and you don't really associate him with this kind of material. On top of that, in the final battle, he pulls off ferocious like a motherfucker. The man has talent and range.

Originally Posted by BitVyper

I can't understand why all the other characters in the movie seemed to be trying to counsel Rogue to not go for the depowering. I mean, Christ guys, her "gift" is literally that she is not allowed to have physical contact with another human being ever unless she particularly wants to hurt them and mind-rape herself. I understand that trying to "cure" the mutant condition is wrong, but this is akin to telling a terminal patient not to take life-saving surgery because clearly god wants them to die. You don't need to go making her feel like she's somehow a weak person for doing it.

No, totally. If anyone has a right to the cure, it's her. On the other hand, they shot an alternate ending scene literally back-to-back with the final one where she was going to and couldn't bring herself to do it, and while Paquin is great in both, showing what a travesty it was she wasn't in this movie, the cut version is much more powerful because it shows she's finally coming to terms with who she is, rather than curing herself just so she can bone Bobby. Granted, it's implied that that cure isn't permanent, but only after everything else is wrapped up and just before cutting to the credits. The idea is that it's totally understandable that she'd do it, but by not doing it, she becomes all the more badass.

It's just one more example of the cast being dropped down holes to try to give a sense of finality, which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so damn depressing and everything wasn't essentially reset just in case they wanted to do a fourth movie. It's like they couldn't decide whether to end it or not and tried to do both, in a schizophrenic paradox where you've lost half the cast and couldn't make shit out of what's left (and there was barely enough left to make shit with this time around), yet there's some sort of obligation to slap "OR IS IT?" onto every movie just in case.

I mean if they wanted to, and there's even justification in the comics, they could do the "WHOOPS, JUST KIDDIIIING!" thing and have the Phoenix be not really Jean and bring her back for a fourth one for Wolvie to snikt into, or hell, even pull the same shit with Scott and throw him under the damn lake along with her, have Magneto, Mystique (who can form her own faction like in the comics), and Rogue's cures wear off, bring back whatever actor they can find for a new Xavier, since you never see his new body clearly, throw in MacTaggert for the hell of it so Charlie has something to do with his new body, drag back maybe Nightcrawler and definitely Beast, give Angel an actual role, get back the guy who did Sabes in the first movie (just because I refuse to equate that awesome representation with the half-assed dirty nails approach in the spin-off, which is supposed to be alt-universe anyway), and have a big, jolly jamboree, and it could be totally awesome, but the public would invariably bitch because of how the third one ended, despite it being a poor ending, and it would largely be seen as milking the franchise and probably not do well.