X-Men: The Last Stand - Not as Bad as Advertized
Film adaptations of comic book heroes are a notoriously tough sell. Two separate sets of critics will scrutinize the project, and they won’t hesitate to rip it apart if it comes up short. The comic book purists will check the film’s consistency with the comic book’s universe, and the film critics will examine the film on an artistic and originality level.
I made the mistake of listening to both of these groups dissect the film X-Men: The Last Stand, the third film adaptation of the popular X-Men superhero comic books. I allowed them to influence my view of the film before seeing it for myself. What’s worse, once I saw the film, I recited their opinions to my friends and coworkers like a brainwashed, obnoxious parrot. I found myself saying things like, “How could they possibly kill Cyclops (James Marsden) 45-minutes into the movie? That’s blasphemous!” Or, “This was a cheap action film with a weak plot surviving on its special effects and devoid of any emotional connection whatsoever.” At the time, I actually believed the pretentious garbage I was spewing, but there are two things wrong with this analysis:
1. Though I’m familiar with X-men through their comic books and various cartoon incarnations, I’m not a comic book snob. I don’t follow the comic series deeply enough to sit around wondering why Phoenix (Famke Janssen), Jean Grey’s evil alter-ego, was depicted in the film as being created by Professor X’s (Patrick Stewart) ethical dilemma as he forced mind-control tactics on her, in lieu of following the comic story, where the Phoenix was an alien entity who took control of Jean Grey. Guys who worry about these things probably didn’t have much interest or luck dating in high school.
2. Though I write movie reviews, I’m not a well-read, seasoned film critic. I could care less about the fact that X-Men: The Last Stand was action-driven instead of character-driven. My main concern is, am I getting my money’s worth, or did someone spray Obsession on a steaming pile of monkeycrap and try to pass it off as potpourri?
So I sat with my kids this weekend and watched X-Men 3 on DVD, and guess what? It wasn’t nearly as bad as I recalled when I saw it in theatres. In fact, I was legitimately entertained by it. X-Men 3 was easily the best film in the trilogy, and it‘s “uncanny” that I didn‘t see that before. The action and characters were close approximations to the comics and cartoons that I recall from my youth. Fans of the genre were dismayed by the deaths of some of their favorite main characters, and I can understand the sentimental connections. But the fact is, the original comic series is one of the darkest superhero tales I’ve ever been exposed to. Main characters were killed off, mysteriously resurrected months later, and killed off again. Death was always a tangible element, as was bigotry, oppression, and other major ethical dilemmas. The film captured all of these elements, and it was as if the action was lifted directly from the panels of The Uncanny X-men and fed to the video screen, especially the scene when Magnito (Ian McKellen) and Pyro (Aaron Stanford) combined to rain fiery automobiles down upon the hapless X-men.
Could X-men 3 have been better? Absolutely, it could. Though Kelsey Grammar captured the soft-spoken, intellectual eloquence of Beast perfectly (No one could have played this role better than Kelsey), I would have loved to see more sequences where Beast opens up a case of whoopass on the attacking mutants. I feel somewhat cheated in this area. I’m also more than a little ticked about my favorite mutant, Gambit, being left out of yet another X-men movie. They must be saving him for his own feature or something, otherwise, someone dropped the ball, big-time. It also would have been nice if Angel had gotten more screen time, but I guess we can’t rationalize having a three-and-a-half hour epic on comic book superheroes, can we?
X-Men: The Last Stand is an underrated film that gets a bad rap from both film critics and pimple-faced geeks. We’ll be adding it to our personal library, along with Spiderman 2, Batman Begins, and Shaft’s Big Score. O.K. so I’m just kidding about Shaft.
1)Story: B
2)Acting: A
3)Visuals: A+
4)Originality/Innovation: B
5)Enjoyability Grade: A
6)Date Material: A
7)Contemporary Element (Will it be watchable two decades from now?): B
8)Overall Grade: A |
