I find it kind of amusing that there was some talk about the trailer for X-Men 3, but no talk of the movie itself. I didn’t see the first two, but I come across chunks of them on TV so often that it would now be annoying to try to watch the entire films now. I’d been told the second one was quite good and the third one bad, but at least I hadn’t seen 15 minute sections of the third one over and over, so I rented it for no good reason.
(spoilers for X-3)
I rather liked it. The laser-eye guy, Cyclops, was always annoying in the comic books (they were all annoying actually, but him more so) so I was glad to see disapatched with easily. Halle Berry does very little; well, most of the characters do very little. But at least there are lots of shots of her in tight clothes walking up and down staircases. I imagine this was the case with the other films too – Just too many characters to fit into a 90 minute film. So Patrick Stweart and Ian McKellan get the most lines, the juiciest bits, and they come out great because of it. Anna Paquin literally leaves in the first part of the film, and then comes back at the end, missing even the general vicinity of action. It really wasn’t very good – especially now that I’m trying to think about it. But it wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be. Killing off Professor X seemed kind of pointless though. Yeah, I wouldn’t have lined up to see X-Men 4, 5, and 6, but killing him wasn’t really necessary in the film. Still, it led to the very nice, quiet, final shot of Magneto, now powerless, sitting by himself with a chess board in a park; old and alone. Best scene in the movie.
Strangers With Candy barely got a theatrical release and I don’t think it got very good reviews. The plot is barely there, and it’s a better concept for a half-hour sit-com than a movie. But it was very funny, and we re-watched several scenes over again because we were laughing so hard. Steven Colbert didn’t seem to be entirely integrated here as well as he was on the TV show. And the Blank family set-up was different and weaker. (Dan Hedaya just lays there in a coma.) But Amy Sedaris as Jeri Blank was even more bizarre than I remember her on Comedy Central – fewer jokes about doing drugs, but more jokes about prison, more weird facial ticks and tons of 180 degree personality turns, sometimes 2 or 3 in a single scene. She’s remarkable.
The guest spots in the film were well done; Matthew Broderick and Sara Jessica Parker, Alisson Janney and others. There is a deleted scene with Sara Jessica Parker as a school counselor trying to get a teenager to seduce her that’s very funny. This one is well worth renting.
My favorite thing about Strangers was when Jeri opens her locker–she just flaps her hand and fingers around on the combination then the thing opens right up. It was a beautiful throwaway joke. Yeah, the movie was enjoyable, certainly worth seeing–‘though it’s more fun to watch your way through the series, as they do painfully and lovingly seek to have a message in each episode.
Now all eyes on the back of the room. NOW, people!
i thought the third x-men movie was considerably weaker than the second one (which is really very good), but not so much worse than the first one. but, what are the expectations really for a film like this? the action scenes are pretty good, jackman swashes his buckle (or is it buckles his swash), mckellen and stewart enunciate nicely, famke is famke. the best thing about the second film was brian cox–they should have kept him alive.
however, i thought the ending kept alive the possibility of a professor x return in a potential sequel: he seems to have transferred his consciousness into a comatose patient mentioned earlier (let me guess, mark, you didn’t watch past the credits). and don’t we see a hint of the beginning of a return of magneto’s powers as well?
I commented on X3 a while back…mostly what sticks with me is how badly directed it is. It’s one of the worst big-budget action movies I’ve seen–it seems that even basic competence is no longer a prerequisite to getting a return on your investment.
I guess I didn’t think it was well directed, but one of the worst?
I’m not really doubting you – I havent seen any other film Brett Ratner has direceted, not even Red Dragon – but as Arnab asks, “what are the expectations really for a film like this?” I guess my sights were low enough that this met them.
I’m annoyed if they really did backtrack on the film’s big character changes with Stewart and McKellan after the closing credits, as Arnab alleges. What a dickish move anyway to put plot-points after the final credits. I’m glad I missed that.
it certainly felt like one of the worst at the time–though my tolerance was low for that sort of thing at the moment. My inertia allowed me to see the final sequence, too, which strongly hints that the professor is still alive in one form or another.
I too thought X-Men 3 was significantly worse than the earlier two. Sure, it’s a big budget action film, but there are better and worse action films, and I did think that the first two movies (like the Spiderman movies) went beyond the usual explosions and car chases. Mutancy as metaphor worked pretty well in those first two movies, and there were some simply lovely scenes (the opening holocaust sequence, Rogue and Wolverine in the frozen wastes, every scene with Brian Cox). They were more than action movies.
The third was utterly flat, and it was only an action movie, and a fairly incompetently directed one at that. Far too many set piece action sequences, and no poignancy whatsoever. Magneto became a different person in the third, full of ridiculous Shakespearean bluster, and despite the potential of using mutancy as metaphor for homosexuality (would you seek a cure?), the movie just waved at the idea without doing anything with it.
I cannot put my finger on it, and instinct is not the basis for film criticism, but the third movie just did not work for me.
And the clear implication is that Magneto is getting his powers back (the chess piece moves) and Xavier has transferred his consciousness (as he hints is possible earlier in the movie) to someone in Scotland.
Well, Chris is normally right, but the annals of film criticism have some exceedingly important moments where instinct takes over:
December, 1941: James Agee and Robert Warshow begin a complicated dance around a box of Jujubes, signalling to one another their interest in mating, before falling in love with Dumbo.
June, 1967: Andrew Sarris chews off his own arm, spitting it out to form a small nest of undigested auteurist critic, in preparation for a screening of Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch.
February, 1984: Pauline Kael urinates on David Denby, marking her territory after a screening of De Palma’s Blow Out.
1967? Sarris had amazing instincts.
“1967? Sarris had amazing instincts.”
Yes.
x-men: first class is reasonably entertaining (mostly when kevin bacon is on screen) but it is also frustrating because every once in a while you catch a glimpse of a much better movie sitting inside it, waiting in vain to be released: one about cold war paranoia, the explosion of freakishness in the sixties, bad-ass jewish revenge seekers hunting nazis etc. etc.. but instead all we get is explosions and bad special effects.
Was there one about a family that buys a zoo in there as well?
that’s pretty much what the movie is about. duh.