Ahoy, squirts! Quint here, fresh from the Austin press screening for X3 (followed by an appropriate dinner at Logan's). Frankly, I'm surprised Fox let anyone from AICN in to any early screenings of this film with the amount of shit we have dished out on the movie.
What people have to realize is we weren't shitting on the film because we wanted it to fail. This series of films means a lot to the comic book fans, comic book movie fans and even just the average sci-fi/fantasy geek in all of us. The first one was rocky, but was the first super-hero film to get it mostly right since BATMAN and even that one is heavily argued. It was at least a successful imperfect film with some shoddy effects, a too-young cast and a really awful version of Sabertooth.
However it had it where it counted. The casting of Professor X, Magneto and Wolverine were spot on and the handling of those characters was equally well done.
The second film fixed almost all the mistakes of the first film and stands, in my mind, as one of the finest examples of a superhero movie that has been put before us. Even that movie isn't perfect, owing to the casting from the first film, but they took casting I didn't like and made the characters into people I could genuinely appreciate.
Now we have X3, a film I was dreading. I knew Dark Phoenix was a big part of it. I knew Fox rushed it in a vain ego-pleasing attempt to slap deserter Bryan Singer across the face and go, "Nanner, nanner! I beat you!" I knew they were killing off way too many people and I knew that they traded off the guy who found fame from directing THE USUAL SUSPECTS for the guy who found fame by directing MONEY TALKS.
I went into the film hoping it would carry me away, force me to look at these characters in a new light (ie not follow Dark Phoenix's arc as it was in the comics, but make me appreciate what they did with her the way I came to appreciate Bobby Drake and Rogue's relationship in X2) and just overall force me down in my seat to have fun.
I tried. I really did.
And it started off well, with the much discussed amazing de-aging of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen for a sequence taking place 20 years prior to the events in the film. The sequence you've probably seen in clips at this point has Professor X and Magneto back in their friendlier days meeting Jean Grey for the first time and seeing the full extent of her powers. The scene has an energy to it, a kind of kinetic hook as we see a whole neighborhood street full of cars suddenly lose their automobiles to the skies above. Mixed in here are great little character moments with Magneto ("I like this one.") and Professor X ("It's not polite to look into someone's mind...").
That's followed by a scene that take place 10 years later (and 10 years before the "now" of the story) involving a young Angel trying to hide his wings from his father. The scene is pretty gruesome and disturbing. Again, I felt like the movie was on track to prove me wrong...
Unfortunately for me the movie lost all its steam right after that.
We're introduced to Beast and Kitty Pryde and re-introduced to the rest of the X-Men and it just feels stale. Beast actually came across much better onscreen than I thought he would. Kelsey Grammer is great in the role, but just because the make-up didn't make me want to claw my eyes out doesn't mean it was the best they could have done. It would have worked better if Beast was actually a huge animal, not a man in prosthetics painted blue. You lose the whole genius-mind in a brute body that became Beast's trademark.
The main deal for me seemed to be that there was very little character work done here. From the first danger room sequence (yes, this is the only time we see Sentinels in the movie, folks... if you've seen the clip, you've seen the whole thing) all the way through the climax of the movie it is almost completely exposition. There's no nuance or layering. It really felt strictly puzzle-piece to puzzle-piece to make it to the end of the movie. They try to show some character in the dialogue, but all it came across as was forced sarcastic one-liners.
There are a few nice scenes in the movie, though. It's not a miserable piece of crap, just a rough draft of the better movie it wanted to be.
There's a scene I actually really liked between Bobby and Kitty Pryde where Bobby figures out a way to console her through a hard time in all the X-Men's lives. There's also a small bit towards the end involving a family in a car and Magneto that was played beautifully by Ian McKellen. Such a small scene, but it was so much in Magneto's character that it said more than his 2 big speeches in the film.
I think Variety or Hollywood Reporter referred to this film as the RETURN OF THE JEDI of the X-MEN franchise. I think that's highly inaccurate. In JEDI you had that great drama between Vader, Luke and the Emperor. Vader's inner-turmoil alone carries much dramatic power. I point to those sequences with those three character as some of the best things ever done in any of the STAR WARS movies. I can not point out any such scenes in X3.
I know that sounds really harsh, but it's true. I don't mean it in a "Uwe Boll bad" way. The movie is just rushed. Not in any visual way, really. It's all in the script, which I could easily see the suits saying, "Fuck the script. Hurry up and finish it so we can shoot! The fans will show up no matter what we do, we just have to get it out!"
I wouldn't even blame Brett Ratner for the shortcomings of the film. I think if they had handed Ratner a great script, he would have shot a great movie. He just either didn't have the power or the will to challenge some of the inconsistencies or bizarre pacing. I mean, the way Professor X acts throughout 90% of this film is totally out of character. He's a right bastard, actually.
I also am not sure that I like Phoenix being represented as a sort of Zombie Jean Grey... and, to be a geek for a second, you never once get her flaming up into a Phoenix... You know, like the shape you kinda saw just under the surface of the water at the end of X2... Not once in the film.
Like I said above the film isn't bad. It's just bland. There might be enough scenes that rock (Wolverine gets two cool moments in the film, one being a hand to hand fight he has with a dude that keeps growing more and more arms during the climax of the film) to edge it up above mediocre, but there's also some really, really terrible acting and dialogue that'd knock it back down again. The guy who they got to play the President is just awful. (Turn to camera after hearing some bad news, "My God..." and then, 3 minutes later, hearing more bad news: Turn to camera saying, "God help us...").
Ellen Page is probably my favorite addition as Kitty Pryde. She's still childlike enough to buy her as a kid, but she's got the acting chops to make the best out of the few character moments she gets. Even though her Canadian accent slipped through once or twice I think Page is a strong addition to the team and one of the best young actors hitting the scene now.
Well, there you have it... a meandering review for a meandering movie. It's not a franchise-killer, but it certainly hobbles it. I mourn my Dark Phoenix series that'll never be seen on the big screen... Here's hoping for a DAYS OF FUTURE PAST somewhere down the line...
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
