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X3 doesn't mark the spot
by Jess Schuknecht
(Jess is subbing this time around for Mike, who has the month off - thanks Jess!)
No spoilers in this, so while 99% of you have probably seen this movie
already, let's not ruin it for that other 1%, okay? The movie will take
care of the ruining on its own.
Feel bad for Brett Ratner, the director of X-Men: The Final Stand (or X3
as the kids call it). When Bryan Singer, the director of the first two
X-Men movies, left to fulfill a dream of helming a Superman movie, he
left some huge boots to fill. Ratner, mostly known as the director of
Red Dragon and the Rush Hour movies, was tapped to carry on the
franchise. He knew his take on the X-Men would be compared to Singer's,
and justly so, but he couldn't have anticipated the backlash to the
announcement that X3 was in his hands. Singer had done a stellar job of
balancing movies that would please most fans of the comics while still
making the films and their characters and stories appealing to a mass
audience that was unfamiliar with them.
© 2006 Marvel Entertainment
That seems to be the biggest downfall of Ratner's X3, which seems likely
to disappoint both of these groups. The movie picks up not too far from
where X2 ended. Cyclops is still distraught over the apparent death of
girlfriend and teammate Jean Grey, Xavier's still teaching young
mutants, and Wolverine is still a cigar-smoking rebel. This time around,
the main story arc focuses around a cure for the mutant gene being
discovered at Worthington Labs, giving mutants the chance to live a more
normal life. Several characters are torn over their desire to be more
normal, or in cases like Rogue's to just be able to touch someone,
versus keeping their powers and uniqueness. Of course, some mutants are
determined to destroy what they don't see as a cure, but rather as a
deadly weapon of sorts: the possibility of being made into a homo
sapien, powerless and weak.
Magneto gathers together a group of mutants, including the resurrected
Jean Grey who is know the more dominant and deadly Phoenix, intent on
destroying the mutant boy who is providing the lab with the ability to
manufacture the cure. The boy, nicknamed Leech (because he leech's other
mutants' powers when they are in close proximity of him), is never quite
explained as to how he came to be at the lab, or how his powers can be
transformed/transferred into the cure vaccine, and maybe it's for the
best. X3 isn't about the story. It's about the special effects, the cool
powers, and the obvious big battle at the end of the movie. In this
case, it's Magneto and his Brotherhood of Mutants trying to destroy the
Leech and the lab while the U.S. Army and some X-Men try to stop them.
The biggest problem of the movie is that the story and characters seem
weak, especially compared to the pedigree that Singer had set. Singer
loved the comics, and even helped write the first movie. He cared about
the characters, but more importantly, wanted the audience to care about
them and made that happen through good storytelling. X3 is full of
unfleshed out heroes and villains, as well as gaps in logic. Beast and
Angel, two of the original X-Men in the comics being newly introduced in
the movies, get minimal screen time despite being heavily advertised.
They also serve little impact in the film, most notably Angel, who is
the picture of wasted potential for a character. However, he does seem
to fly from Massachusetts to California in just slightly less time than
it takes the X-Men's Blackbird jet to make the trip, so he's at least
got some superhuman flying speed going for him.
An equally disturbing issue is the rapid killing or de-powering of
characters. One after another, they drop like flies. By the end of the
movie, no fewer than six of the main mutants from the franchise are gone
in some way or another. That doesn't even count all the secondary
characters that suffer similar fates. It would be different if this were
indeed the last movie in the series as many have claimed, but the last
shot before the credits (and a little bonus scene immediately after
them) seem to dictate the exact opposite. Why make this film if the next
one is going to basically reset everything done from this one? If
another film does get made somewhere down the road, there's going to
have to be some serious explaining, because there's no way all of those
people who are dead or de-powered aren't in it.
All in all, the movie is a disappointment. Great characters are reduced
to jokey caricatures, including Juggernaut (who looks like his mother
made his costume for a Halloween contest). Discrepancies and questions
in the story and characters are shrugged off as the movie churns ahead
full speed. And in one of the worst continuity errors ever for a huge
budget summer blockbuster, towards the end of the movie it shifts from
broad daylight to super dark nighttime with no explanation. That's a
pretty good encapsulation of the film as a whole. If that little
attention is being paid to something that obvious, how much was paid to
the rest of it?
Come back, Bryan Singer. Your franchise (and let's face it, it is yours)
needs you. I hope Superman is a tremendous success and as good as it
looks and revitalizes the franchise. No matter how it fares, though,
consider coming back to this one. Please. For all of us, fanboys and
regular folks alike.
Mike Baron worked for the Boston Phoenix, Boston After Dark, and the Real Paper. He broke into comics with Nexus, his groundbreaking science fiction title co-created with illustrator Steve Rude. Baron has written Marvel's Punisher, DC's Batman, Deadman, and Flash. Nexus has garnered honors too numerous to mention, including Eisners for both creators. Baron has written Star Wars for Dark Horse, Turok, Dinosaur Hunter and Archer & Armstrong for Valiant, and has three issues of Legends of the Dark Knight in the works.
A prolific creator, Baron is at least partly responsible for The Badger, Ginger Fox, Spyke, Feud, and many other comic book titles. He currently has two
new web comics up at
Big Head Press.
The Architect is a horror story based on the life of Frank Lloyd Wright. The Hook is rock and roll science fiction - think Farenheit 451 only instead of banning books they have banned music.
Baron lives in Colorado with his wife and dogs. He collects rocks.
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