I saw the film yesterday (5/18) at a press screening here in Boston. It's a two and a half star film for me. The screenplay is a mess as it tries to pack way too much, including some pretty lousy dialogue and situations, into a scant 100 minutes (it easily could have used another 30 minutes). Ratner's pedestrian directing didn't really help matters much.
Thankfully, we still have the performances of Jackman, McKellen and Stewart still there to keep things moving. I also noticed that Halle Berry got a LOT more screentime in this film, most likely the result of her demanding it in order to get her back. I thought Kelsey Grammer was good as Beast, although he, like others, wasn't onscreen enough to really flesh out his character.
I think fans of the comic books will get more of out this film than people who have not read the comics (such as myself). I loved the first two movies because Bryan Singer knew how to balance the action scenes and special effects with character development and empathy. Ratner and screenwriter Simon Kinberg obviously do not. They know how to make a watchable and mildly enjoyable popcorn flick, but they have also made a film that one cannot help but walk away someone let down from.
When you watch the film, stick around for a coda after the end credits.
Just got back from watching this. Non-spoiler brief review.
I have never read an XMen comic so knew very little about the storylines. I really enjoyed the first film but theught the second one was a great film. This film doesn't come close to either of those films and in view of how good the second one is, it is something of a disappointment. That said, there is some good stuff in the film.
The main problem is that this seems to be 2 films condensed into 1. Both storylines in the film could have easily been fleshed out into 2 films and not only that, but even with condensing the films into 1 they still managed to cut it down to less than 2 hours. So the film just seems to rush from one moment to the next with little time for the characters to breathe. I think it was pretty obvious from the second film that Jean Grey was going to turn up again and her story in this film could have been great. In fact what we see is great, but for the fact that we tear through all the scenes with no time for the audience to take a moment and dwell on what is happening. Her actions have serious consequences for some of the characters yet much of this is ultimately wasted because we have to get back to the plot or return to the other storyline. Its also clear that Jean Grey's story needed more fleshing out in this film - for much of the middle of the film she does very little probably due to the need to focus on the other storyline as well.
Even more infuriating is that the second storyline would have been just as good as a story on its own as well. We could have had 2 superb X Men films here to go with the other 2 but instead we get what amounts to a film with some great sequences and moments, stitched together with some quick scenes to move the plot along. Even then if they had added another half an hour or so to flesh out each story, things could probably have been improved.
Its an ok film, but in view of the previous films a huge disappointment
When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high, And don't be afraid of the dark.
At the end of a storm, there's a golden cloud, and the sweet silver song of a lark,
Walk on through the wind, Walk on through the rain, Though your dreams may be tossed and blown,
Walk on, Walk on, with hope in your heart and you'll never walk alone,
YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE!!
The good news is that its better than Return Of The Jedi
Everything feels rushed and underdeveloped. This movie should have been a half hour longer. It seems alot of seconds were cut - Rogue kissing Boby saying "This is who I am", Kitty kissing Bobby on the pond, Logans"You might not come back, she might not come back" clips. None of it was there.
Lots of cheers for "Im Juggernaut bitch" and suprisingly everyone seemed pretty happy when it was over. Funniest thing was a guy (Id guess late teens) who showed up dressed as wolverine - mask, costume with stripes, everything. The crowd, mostly younger people were very quite for this once it started.
Also not enough groans or displeasure mumbled about the treatment of Cyclops.
Its not as good as X2, prob on par with the first film I guess.
Where to start? This film is way underwritten, and it seemed very rushed in many scenes. I missed Singer's sensibilities in the film, as Ratner was not able to bring as much emotional pathos to the plight of mutants as humans appear to have a cure for such genetic abberations and real-time reversal of their mutancy.
There are events that happen that require some decompression of the import of such events, but the screenplay is just go-go-go and whatever connections you have to the character drift away as they just serve to join in the battle royale in the final stanza, and my affinity to the characters just sort of evaporated. I wanted to feel for the cast of characters, but truthfully I didn't feel much, and I should have, thus I feel cheated by the combination of story/direction/acting. I did get the feeling that quite a few of the actors didn't bring their A game, but the script wasn't all that interesting, either, so it undermined them to a noticeable degree. I did warm up to Ellen Page's Kitty Pryde as she made the most of her scenes, but there far too little of the other cast members due to the relatively short running time with so many characters.
I came away with the feeling that there were 2 distinct storylines that both got the short-shrift, and that made the final product a mish-mash of a movie where neither delivered a satisfying cohesive story.
When the reveiw thread is started, this can be moved there:
(out of four, recommended with reservations)
There are a lot of strong points to this film, firstmost being that the women are actually a lot more interesting now, not just things to be set aside while we see more of Singer's boys flexing father issues. Storm is a badass, Rogue has little to do, sadly, but looks and sounds ten times better, the little girl who phases through walls is really cute and will turn into something very nice in a few years. Jean Grey is scary, powerful and a lot of fun. but this is XMen so the guys are the main interest here. Wolverine is good, but doesn't explode off the screen like in the first two films (granted they were 90% about him, though, this is more an ensemble film) Archangel is pretty, has two nice moments, The Professor and Magneto are great fun and Magneto walks away easily with every scene he's in. Juggernaut gets the best line of the film while Pyro became an empty shell and Iceman developed in a lot of interesting directions. Beast is excellent and badass.
However there's not really much story at all involved in this film, there's some plot involving a Jean and a Cure but that's about it, nothing really connects any scene to another scene emotionally. In fact most of the time the characters don't connect to each other emotionally, except for some nicely constructed moments between Iceman and phase girl and Pyro. Considering all the loss in this film, it's strikingly unaffective of any part of me that should care, if the film resembles anything, its' like being in an amusement park, we jump from one fun bit to another fun bit.
On the other hand they do a lot of exposition work laying out the two plot threads of Jean and Cure, so it resembles the first movie in pacing, but neither movie in character development, they make rough attempts at story, but all the necessary threads to create emotion and connection never come together. On the other hand it has a ton of characters and a hell of a lot of great eye-candy and mutant abilities everywhere, so that is quite fun. You also get a sense that there are vast numbers of mutants out there, where Singer's film would have you thinking there were only a few hundred in the world.
Spoiler:
Everyone dies, or is wiped out, Eric, Mystique, Scott, Jean, Charles* and so on.
On the other hand, a three year old could write the one line explanation for Eric and Rogue returning to powers in the next film, and that's that mutation is built into their DNA, it just takes a certain time for their mutation to adjust to the Cure and defeat it, which may only happen in the higher class mutants. But like many resistancies, they're likely to come back stronger.
Two things, I was surprised that Rogue didn't try to meet Leech, it'd be interesting to see what happened when you mixed the two, and someone else thought Rogue would try to suck down Jean Grey a little bit, and thus gain more powers.
I loved seeing flashes of Wolverine's adamantium skeleton in the end. Great stuff.
I saw the movie last night.. it seems that fox did it again.. cut the movie to peices like they did with daredevil and fantastic four.. it was worse then both of those movies in terms of cuts.. there was no character to care about in this one.. even the familar cast from the first 2 movies.. there is a good movie there somewhere.. it needs to be much longer.. a least 20 or 30 minutes. I hope fox will let bret do a special edition directors cut to fix the problem like they did with daredevil.
Re: *** Official X-MEN: THE LAST STAND Review Thread
It was neither the rousing finale I would've hoped for, nor the disaster that I had feared. Ratner and the actors (particularly McKellen, Jannsen and Jackman) took a weak script and did their best to rise above it. The movie feels rushed and is way too short, but I blame Fox and their deadline for that.
Re: *** Official X-MEN: THE LAST STAND Review Thread
I'm too disappointed to write an articulate review at the moment. Here are a few quick words:
I agree with many of the sentiments already expressed. I give the movie a 2.5 out of 4 stars.
I'm a long time fan of the comics. I thought the first X-Men movie was good. I thought its sequel, X2, was arguably the best comic book movie ever made.
I felt 'X3: The Last Stand' betrayed the mythology of not only the comics but also the themes, plot narratives, character development, etc. constructed in the two previous movies. The movie tried to do too much in a condensed amount of time. It dealt with 2 major storylines: The Cure and the Phoenix Saga. It should have focused on either or. Instead it tries to juggle both. As a result everything gets shortchanged.
As a "series finale" it does not deliver. It's a summer popcorn flick that had the potential to be more but is not given that chance primarily due to a well chronicled constrained production schedule. Still, don't let my mini-review deter you from checking the film out. I think it's a film that will bring about a lot of discussion from the various streams of viewers (i.e.- fans of the comic and/ or fans of the movies, casual viewers, etc.). It's not a bad film but it's not a very good one either. I left the theater quite disappointed and upset.
Re: *** Official X-MEN: THE LAST STAND Review Thread
It's not quite as good as X2, but I thought it was better than the first one. Some of it is a bit too perfunctory-they try to pack too many characters and incidents in a fairly short picture-but the Dark Phoenix stuff was handled well, McKellen and Stewart were perfect, and I really enjoyed Kelsey Grammar as the Beast. I also thought the action sequences and the musical score were the best of the series so far. I liked this a whole heckuva lot more than I thought I would.
(out of four, recommended with reservations)