I fully intend to use my pause and slow motion DVD features very liberally when I get this DVD Tuesday.
I really think this movie got a bad wrap. Maybe everyone was expecting much different, I dunno. I'm not saying it was the best in the trilogy, but it was very good IMO. I liked the new characters, especially Juggernaut, and thought there was plenty of good action sequences. I wasn't happy about the way Professor X bit the dust, but I guess I can live with it.
I think they were deciding if Wolverine should STAY with the team at the end or go off and continue being a loner (maybe paving an open end for the future "Wolverine" spin-off) I guess they kept with Wolverine being part of a family idea.
I think the biggest problem I have with this film was the fact that they could easily have made 2 great films out of this but instead we are left with an average rushed combination.
The second one clearly left the film wide open for the story to be about Jean Grey. Had Singer carried on, I think this is what we would have got personally, though we will never know.
Not only is the plot rushed, Simon, but the script is not nearly as polished as the first two. When I saw it for the first time in the theater, the action (mostly) sustained me throughout the film. But on a second viewing, at home, the rush job became far more apparent. I mean, it's one thing to combine the Phoenix plot with a "cure" plot...it's another to try to do both in 100 minutes of screen time.
I have just watched both the first 2 films again and whilst the first one is short, it didn't need to be any longer as it served as an introduction. The second film is great and I always remember the first time I saw this how surprised I was by Jean Grey's sacrifice (I knew nothing about the Dark Phoenix story). It is a powerful moment. Cut to the third film and a similar moment of sacrifice is nowhere near as powerful because not enough time has been given to that story. It's a shame really because there are some nice moments in the film really, nearly all involving Jean Grey.
With Jean Grey obviously being so powerful in the third film, I am surprised the makers didn't feel this was sufficient for a story on its own, especially since hearing about how widely praised the Dark Phoenix story is in the comics.
Although I still tend to feel that several of the deleted scenes in X1 are quite crucial to an understanding of where Jean ended up by the conclusion of X3, and more's the pity Fox made Singer cut the film down from its original 2 1/2-hour running time, losing these in the process.
(Though at least we can still use the "branching"-insertion option for those scenes on the DVD.)
Did anyone listen to the commentary track during the ends credits?
They talk about Xavier having a twin brother, who is the blank mutant in the bed that Xavier was talking about during the scene in the classroom as well as after the extra scene after the credits.
Saw this over the weekend and, man, I thought it was really poor. The worst part was definitely the script- there seems to be a half-hearted effort at some of the subtext from the first film but none is ever explored in the slightest. Very few actual conversations either- most of the movie seemed made up of poor one-liners.
Ratner's direction was the very direction of uninspired. It's competent to be sure but nothing more. And the performances suffer from the lack or material and direction. McKellan managed to raise himself above and Stewart was a pro as always but I thought everyone else came across as if they would rather be doing something else.
I've generally had good luck in the past with going into something like this with appropriately lowered expectations but it wasn't enough in this case.
I have to agree with your comments. As a matter of fact I was asking myself "why did Magneto move an entire bridge, couldn't he just have loaded everyone on a boat or something metallic and just taken them across the bay?" Of course, once he said his "Charles always wanted to build bridges" line, it all became clear why they went with the bridge. Speaking of that scene, was it just me, or did anyone else wish death upon that one family in the SUV? The sight of those brainless kids playing video games in the back just pissed me off. That never would have flown with my parents!
This was definitely just a straight up action flick. The personal moments that Singer brought to the table were missing. I loved Superman Returns, but after seeing X-Men: TLS, I really wish that Singer had stayed with this franchise since X2 was by far his best comic book adaptation. I can only imagine how much greater his vision of the third movie would have been. Bottom line, I made to right call to skip this in the theaters and since the rental was free, I can be content with the knowledge that absolutely none of my dollars went towards this subpar effort.
It just annoys me that everyone these days need some sort of sensory input at all times of the day in every situation and I feel that it's driving people apart. You end up with 4 people in a car not saying a word to each other, but that's another discussion for another thread.
Finally watched the DVD last night. Not awful and not great. It was actually a little better than I expected given all the bad word of mouth, but certainly not as good as X2(my favorite of the X-Men films). I wish Singer had directed the final(?) installment as I'm sure it would've been a much better film, but I guess he couldn't turn down the opportunity to do Superman. I wonder how he felt when X3 actually did better at the box office than his film.
I really love the underlying storyline and find this film very compelling. The whole: if you could change would you? Is I think an interesting question to ponder in a superhero film. "Superman" as the other superhero film of the year, was far more surface level adventure without nearly as deep or consequential a thought.
I felt this movie tackled an interesting line of thought and ran with it. I have read several who have termed this movie in means of thinking of organizations that claimed they could "cure" gay men.
I've always found the underlying story of X-Men to be really solid, a struggle for societal acceptance for those that are different. And I found this movie to be a really nice installment - if you had the option to be the same as everyone else, a perceived normal, would you take it?
I always read the bad word of mouth, but while I think XMen2 remains my favorite because of pacing, I think if X-Men 3 were 20 minutes longer, it could have been a GREAT film. As it was, it's second on my list of X-Men films, and a great addition.