Review: X-Men 3: The Last Stand
Dir: Brett Ratner
Starring: Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, Anna Paquin, Kelsey Grammer.
Let’s start this review off with a bit of internet rumour and hyperbole; hey you should be used to this as a regular internet user! You see back in its early development X3’s director was Bryan Singer, the director of the original two movies. Meanwhile elsewhere in Hollywood the beleaguered production of the new Superman movie was being helmed by Brett Ratner. Soon though and under the usual cover of “Creative Differences” Ratner left Superman while Bryan Singer was given the offer to take over Superman from the now departed Ratner, he left the project, taking with him most of the production staff.Soon, after it was announced by a proud Warner Bros press release that Singer had signed on with Superman, 20th Century Fox announced that they had signed Ratner to X3 and a fixed release date was set for the movie that put it in direct competition with Superman.
It was clear; the gloves were off between the two companies and the race began.
Now the first over the line arrives, X3.
In this case it is not a good thing because straight from the off, X3 feels under cooked and could have done with some more time in the development oven. Yet given the production history and rumoured animosity between 20th Century Fox and Bryan Singer you could be forgiven for coming away from this film feeling that the studio actually deliberately set out to shit on Singers legacy of the previous two films and kill the franchise he so passionately created in the first place in a fit of pique.
The film is a mess of half baked storylines any one of which could have easily filled a film in its own right. First off we find out that mutation is spreading and that now a pharmaceutical company has developed a “cure” for mutation. From here we get the second story line which was the “fan favourite” suggested by Singer at the close of X-Men 2, namely the return of Jean Grey as the elemental force of nature Phoenix and finally we have the evil Magneto raising an army of mutants to finally take over the world.
In any other director and writers hands any of these stories would have made a fine film with plenty of scope for subtexts about racism, xenophobia and the pain of being different, that laced the previous movies to continue amongst the spandex clad super heroics. But sadly Ratner, who directed such “classics” as bad Rush Hour, the eye wateringly brain dead Rush Hour 2 and the barely passable remake of Michael Mann’s Manhunter, Red Dragon, basically tries to cram as much as he can in as fast as he can with the obvious intention of making a fan pleaser by giving us many different mutants and lots of set pieces with big FX moments.
But sadly what it has in enthusiasm it lacks in emotion, characterisation, logic and cohesion of story. Gone is the subtlety in the previous scripts that gave us characters to care about, gone is the interesting dynamic of Professor X’s Martin Luther King style leader against Magneto’s Malcolm X style radical leader, both aiming for the same goal but with wildly different philosophies and methods… Gone, is the logic and more importantly, by the end of the film, gone, are most of the major characters; either disposed off by death or by being “cured” which reverts the mutant permanently to a powerless human. This casual dismissal of characters built up with care over two movies is bad enough, but the fact that there is no one with an ounce of personality to fill in leaves the movie bereft of anyone to root for beyond Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine and Halle Berry’s Storm.
The script by Simon Kinberg who wrote the bloody awful xXx2 & Zak Penn, who wrote the crapfests that were, the last action hero, Inspector Gadget, and Electra , is risible and lacks charm, wit and any level of intelligence shown by the previous two movies. You know you’re on shaky ground script wise when the sharpest lines that try and raise a laugh involve the hulking Juggernaut, played Vinnie Jones, uncannily channelling the acting ability of Bonzo the Chimp from Bedtime for Bonzo, demanding to be let out of his prison cell because “Oim dyin’ fer a wee”.
Given such a paper thin script with such a muddled premise, you can forgive the actors for less than stellar performances, Jackman gets the lion’s share of the running time but spends most of it scowling and reciting “hard boiled” lines that would have been deemed corny in the average episode of TJ Hooker. Halle Berry’s pleading for more screen time after X2 must have landed in the right ear as she gets to do a lot more than look worried in a white wig. Now she is given the nominal leader role after Patrick Stewart’s Professor X is moved out of the action. In his brief screen time, Stewart is clearly on autopilot and the far away look in his eye can clearly be attributed to a nice pay check for doing little more than sit in a chair and bark the odd order. As Magneto, Ian McKellen, hams up the evil villain role with plenty of relish but much like Stewart, you get a vibe that really this is simply a pay day and thanks to standing in a cape blandly reciting lines, somewhere in rural England there is a nice conservatory being built. The rest of the actors get next to nothing to do, Anna Paquin, so good in the previous movies as Rogue is sidelined with a malnourished love triangle subplot and then eventually removed from the screen altogether. James Master’s Cyclops barely sees out the opening credits before he vanishes for good and Famke Janssen as Phoenix does very, very little until she gets some telekinetic action which usually requires her to do… um… nothing except a bit of glaring.
This if you had any love of the original and the first sequel, is exactly what you’ll be doing as this appalling waste of time plods its dreary way across the screen. As the film wends its way to a dull finale, (a ludicrous showdown at a secret research lab where the cure is made from the DNA of a mutant, which in a perfect example of dumb movie plotting is actually on Alcatraz Island and features in a televised news report, so much for secrecy then), you can not help but feel sad for an opportunity grossly wasted; while angry at the blatant hack job done by Ratner who ranks up there along with Paul WS “a.k.a. the shit one” Anderson for cinematic crimes against humanity, considering that both have now managed to take existing franchises and irrevocably cripple them with a half assed entries (Anderson especially with Alien vs. Predator), rushed out by 20th Century Fox to make a quick buck off the fan base.
Avoid this film if you treasure the memories of the previous films, and if you do see it, stick around till the final credits have rolled for the ultimate in hoary tacked on, we’ve lost our nerve, cop out twists.
Personally I’d just ignore this film and go see Slither instead.
Dir: Brett Ratner
Starring: Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, Anna Paquin, Kelsey Grammer.
Let’s start this review off with a bit of internet rumour and hyperbole; hey you should be used to this as a regular internet user! You see back in its early development X3’s director was Bryan Singer, the director of the original two movies. Meanwhile elsewhere in Hollywood the beleaguered production of the new Superman movie was being helmed by Brett Ratner. Soon though and under the usual cover of “Creative Differences” Ratner left Superman while Bryan Singer was given the offer to take over Superman from the now departed Ratner, he left the project, taking with him most of the production staff.Soon, after it was announced by a proud Warner Bros press release that Singer had signed on with Superman, 20th Century Fox announced that they had signed Ratner to X3 and a fixed release date was set for the movie that put it in direct competition with Superman.
It was clear; the gloves were off between the two companies and the race began.
Now the first over the line arrives, X3.
In this case it is not a good thing because straight from the off, X3 feels under cooked and could have done with some more time in the development oven. Yet given the production history and rumoured animosity between 20th Century Fox and Bryan Singer you could be forgiven for coming away from this film feeling that the studio actually deliberately set out to shit on Singers legacy of the previous two films and kill the franchise he so passionately created in the first place in a fit of pique.
The film is a mess of half baked storylines any one of which could have easily filled a film in its own right. First off we find out that mutation is spreading and that now a pharmaceutical company has developed a “cure” for mutation. From here we get the second story line which was the “fan favourite” suggested by Singer at the close of X-Men 2, namely the return of Jean Grey as the elemental force of nature Phoenix and finally we have the evil Magneto raising an army of mutants to finally take over the world.
In any other director and writers hands any of these stories would have made a fine film with plenty of scope for subtexts about racism, xenophobia and the pain of being different, that laced the previous movies to continue amongst the spandex clad super heroics. But sadly Ratner, who directed such “classics” as bad Rush Hour, the eye wateringly brain dead Rush Hour 2 and the barely passable remake of Michael Mann’s Manhunter, Red Dragon, basically tries to cram as much as he can in as fast as he can with the obvious intention of making a fan pleaser by giving us many different mutants and lots of set pieces with big FX moments.
But sadly what it has in enthusiasm it lacks in emotion, characterisation, logic and cohesion of story. Gone is the subtlety in the previous scripts that gave us characters to care about, gone is the interesting dynamic of Professor X’s Martin Luther King style leader against Magneto’s Malcolm X style radical leader, both aiming for the same goal but with wildly different philosophies and methods… Gone, is the logic and more importantly, by the end of the film, gone, are most of the major characters; either disposed off by death or by being “cured” which reverts the mutant permanently to a powerless human. This casual dismissal of characters built up with care over two movies is bad enough, but the fact that there is no one with an ounce of personality to fill in leaves the movie bereft of anyone to root for beyond Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine and Halle Berry’s Storm.
The script by Simon Kinberg who wrote the bloody awful xXx2 & Zak Penn, who wrote the crapfests that were, the last action hero, Inspector Gadget, and Electra , is risible and lacks charm, wit and any level of intelligence shown by the previous two movies. You know you’re on shaky ground script wise when the sharpest lines that try and raise a laugh involve the hulking Juggernaut, played Vinnie Jones, uncannily channelling the acting ability of Bonzo the Chimp from Bedtime for Bonzo, demanding to be let out of his prison cell because “Oim dyin’ fer a wee”.
Given such a paper thin script with such a muddled premise, you can forgive the actors for less than stellar performances, Jackman gets the lion’s share of the running time but spends most of it scowling and reciting “hard boiled” lines that would have been deemed corny in the average episode of TJ Hooker. Halle Berry’s pleading for more screen time after X2 must have landed in the right ear as she gets to do a lot more than look worried in a white wig. Now she is given the nominal leader role after Patrick Stewart’s Professor X is moved out of the action. In his brief screen time, Stewart is clearly on autopilot and the far away look in his eye can clearly be attributed to a nice pay check for doing little more than sit in a chair and bark the odd order. As Magneto, Ian McKellen, hams up the evil villain role with plenty of relish but much like Stewart, you get a vibe that really this is simply a pay day and thanks to standing in a cape blandly reciting lines, somewhere in rural England there is a nice conservatory being built. The rest of the actors get next to nothing to do, Anna Paquin, so good in the previous movies as Rogue is sidelined with a malnourished love triangle subplot and then eventually removed from the screen altogether. James Master’s Cyclops barely sees out the opening credits before he vanishes for good and Famke Janssen as Phoenix does very, very little until she gets some telekinetic action which usually requires her to do… um… nothing except a bit of glaring.
This if you had any love of the original and the first sequel, is exactly what you’ll be doing as this appalling waste of time plods its dreary way across the screen. As the film wends its way to a dull finale, (a ludicrous showdown at a secret research lab where the cure is made from the DNA of a mutant, which in a perfect example of dumb movie plotting is actually on Alcatraz Island and features in a televised news report, so much for secrecy then), you can not help but feel sad for an opportunity grossly wasted; while angry at the blatant hack job done by Ratner who ranks up there along with Paul WS “a.k.a. the shit one” Anderson for cinematic crimes against humanity, considering that both have now managed to take existing franchises and irrevocably cripple them with a half assed entries (Anderson especially with Alien vs. Predator), rushed out by 20th Century Fox to make a quick buck off the fan base.
Avoid this film if you treasure the memories of the previous films, and if you do see it, stick around till the final credits have rolled for the ultimate in hoary tacked on, we’ve lost our nerve, cop out twists.
Personally I’d just ignore this film and go see Slither instead.
