X-Men 3: The Last Straw

Mannion Family Movie night last night. X-Men 3: The Last Stand was the feature presentation.

I'd heard from fans that the first two were a whole lot better so I wasn't expecting a great movie.  In fact, I was expecting to be as bored as I was.

I've never been a fan of the X-Men.  Back when I was reading comic books, the X-Men always seemed to be a collection of second-raters.  It was the book where Stan Lee had his writers dump the stuff that was too much like DC at its most juvenile.  All the X-men either had powers that duplicated powers of other, cooler heroes who used those powers to better effect  or they had powers that were just plain goofy.

Banshee has a super scream?  Whoa.  Terror rocks the underworld.

Kitty Pryde can walk through walls?  Yeah, well the Flash vibrated his way through them and how fast can Shadowcat run?

Angel can fly.  So so can Iron Man.  What else you got?

Beast was the Thing was the Hulk.

Did they ever do an Avengers versus the X-Men?   They could only pull it off if Thor happened to be off at the time fighting giants in Jotunheim again.

Plus, as a kid I was never comfortable with the whole Mutant thing.

I couldn't understand how anybody wouldn't think having a superpower would be really neat.

I've since learned that most of humanity reacts to signs of "superpowers" in one of two ways---by wanting to stone the individual with the superpowers to death or by cravenly identifying with the "superhero" to the point of erasing themselves; they settle for vicarious achievement and let themselves be bullied into liking it.

One of the things I like about Smallville is the way they've made young Clark Kent resist the idea that he is born to be a hero.  He seems to instinctively understand that heroes are either hated or worshipped and it's the being worshipped part that is most dangerous.

So one of the conceits of the X-Men movies, that parents of mutants would be ashamed, afraid, and even hostile toward their gifted children makes more sense to me now.

I've seen far too many instances of parents who have tried to stamp out like a fire breaking out any attempts by their children to achieve and excel, except, of course, in conventional, "normal" ways that just happen to bring glory upon the parents in the eyes of the neighbors.

The only two superpowers universally tolerated in the United States are, in boys, being able to throw a ball a long way, and, in girls, being able to stop traffic with their beauty, because both kinds of superpowers can lead to celebrity and wealth.

This is something missing from the X-Men, by the way---parents who exploit their mutant children's powers.

Seemed far more likely to me that Angel's father would jump at using Angel's ability to fly as a great advertisitng gimmick for his drug company than that he would treat it as something to be ashamed of and hidden away.

Something to be "cured."

But then I was missing a big difference between the comic books as I knew them and the movies.

In the movies the mutants' powers aren't metaphors for their superiority; they're metaphors for their being "different."

And given all the talk of "cures" and mutancy as a "disease," and the scene where Angel's father catches him in the bathroom with all that embarrassing white stuff around him on the floor, it's mainly one kind of difference on the minds of the writers of X Men 3.

When Jean Grey's father refers to her powers as her "disease," he does it with exactly the disgust a Right Wing Christian minister would use to describe catching his daughter making out with the head cheerleader.

Ok, fine, the X-Men are gay teens, whatever.

The idea that the mutants are stand-ins for an oppressed minority is an odd concept for a superhero movie.  It focuses the kind of serious thinking that is too heavy for the slight concept to bear and it trivializes the real problems faced by real people, but mainly it raises the question as to how people who can kill anybody they want with a look or a touch can be oppressed. 

And there's the troublesome fact that Jean Grey's powers really are a disease.

So are Rogue's.

This is an interesting idea that X Men 3 doesn't pause for a second to explore.

Rouge's problem is all about not being able to smooch with Ice Man.

Jean's transformation into the Dark Phoenix is treated simply as an opportunity for some nifty cgi work.

It's not that I expect an action adventure movie about comic book heroes to spend lots of time exploring the characters' inner feelings.  But the better superhero movies, Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 and Batman Begins found ways of revealing the characters within the action.  Even the mediocre Fantastic Four managed it to an extent, although mostly with just one of the four, Johnny Storm.

To do this you need sharply written dialogue and very good actors.

X-Men 3 is so short on the former that having an abundance of the latter doesn't help.

It was a lot of fun to see Kelsey Grammar as Beast.  He was very good, in the way that Frank Oz was very good as Yoda.

But mainly X-Men 3 is one loud, chaotic battle sequence after another, each so much like a video game that I expected every one to end with a flashing GAME OVER title at the bottom.

And why didn't they have Storm fly?

All she does is hover.

Floating straight up in the air like a marionette whose puppeteer has climbed up a ladder, Halle Berry looks, stiff, doll-like, and very much like an actress who feels embarrassed, awkward, and about to throw up, which is what she was.

She claimed that when shooting the scenes the prop guys kept a bucket handy for her in case she got air sick.

Comments

[M. Duss]

While I strongly disagree with you about X-Men comics (they were my favorites back in my collecting days), I'm with you on the X-3 film. Total waste of some great actors, Kelsey Grammar in particular, and showing complete non-interest in pursuing aspects of the story what didn't involve shit getting blowed up real good (not that I have any problem with shit getting blowed up real good). They basically cannibalized three or four interesting comics storylines, each of which took dozens of issues to develop, and ended up doing none of them the least bit of justice.

[SAP]

Sing it, Brother Mannion.

[Bill Altreuter]

I always thought Thor was the stupidest super hero ever. In fact, I think he's made up-- a comic book charactor for the charactors in comic books. And if he weren't made up, the Hulk would kick his ass.

The real problem with the X-Men sory line is that, uniquely, the mutants of the world are victims of prejudice and targeted legislation. Nobody hates the Fantastic Four because they're different. Everybody likes the Avengers, even though sometimes Henry Pym goes insane and becomes evil, or creates evil robots or whatever. People are afraid of the Hulk, because he goes around smashing things. People hated Spiderman because Johnah Jamison told them too, but then they mostly got over it. Daredevil is popular. Iron Man doesn't need to hire a PR consultant. Only the mutants get sigled out, and I can't figure out why.

[joanr16]

Thanks for the tip, Lance! I was wondering whether to rent that one. Sounds like even Hugh Jackman wouldn't be enough to balance out the crap factor.

I've found myself engrossed in the new TV series Heroes, on NBC Monday nights right before Studio 60. After only 2 episodes it's hard to tell where they're going with all this ordinary-folks-suddenly-get-superpowers stuff (too close to the blah movie Unbreakable sometimes), but the idea still intrigues me well into middle age. The news of the past 2 weeks (schoolroom murders, toxic explosions, Dennis Hastert still at large) has left me yearning for superheroes.

[KathyF]

A friend once made me sit through an XMen movie. I made the mistake of laughing in all the wrong places. I don't think she's forgiven me yet.

[Domoni]

I can't say more, but to agree with you regarding X-3. I never read the comics, so I can't compare them to the movie. Nevertheless, the movie was "meh." Including the scene after the credits.

Staying in the "mutant" vein, I wish we could get a nice mini-series of the Wild Cards books.

[That Fuzzy Bastard]

X3 is indeed dreadful, but X2 is excellent. It has a much lighter and wittier approach to the mutants = gay teens idea, which helps sell it (and I'll admit, I find it nice to see a multiplex blockbuster with gay-friendliness in its DNA). But much more important, X2 has a number of moments of real visual poetry---Bryan Singer has a knack for turning out CGI that Cocteau could have approved of---in contrast to X3s bigger and bigger fireballs.

[Lance]

Fuzzy, X-Men 2 gets replayed often here at the Mannion Family Cineplex.

Bill Altreuter: The real problem with the X-Men sory line is that, uniquely, the mutants of the world are victims of prejudice and targeted legislation. Nobody hates the Fantastic Four because they're different.

Bill, my feelings exactly. But I put the question to my sons, who are fans, and they gave me a long explanation, that I had trouble following. But it seems to go: since mutants are born with their superpowers they start using them when they are kids before they've learned self-control, which makes having a mutant child a really scary proposition. It's a wonder Jean Grey's parents are still alive by the time Charles Xavier shows up to take her away to his school. I still don't like the concept, but I get it.

As for Thor, even though he's gotten a lot cooler since we were kids, I was never much of a Thor fan. My Marvel faves were in ascending order: Iron Man, Daredevil, Captain America, and Spider-man. But I was really more of a DC kid, and, when you get right down to it, a Superman and Batman kid.

Matt Duss, I think we have a generational divide here. When I started reading comic books, the X-Men were still wearing their blue and yellow clown suits.

[Jeff Keezel]

While I can't agree with your recently posted list of fave comic book super heroes, I do whole-heartedly agree with your assessment of the X-Men comics. And I haven't been too enamored of the movies. I really haven't enjoyed many of the comic book movies - just a choice few...

[burritoboy]

Hmmmm, we definitely need to upgrade the selections of movies on Mannion Family Movie. How old are the young Mannion heirs? Can they perhaps tolerate such foul evils as films in "gasp!" black and white? Or "horrors!" .....not in English?

[Kevin Wolf]

I'd like to put in two cents on Thor: He was never a favorite and I wonder that he's even used at all these days, but back when Jack Kirby and Stan Lee were using Thor to whip up their patented hyper-poetic-epic comic book fun, it was a hoot to read.

Re the X-Men, the first movie was so average that I never got around to the second. Perhaps I will. But X-3 looks like a bust. I comepletely agree that the premise is too slight to support all the subtext they keep adding.

[Matt Rush]

X-3 sure was a dissapointing end to the trilogy. I felt the first one was good, but the second one really improved on that. I had my hopes up for this one. I don't recommend it!
Matt