TTANCM.COM » X-Men 3

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I just finished watching the 3rd X-men movie, X-Men the Last Stand (yeah I know, I live in Japan, things come out a lot later here and I didn’t feel like going to the movie theater to see it by myself anyway) and I enjoyed it overall.

There have been a lot of complains about it around on the Web, but I thought it was good, and now I finally understand all those “I’m the juggernaut bitch!” jokes that are floating around the web.

Yes there are a lot of continuity/character changes, but it was kind of necessary I think.

More discussion (with spoilers) after the jump.

Jean Grey/Phoenix was obviously the biggest change, being as the Phoenix is now a multiple personality and not an alien force, but honestly, there was no way they would fit even just the explanation about the Phoenix into a two hour movie, let alone the introduction of Shi’ar, Phoenix, Dark Phoenix, etc. etc. And honestly I think it works better this way. It makes the character more tragic, more interesting because the power of the Phoenix is now inherent to Jean and not just some stupid alien thing she happened upon.

Otherwise, I only had a couple of problems with the movie.

1. Instead of focusing on the “mutant rights” thing again, I think the entire focus of the movie should have been Jean and the Phoenix storyline. They could have built the “Magneto and Xavier vying for control of Jean” theme into an entire movie without much problem I think.

2. Everybody is a little too kill happy. Other than Logan, the other X-Men have traditionally been squeamish about the killing thing, but Storm not only kills people but more or less tells Logan he has to kill Jean, Beast is tearing into people during the fight scene with his claws, which to the best of my knowledge he never does in the comics, and even if he has, the way he was doing it in the movie is out of character.

This especially bothered me about Magneto. In the comics it really depends on who’s writing him how “evil” or “kill happy despotic” he is, but being as the character is a holocaust survivor I’ve always felt he was at his strongest as a sort of “doesn’t want to be to violent but really has no choice” type, rather than the heartless bastard they show him as in this movie, and overall I didn’t feel his character made much of an impact in this movie because of it. He was two much of a two dimensional bad guy with lines like “in chess the pawns go first” and sacrificing all his mutant underlings which is something Magneto generally tries to avoid even when he is in “stereotypical evil guy mode” in the comics.

3. I know I’m being anal, and this isn’t a major complaint, and really they could still pull it off, but it would be kind of weak at this point to say that Juggernaut is Xavier’s half brother, and I always kind of thought that was a neat plot point in the comics and could have been used to some effect in the movies.

4. No actual Phoenix. At the end of the last movie they showed the Phoenix in the lake, but in this movie it was just an apparently meaningless name.

Things that I liked, (and that other people might not have, and some of which people have been very vocal about not liking):

1. Fraiser as the Beast. I thought he did a damn good job and I really can’t think of anyone else who could play the character well.

2. Hugh Jackman is Wolverine. Seriously. Damn good. I can’t think of anyone else who could pull this off, and after Jackman in the movies I wouldn’t want to see anyone try. I look forward to the Wolverine movie with great joy in my nerdlobes. Even Jackman’s “Wolverine hair” looks good.

3. Fastball special and the sentinel. Come on, how could you not like this. Fan service out the butt. This scene had no other purpose than “hey it’d be cool to have this in the movie” and I lived it.

4. Jamie Madrox. One of my favorite Marvel comic book characters (thanks mostly to Peter David) and I really enjoyed his short scenes in the movie, although the character seems to be based more on the Marvel Ultimate version than the version I know and enjoy.

5. The scene were Wolverine kills Jean. Yeah, happened in the comics, but man, so much better done in the movie. It was a touching scene and I think Jackman played it out better than it could be portrayed in the comics. Wolverine is supposed to be a tragic goddamn character and he is so overused in the comics that it’s often ignored overlooked in favor of the “stereotypical tough guy” shtick, but I thought this movie portrayed him well.

6. The music. I hardly ever notice the usual Hollywood soundtrack crap, but I really enjoyed the music in this movie.

Overall a good movie. I will buy it on DVD and add it to my tiny collection.