Wow, you know this place is getting much less traffic than before when, on Sunday afternoon, I'm the first person to post a review on X-Men 3, 2 days after its release. Spoiler alert, so if you haven't seen it, stop reading NOW
Overall, it was pretty fun. Not a spectacular movie, but fun nonetheless. The action scenes were awesome to watch (even with a lot of blatant CG) and the progression of the story in comparison to the first two was well done IMO. There were some very cool parts in the film, so even though it had a blockbuster feel to it, it was still entertaining, mostly due to the large number of violent fight scenes, resulting in great deaths of some main and secondary characters (I won't ruin it by telling you who, but it's cool).
The first couple of movies did a good job of actually have good character development along with the storylines (as well as strong evil characters in Stryker and Magneto, but we'll get to that later) whereas this one just introduced Beast (very well done; could Kelsey Grammer have been a more perfect choice?) and Angel (poorly done; IMO, Russell from Six Feet Under was NOT the right choice, but with how they wrote that part, even Johnny Depp couldn't have saved it) and some bad guys (Callisto was the main one), but with very little depth (ie. nothing more than "this is what they can do and this is how we can use it" development). But that was also a little expected as it's supposed to be the movie that wraps up what has been built in the first couple of films AND the fact that most of the characters are established from the prequels.
The one thing that really hurt it was the lack of a new evil character. I love Magneto and the way that McKellen played him, but as the main bad guy (for the second time) and for the EXACT same reason, it was a bit old. It was perfect in the second film (the best, IMO) where he was the secondary bad guy but still had his same goals and reasons for being against the X-Men and he still played a pretty prominent role. Stryker was so well done, IMO, that the two of them together complemented each other very well. But in this one, it was same old, same old. Comic book movies live and die on their villians (otherwise the heroes would have no reason to be) and this one just felt recycled (because it was). Also, Jean Grey as Dark Phoenix and the way it was handled (ie. tortured good-turned-bad) just didn't work very well. It was central to the story and felt like a poorly-done romantic plotline.
So, basically, it was what I expected out of a Brett Ratner film :-)
Oh, and listen to Mr. Hansborough, you HAVE to see the 20 second scene that comes after the credits have finished rolling, it's very cool.
Overall, it was pretty fun. Not a spectacular movie, but fun nonetheless. The action scenes were awesome to watch (even with a lot of blatant CG) and the progression of the story in comparison to the first two was well done IMO. There were some very cool parts in the film, so even though it had a blockbuster feel to it, it was still entertaining, mostly due to the large number of violent fight scenes, resulting in great deaths of some main and secondary characters (I won't ruin it by telling you who, but it's cool).
The first couple of movies did a good job of actually have good character development along with the storylines (as well as strong evil characters in Stryker and Magneto, but we'll get to that later) whereas this one just introduced Beast (very well done; could Kelsey Grammer have been a more perfect choice?) and Angel (poorly done; IMO, Russell from Six Feet Under was NOT the right choice, but with how they wrote that part, even Johnny Depp couldn't have saved it) and some bad guys (Callisto was the main one), but with very little depth (ie. nothing more than "this is what they can do and this is how we can use it" development). But that was also a little expected as it's supposed to be the movie that wraps up what has been built in the first couple of films AND the fact that most of the characters are established from the prequels.
The one thing that really hurt it was the lack of a new evil character. I love Magneto and the way that McKellen played him, but as the main bad guy (for the second time) and for the EXACT same reason, it was a bit old. It was perfect in the second film (the best, IMO) where he was the secondary bad guy but still had his same goals and reasons for being against the X-Men and he still played a pretty prominent role. Stryker was so well done, IMO, that the two of them together complemented each other very well. But in this one, it was same old, same old. Comic book movies live and die on their villians (otherwise the heroes would have no reason to be) and this one just felt recycled (because it was). Also, Jean Grey as Dark Phoenix and the way it was handled (ie. tortured good-turned-bad) just didn't work very well. It was central to the story and felt like a poorly-done romantic plotline.
So, basically, it was what I expected out of a Brett Ratner film :-)
Oh, and listen to Mr. Hansborough, you HAVE to see the 20 second scene that comes after the credits have finished rolling, it's very cool.
I was there on that fateful day, were you?
