X3: Miserable

Another great movie trilogy ended in absolute idiocy today as X-Men 3: The Last Stand fell flat on its face. Three claws down.

Many of the reviews I read earlier this morning indicated I'd be seeing 104 minutes of substantially less plot than X2. They said the film was fast paced, filled with comic book action, and that this made up for the lack of character development. They said that new directory Brett Ratner picked up right where Brian Singer, who opted to do Superman instead of X3, left off. They were completely wrong.

The film is slow. The fight scenes are weak and boring, featuring some of the more mundane aspects of the major characters. The plot was correctly pathetic, the dialogue terrible, but the worst part of this movie is that in the end, despite the (SPOILER!) death or de-mutantization of most of the major heroes and villains alike, NOTHING HAPPENED. No epic resolution, no grand battle, no cause worth fighting for. Just a bunch of weirdos in strange costumes bashing each other into obscurity, seeming to completely forget how magnificent the first and second films were. They even managed to Famke Jenson ugly, for most of the movie, which in and of itself is a monument to badness.

Ugly? Yes, - it's THAT bad.

And where the hell was Nightcrawler? He was awesome in X2, and if there's two things this film lacked, besides plot, it was memorable characters who held the story together and didn't die quickly. By the end, the cast of heroes and villains is shattered and the franchise is left with hardly a leg to stand on. The only way it could possibly survive for another sequel is with a fresh injection of new blood; new characters - real characters who have real screen time, unlike Colossus, Angel, Shadowcat and Iceman in this one - played by decent actors (ie completely unlike Halle Berry), with a decent director and a kickass script. Otherwise, I'd rather just see the terrible madness stop here and now. The ship is sunk - make it better next time, or don't bother bringing it back up.

Yet, as of now, the official announcement is that no X-Men 4 is in the works. Fox has stated in the past that there were plans for more than 3, and some of the new actors in this film signed on for more than one. All this really means is that they'll wait and see how much money this one brings in, and figure it out from there. Like I said before, unless they're going to do it right, why bother?

As a married 24 year old, I'm supposed to be a little mature. I'm not supposed to get upset when movies about super heroes, be they Star Wars, or the Matrix, or X-Men, are bad. But I am - I grew up with these guys! They taught me about life, and about how important it was to temper power with responsibility, and be nice to girls, and not legislate genetics, and watch out for portals to alternate universes, and things like that. So please forgive me if it's hard to see my childhood icons, strange and nerdy as they may be, made to look like total idiots. To you, they might be just guys running around blowing things up, and it's no big deal if the films are a dud now and then. That's how I feel about romantic comedies and country music, but the comic-book/super-hero gene grabbed me at a young age and never let go. In my mind, these stories all have so much potential that it's really very depressing to see it end so pathetically.

I'll be ok in an hour or so. Seriously. If you want to read a funny review, check this one out.