X-Men 3: The Last Stand Review
The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that director Brett Ratner just does not like the X-Men. Why else would he take a perfectly healthy franchise, so brilliantly conceived by his predecessor, Bryan Singer, and completely and utterly destroy it?
X-Men 3: The Last Stand has the largest ever Memorial Day weekend opening. In the trailer, we see glimpses of Angel, Beast, a mutant “cure”, and above all, the return of Jean Grey as the “Dark Phoenix.” The fact is, it was too good to be true. Everything in X3 seems artificial. For those familiar with the X-Men series, the film’s story makes reference to the Dark Phoenix and Apocalypse plotlines, strung together by overly computer-graphics dependent action sequences, and emotional character development artificially charged through repeated death and losing-of-purpose-in-life.
In the end, this really wasn’t a film, it was a spectacle for the fans. With Bryan Singer, you walk away with a sense of the characters, the weights they carry, and all the beauty and subtly of who the characters are. X3 is all about the money. They inserted all the X-Men things that Bryan Singer missed to trick fans into going to see the film. I’m sorry to say, Angel and Dark Phoenix were complete cop-outs. In fact, remember that fire we saw in Jean Grey’s eyes in X2 foreshadowing Phoenix? Well…they forgot the fire. Instead they decided to make her really ugly and wear a poofy dress. And that Sentinal they promised? You only get to see a head.
I’ve also never seen such a bad use of visual effects. Seriously, the film felt more like a Siggraph technical demo rather than a movie. It really was 100 minutes of particle effects. I felt like I was being punished for screwing up the particle effects on the final project for my graphics class. It was like, every scene of the movie, something had to be incinerated, or floating around or something out of the ordinary. If they cut out some of the effects, maybe they could’ve paid someone to actually think of something cooler for Phoenix to do…or say.
X2 set up such a promising sequel. This was just upsetting.
D Movie
B- Action
C+ Visual Effects
F Character Development
D Story