X-Men III - Spoiler free no longer!

[Bunk]

Just got back from seeing it, so I figured I'd start a thread. I won't try to review it properly, because you can't right a detailed review without spoilers. I will offer a few tidbits though.

This one is dark. And violent. People die. Lots of people die.

I enjoyed, though I'm a little torn. There's a fight going on inside me between enjoying the fact they they diverged enough from canon to make this its own X-Men universe, versus wanting everything to fit what my inner fanboi remembers of the X-Men. I should say though, I haven't read an X-Men in 10 years, but I've read every issue before that.

 - Needed less Halle
 - Peotr Rasputin should have a fucking Russian accent
 - This interpretation of Mystique still rocks my world
 - I'm not a pedofile for thinking Kitty Pryde was cute
 - Anna "Sputnik Head" Paquin on the other hand is not cute.

The movie isn't a Masterpiece by any means, but it was fun and managed to hit a lot of the right fanboi buttons.

Lets keep this thread mainly spoiler free for now please. My enjoyment of this movie was Greatly enhanced by the fact that I avoided spoilers like the plague going in to it.

It's been almost a month, I figure anyone who cares about spoilers has seen the movie by now.  Opening the spoiler floodgates. - Samwise

[Bunk]

Well fuck. Apparently the pricks pulled another one of those extra scenes at the end of the credits and I missed it. I dug up the basics of what happens and its pretty funny because I actually said to my buddy as we left "At least they didn't do what I though they would..." And it turns out they did.

If you stay through the whole damn credits.

[stray]

I didn't like it.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=5287.0

[Wolf]

I liked it. Than again, my x-men knowledge is extreemly limited :)
I think the ticket was worth it just for "I'm the juggernaught BITCH".


I missed the end of the credits thing too. Can someone send a PM my way what was it about? PM Recieved. mhmm... the weirdest thing  does kind of make sense now :)

[Llava]

I went in expecting mediocrity at best.

I came out quite pleasantly surprised.  I'd put it just below X2, and above the first one (which I didn't and don't really like).  I loved X2, but largely I feel it was too Wolverine-driven and it does get a bit tired over time (though I could watch Nightcrawler in the White House for hours on repeat).

This one did a better job of splitting the focus across several characters, making it less obvious that Wolverine is the star. He's still the star, but we're not sitting in his lap for the entire movie.

Overall, I was happy with it.  I'm of two minds about a few of the things they did, but it's largely nitpicking. I'll save that for the spoilers thread.

[Merusk]

Just saw it this afternoon and it was as good as the last 2, imo.  But then again, I was never a big X-men fan so some of the 'non-canon' stuff would have gone over my head.   Anyway,  someone PM the ending stuff to me please.  The youngest kid was antsy so we didn't stick around for the full credits like we normally do.

[Triforcer]

I loved it.  There were parts that reeked of "lets make sure thirty different mutants get screen time", but the battles were good and there was just enough philosophical type stuff to make you think without dragging down the movie.


I wish Hollywood didn't have to turn this movie, as it does most, into a thinly veiled vehicle about homosexuality though.  Mutation as gayness was present in the first two movies but all the agonizing about the "cure" was merely the writers trying to be PC enough.  Hey anti-cure dipshits- its easy for you to condemn it when you can set people on fire by looking at them and still go out for a cup of coffee without people running away from you screaming.  Why not give the fur-covered acid-spitting octopi types the option, k?  

[Ookii]

How odd, I absolutely hated it.  After the movie ended, all I could think about is how they ruined their IP, they shouldn't even make another one.

And I didn't stay after the credits for that 'extra' scene, if you want to see it you can do a youtube search, it's actually pretty important.

[Velorath]

I thought it wasn't bad.  I think a lot of people for whatever reason think a little too highly of the first two movies from many of the reviews I've seen and act like this one just wasn't worthy of follwing them.  All three were ok movies with a few great moments.  Despite being a fan of the comics I can't really say I was sad to see them do movie with Dark Phoenix without the Hellfire Club or the Shi'ar Imperial Guard.  I guess I'm just surprised by the reaction this movie has gotten so far in reviews given that X-men 1 & 2 weren't great movies by any means.

[Merusk]

Did the youtube search, the clip's already been removed. At least the one I found.. still looking tho.

Tri.. you need your head examined.

[Ookii]

Looking through IMDB, did anyone recognize Psylocke or Jubilee?



Psylocke is on the right



Jubilee herself

[voodoolily]

I likes it a lot. Worth the price of a matinee ticket.

It's good to see the kid from Six Feet Under working again. He's actually not bad as a blond, winged mutant with a cute haircut.

[Samwise]

I liked it a lot.  Possibly more than the last one.  Even if they did part with canon on multiple accounts; I actually liked the spin they put on the Phoenix.  And Frasier as Beast was an excellent casting decision.  Also: he's the Juggernaut, bitch.

[stray]

There wasn't a "spin" on Phoenix (imo!). There wasn't a spin on much of anything. Angel, for example, was pretty much nonexistent. There was just too much stuff in it that they could only breeze by all of these subjects in a matter of 90 minutes.

[Llava]

I recognized Psylocke, but didn't notice Jubilee in this one.

Saw her name in the credits, though.

As mentioned in the spoiler thread, I was disappointed that Psylocke never did the psiblade thing.

SPOILER, DON'T CLICK IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW
YouTube link for the after the credits scene

[Ironwood]

 Hey anti-cure dipshits- its easy for you to condemn it when you can set people on fire by looking at them and still go out for a cup of coffee without people running away from you screaming.  Why not give the fur-covered acid-spitting octopi types the option, k?  

Wow, is there anything you won't miss the point of ?

[jpark]

I enjoyed it but thought it was the weaker film of the three - I understand there was a director change in this film.

Several characters died in this film - I thought the plot got very little leverage from these emotional turns.  These key events seemed poorly utilized to really drive the impact of the film.  I thought Wolverine seemed to behave a little out of character in this film compared to the first two for reasons that are spoiler related.

I recommend it overall - good flick.

[sarius]

I thought it wasn't bad.  I think a lot of people for whatever reason think a little too highly of the first two movies from many of the reviews I've seen and act like this one just wasn't worthy of follwing them.  All three were ok movies with a few great moments.  Despite being a fan of the comics I can't really say I was sad to see them do movie with Dark Phoenix without the Hellfire Club or the Shi'ar Imperial Guard.  I guess I'm just surprised by the reaction this movie has gotten so far in reviews given that X-men 1 & 2 weren't great movies by any means.

How do you take a comprehensive epic that's covered 20+ years of writing by many, many different authors (along many different alternate realities) and compress it into 2 hours.  You don't.

When I think of the Dark Phoenix series alone, it's disappointing that Jean Grey even came back as such a weak character.  They tried to do way to much, and ultimately destroyed a decade or so of background material.

[Threash]

I liked the movie for the most part, although i definitely have some complaints.  I didn't really enjoy the big battle scene, other than the main mutants every other one just seemed to rush wolverine and try to take him on hand to hand without using any powers (to obvious results).  The whole bridge thing seemed pretty pointless, if you can lift that thing up why not just drop it on the damn island and be done with it?  For those who think they ruined the IP or that they wont be able to make another movie after killing/curing so many characters, i think that was the point.  This was supposed to be the end of a trilogy, probably of the franchise.

[Triforcer]

 Hey anti-cure dipshits- its easy for you to condemn it when you can set people on fire by looking at them and still go out for a cup of coffee without people running away from you screaming.  Why not give the fur-covered acid-spitting octopi types the option, k?  

Wow, is there anything you won't miss the point of ?

Are you calling me gay?

[Roac]

As for myself and my wife, neither of whom has any interest whatsoever in comic books; we both enjoyed it.  Overall I think it has the most mature plot of the three, with respect to the impact that the 'cure' has on mutants and the political climate.  It was much darker than the other two, and I like that as well.  Overall, I have the sense that movies are far too "everything turns out alright in the end", and you have much less a sense of that here, even with the openings the ending(s) have left for future writers. 

I do have some questions about the conclusion though - I'm wondering why they didn't try one of a couple other options to resolve the conflict other than what they did.  I guess I'll wait until we're talking about spoilers to get much farther into that, but did anyone else wonder why it couldn't have gone down any other way?

[Threash]

According to box office mojo they had the second highest opening night and the third highest grossing day of any movie ever.  44 million or somesuch.  And yes Roac i think i know exactly what you mean.

[SurfD]

I thoruoughly enjoyed the movie.  I only had 2 real complaints out it, one being minor, the other possibly not so much so:

Minor complaint: As someone pointed out, the mutant army Magneto recriuted had far too few of the nice Flashy mutants we have come to love and expect from the big battles in comics / animated versions of the series.  The only flashy people were primarily the "star characters" who were shown off.  I had expected to see a crapload of pyrotechnics and other mutant destrutiveness going on during the climactic fight scene.

Possibly not so minor complaint:  Juggernaut.  NOT A MUTANT.  The "cure" should have no relevance to Juggie, so that little scene with kitty at the end was a bit much Deus-ex machina for me.  I understand partially why they did it, but in my mind it takes away from the character as origionally known in the comics etc.

(As to why they did it, I imagine it was to keep the scope of things a bit toned down so as to not muddle the watters with too many seperate themes going on.  After all, the X-Men movies are about humans dealing with / relating to "genetic mutation" (regardless of what kind of spin / hidden meaning you choose to find in what the abnormality may supposed to be representing).  If Juggie was actually treated as the magically empowered force he really is, you would have to admit / allow for consideration of other things, like super science powered heroes (Ironman etc), godling, wizards and whatnot, which is really beyond the scope of the X-men movies as they are presented)

[Triforcer]

Hopefully this isn't spoilerish, but I am really curious:

did the chess piece move or not?  It cut away too quickly for me.

[Roac]

Yes.

[Sauced]

I thought that it was a decent attempt at recreating Singer's world, but Rattner obviously could care less about the politics and character development and more about the action.  Which would be fine, if he were capable of creating a set piece, for a war between mutants no less, that's more interesting than a 10' by 10' gravel parking lot.

I've read interviews with the writers, which gave me some bit of respect for them, but trying to cram the Phoenix Saga in with the Cure storyline made for a mess of a third act.  The resolution of the Jean issue made absolutely no sense, in light of how the Magneto issue had just been resolved.

And don't get me started on "The President".  That may be the worst acting I've ever seen - that guy needed a director who gave a shit.

[theo]

Just saw this today.   Really good movie.    I enjoyed it. 

[stray]

And don't get me started on "The President".  That may be the worst acting I've ever seen - that guy needed a director who gave a shit.

The guy sounded like he had a hairlip.

[Viin]

Saw it tonight. I don't follow XMen other than the movies. Enjoyed it more than the 1st and 2nd .. I like darker movies.

[Daeven]

The movie isn't a Masterpiece by any means, but it was fun and managed to hit a lot of the right fanboi buttons.

Fun movie. From a cinamatrogrophy / editiing stand point it deserves the Ed Wood award for fucking pathetic. It's Day! It's Night! How many to short gotcha scenes can we include?

Seriously. I haven't seen a film that badly edited in a theater since, well, ever.

But, otherwise a good story.

[Margalis]

Yeah, that was weird at the end with the island it was the middle of the day, then a second later it was night.

I expected to hate it but I thought it was decent. I didn't like the first two as much as most people did though. People complain a lot about a glut of characters in this one but the 2nd was just as bad or worse in that regard.

It wasn't amazing but it was worth seeing.

I know a decent amount about the comics but I don't really care about the changes they've made. If I want the exact same story and characters as the comics I can just read the comics.

[stray]

People complain a lot about a glut of characters in this one but the 2nd was just as bad or worse in that regard.

Look at the difference in how they treat Nightcrawler's introduction and amount of screentime to Beast, Angel, Kitty, and whoever else.

[Velorath]

People complain a lot about a glut of characters in this one but the 2nd was just as bad or worse in that regard.

Look at the difference in how they treat Nightcrawler's introduction and amount of screentime to Beast, Angel, Kitty, and whoever else.

I think Beast got as least as much dialogue if not more than Nightcrawler.  Even Kitty got a good amount of screen time.  Yeah, they didn't do much with some of the characters like Angel, or Multiple Man, but then how disappointed were we all that Colossus didn't get more screen time in X2.  Where was the uproar after X2 released that they turned Mastermind into Stryker's son, which seems to tell me that Synger's version of the Phoenix storyline wouldn't have been any closer to the comics than X3 was?

The first movie had a Toad and Sabertooth, and a fairly bland plot.  The second movie was better, but I wasn't particularly thrilled with Lady Deathstrike, Stryker, or the plot to use Cerebro to kill all the humans.  Like I said, both were ok movies with some really good moments.  Why people expected anything more out of X3 I'll never know.  Even worse are the people who are upset because they think that if Synger had stayed on he would have made some 2 movie epic about Phoenix.  Realistically, not only was that never going to happen, but the public wouldn't have had any interest in it if it did.  It would have had to focus mainly on Cyclops and Jean, who are probably two of the least popular characters as far as the movies go.

[Llava]

I actually liked movie Cyclops better than comic Cyclops.

I was disappointed he got so little time in 2 or 3.

I really didn't like 1, so that doesn't count.

[Abagadro]

I was disappointed he got so little time in 2 or 3.

I think his limited time in 3 was due in large part to spending a lot of time filming Superman Returns.