X-Men III - Spoiler free no longer!

[Llava]

I bet he couldn't rip an adamantium head off. Probably can't even teleport through adamantium walls. 

This could potentially be a very long discussion, requiring me to type the word "adamantium" many times over, and I'd really rather not do that.

[jpark]

Correct me if I am wrong but I heard there was going to be a stand alone film on wolverine with Hugh Jackman.

[Rasix]

Correct me if I am wrong but I heard there was going to be a stand alone film on wolverine with Hugh Jackman.

You are correct, sir.

[pxib]

I generally enjoyed the movie visually, and am not sorry to have paid matinee price for it. If it's worth seeing, it's worth seeing on the big screen. The fine detail in some special effects scenes and what little suspense and tension a big dark theatre provides this flaccid, muddled movie will be completely lost on a 19-inch Sony screen.

Being a character in a good movie means never having to say "Why did that happen?" Everything is foreshadowed. If something random happens, it happens for a reason we don't yet understand. Every problem resolves in way which, while initially surprising, will prove to have been inevitable. The storyline of X3 fails on this front so many, many times. Terrible things happen and not only do they resolve poorly... the audience is given no reason to care.

The worst screenwriting sin, in my opinion was

I'll be extremely vague but THIS IS A SPOILER SO SKIP DOWN TO THE STARS IF YOU'RE CONCERNED

At one point somebody does something mind bogglingly callous and cruel. The character who was treated callously is given the opportunity for betrayal, and takes it. That betrayal turns out to be a completely worthless waste of time. Also a waste of screen time.

***** STARS ****

This sort of thing happened all over the place. It feels like a bunch of screenwriters sat around saying "Oh I have an idea!" and "Wouldn't this be cool?" without trying to link them together into anything coherent. The first two movies had exposition problems, but generally I cared about what was happening. This time I just turned off my brain about half an hour in and watched the pretty pictures. What little heart and soul X1 and X2 had is completely absent from X3. It's all flash.

Big summer blockbuster FTW

[Ironwood]

This was a BAD film.

[Merusk]

Know what? After them being shown adnausium for the last week on FX I can confidantly say, so were the first two.  This just happened to have bigger gaffes.

 I'll admit I didn't even notice the day/ night thing until you all pointed it out.  It's a popcorn movie and folks who don't give a rats ass about comics seem to be enjoying it.  Here's the reality.. Marvel's brass doesn't care about your comics, or the backstory.  They want to move into a profitable medium loosley using the work of their predecessors.  They appear to be doing that fairly well.

[stray]

Know what? After them being shown adnausium for the last week on FX I can confidantly say, so were the first two.  This just happened to have bigger gaffes.

 I'll admit I didn't even notice the day/ night thing until you all pointed it out.  It's a popcorn movie and folks who don't give a rats ass about comics seem to be enjoying it.  Here's the reality.. Marvel's brass doesn't care about your comics, or the backstory.  They want to move into a profitable medium loosley using the work of their predecessors.  They appear to be doing that fairly well.

Actually, they do care. It's one of the reasons why they've decided to head all projects from now on with their own studio. Not to say they don't care about money (Marvel's 'brass' is barely making shit with these current films anyways), but if you read any given interview with Avi Arad, you'll find that he's pretty picky about the other stuff too.

[Ironwood]

  Here's the reality.. Marvel's brass doesn't care about your comics, or the backstory. 

I don't either.  That doesn't stop this being a really poor film.  Bear in mind that, as a film, it had to bear some weight not from the comics, the fans or the backstory but from the two other fucking films which it is part of a trilogy of.  (Yeah, Grammar Snake owns me.  Fuck off.)

It couldn't even do that.  It groaned under it's own weight and IF ANYTHING my complaint was that it cared far too fucking much about the comics and the backstory...

[HaemishM]

Actually, they do care. It's one of the reasons why they've decided to head all projects from now on with their own studio. Not to say they don't care about money (Marvel's 'brass' is barely making shit with these current films anyways), but if you read any given interview with Avi Arad, you'll find that he's pretty picky about the other stuff too.

Marvel did that because they get more money off the movies when they do. They got ROYALLY screwed by the movie studio on X-Men 1, to the point that no matter how much money the movie made, Marvel only got like $200,000. ROYALLY RAPED. Making their own studio means they get more leverage in distribution deals, etc. It has fuckall to do with merging it with the comics. As a matter of fact, I'd imagine they see the comics as advertising for the movies.

[Llava]

They got very little for Spider-Man as well, didn't they?

[Ironwood]

They got to see MJ's Nipples.  That's enough for anyone.

[bhodi]

Can someone explain to me what an Omega mutant is? I did a search, and it's something to do with unlimited power or advancement, or no limits, or being able to use elemental forces, but I was never able to nail down an exact definition; It came up in X2 and I did a quick search recently but I haven't seen any definitative answer, only a list of (admittedly) powerful mutants. There were a few in there that weren't overly powerful, as far as I can tell, so I was a bit confused.

[HaemishM]

I've always taken it to be a mutant with the power potential to create a planetwide extinction level event. Magneto being able to reverse the earth's magnetic polarity, Phoenix making a sun go supernova, that sort of thing.

[Morat20]

I've always taken it to be a mutant with the power potential to create a planetwide extinction level event. Magneto being able to reverse the earth's magnetic polarity, Phoenix making a sun go supernova, that sort of thing.

It's when a mutant becomes a munchkin. When your mutant is overly twinked. When he becomes the main guy from Goodkind's Sword of Truth novels. When he becomes Superman.

In short, an Omega Mutant is one in which the only critical plot element is "How is the Omega Mutant Nerfed so there is a believable conflict"?

[Llava]

Has to do with virtual immortality on the part of the mutant, too.

Iceman, for instance, became an Omega Level Mutant when his powers manifested completely- rendering him composed entirely of ice and unkillable (blow off his head, he can make another).

[Ironwood]

He did what ?

[Bunk]

I bet he couldn't rip an adamantium head off. Probably can't even teleport through adamantium walls. 

Actually Nightcrawler doesn't teleport "through" anything. He leaves his current dimension, travels through a pocket dimension, and reapears at his destination.

I love nerd fights.

[stray]

Umm.....I knew that. 

[jpark]

This was a BAD film.

Damn Europeans and their subtlety.  What are you trying to say?

 :-D

[Xerapis]

Um....ok.

Just watched it.  I know, a little late.

I'm confused.

Who told Ratner that he could COMPLETELY DESTROY THE MARVEL UNIVERSE?

Just curious.

[schild]

Oh comeon. The Marvel Universe has been destroyed and reborn more times than I can count. At least wait for the Superman movie to say things like that.

[HaemishM]

Who told Ratner that he could COMPLETELY DESTROY THE MARVEL UNIVERSE?

Probably the same fucktard that told Brian Bendis he could do the same thing in the comics.

[Raging Turtle]

Saw it saturday, liked it, probably because I never really read any of the X-men comics and never took the movie too seriously.  If someone could PM me with what happened after the credits that'd be groovy. 

Edit:  PM recieved, thanks Llava.

[Velorath]

Who told Ratner that he could COMPLETELY DESTROY THE MARVEL UNIVERSE?

Probably the same fucktard that told Brian Bendis he could do the same thing in the comics.

And probably the same person who told Singer the same thing with the first two movies.  Would anyone who thought the third movie sucked be so kind as to tell me what was so epic about the first two that the third just failed to live up to them?

[Margalis]

Yeah, I'm in the same boat.

I expected to HATE the third one but I thought it was ok. All three movies had bad dialog, spotty acting (Halle I'm looking at you!) and were not true to the comics. Wolverine is basically the only character they got right. Mayb Mags and X, but certainly not the rest of the villains or X-Men.

People say the second one was great but I thought it was mediocre. A lot of characters who didn't do much (Pyro, Iceman, etc), Nightcrawler was kind of annoying...the entire third act was just boring. It bothered me that Nightcrawler was introduced and suddenly there are 2000 times they REALLY REALLY need someone who can teleport when they never did before.

None of the movies were particularly memorable. More like instantly forgettable.

I'm not a huge fan of the third one, it may have been the worst of the three but the first two were not anything amazing.

Now in fairness a super-group lends itself much better to a series than to a movie. There are just too many characters, and it's too hard to develop characters in a movie where 15 different guys split screen-time. Can anyone even say that Cyclops or Storm had any personalities at all?

[Llava]

X-Men 1<X-Men 3<X-Men 2

Sorry.  1 sucked.  It did.  It's not even good in an apologist sort of way.  "Do you know what happens to a toad that gets struck by lightning?  The same thing that happens to everything else."

2 was miles above, and I was happy it was.  It had some weak scenes, certainly, but there are enough "omg that rocked my world" scenes that it makes up for it.  I'm thinking of two in particular: Nightcrawler's assault on the White House, and the army assault on the X Mansion.

3 was good.  Little slow at times, and it lacked the "omg world=rocked" scenes that 2 had, but overall it was a solid entertainment experience with good action that didn't trip over its own cheesy toes too much.

That's the final word.  I have spoken and now it is fact.

[Morat20]

X-Men 1<X-Men 3<X-Men 2
Sorry.  1 sucked.  It did.  It's not even good in an apologist sort of way.  "Do you know what happens to a toad that gets struck by lightning?  The same thing that happens to everything else."

Actually, blame for that rests solely with Halle. And possibly the director. That line was meant to be delivered entirely differently. It was meant to be a sincere question -- "What DOES happen to a toad when it's struck by lightning" followed by the answer of "Oh, same thing as with everything else".

Halle turned it into some bizarre threat/Hero's kickass smiting statement. It was meant to be more of the "Talking aloud to one self" sort of thing. Imagine it coming from Buffy and you'd get a better idea of how it was meant to be delivered.

As it was --- UGH. Most cringe-worthy line EVER.

[HaemishM]

As I said in my review, Storm was never developed as any sort of character in the X-Men movies at all. The lines she did have needed a great actress to make anything out of them. They removed all her backstory as the African goddess thing. As a result, the only thing they had to hang their hat on was her powers. A good actress would have pressed the director for some juicy bits, but since they got Halle Catwoman Berry, she read the lines given like it was a George Lucas prequel then bitched for more lines when critics called her wooden.

[Margalis]

Actually, blame for that rests solely with Halle. And possibly the director. That line was meant to be delivered entirely differently. It was meant to be a sincere question -- "What DOES happen to a toad when it's struck by lightning" followed by the answer of "Oh, same thing as with everything else".

Yes...that would have been MUCH better.

Gee, I wonder what happens when lightning hits a toad as opposed to say ANY OTHER LIVING CREATURE. Tough one. Riddle me this!

[Llava]

Delivery counts, but that's only slightly better than what we got.

[Abagadro]

Compare that to the similarly clunky line that Magneto had in the SoL about "I thought you lived in a school" or Wolverine's "You're a dick" line. Both aren't great lines but the delivery elevated them.

[Margalis]

I don't think anyone here is arguing that Halle is a great actress who delivers her lines well. 

But part of the problem with that line is that not only was it dumb but it was long. Long enough to call attention to how dumb it is.

[WayAbvPar]

Finally saw this over the weekend (I have been busy!). I enjoyed it, even though it had too much stuff crammed into it, had some giant plot holes, and some just plain stupid crap. Still had fun watching it. I hope there is a a deleted scene on the DVD that shows Cyclops dying a horrifyingly protracted death. I hates me some Scott Summers.

[Samwise]

OMG SPOILER!     Not that anyone cares by now.  And yes, I am in favor of painful Cyclops-death.


Did it bother anyone else that the Golden Gate Bridge didn't collapse into the bay, even after Magneto lost his powers?  I guess those suspension towers and foundation gizmos are purely decorative.

[bhodi]

Playing Bridge Builder solidifed my knowledge that engineering marvels are really freaking fragile... When magneto pikced it up, I was thinking if I was a mutant, I'd turn around and say fuck you, that thing could break apart at any moment, especially after you stop maintaining it, I'm not walking over that!