X3 Review

I saw X-Men 3: The Last Stand twice last weekend. Explanation: 3 Weeks prior, me and girlfriend were watching television, X3 commerical comes on, I start rambling about how it was one of my favorite comics/cartoons growing up. She shows genuine interest in wanting to see as did I. So we agreed to see it when it came out. Fast forward to this past wednesday, realizing that my friends were going to see the movie friday, and me and said girlfriend could not see it that friday I agreed to see it with friends to avoid the "YO, that was the greatest movie this year, remember when this happened and that happened" conversation that would occur when everyone reconvened at my apt. Girlfriend was ok with this, we agreed to see it on the following sunday together.

Ok so now for the actual movie. Quick paraphased quote from Rowe, from his significant other "X3 made the DaVinci Code look like Casablanca", and although I haven't seen the DaVinci Code yet I think I agree with her sentiment.

Here are some quick stats:

Rotten Tomatoes Rating for X-Men(2000: 80%
Rotten Tomatoes Rating for X-Men 2: X-Men United (2003): 82%
Rotten Tomatoes Rating for X-Men 3: The Last Stand (2006): 54%

Quite a dropoff. Without going into a blow by blow of the movie, let me sum up my feelings. I understand the movies are not going to explicitly follow the themes and story arc's that occurred in the comic books and cartoon, and thats fine. Kind of hard to jam years of storyline into 6 hours worth of movie. However, if you are going to adhere to some part of the storyline, try not to veer off the reservation too far. For example, in a movie where the powers of the mutants is part of the draw, don't attribute powers to mutants that they never had in any incarnation of the story.

Even if I am to remove my comic book nerdiness issues with the movie, it's still only a halfway decent movie. It's almost as if they started to build a story, and then 30 minutes into the movie they decided they couldn't finish it, so they skipped ahead 50-60 pages. The plot is very thin: Jean Grey is alive, she can be the Dark Phoenix now. Someone is using genes taking from the mutant "Leech" to create a mutant cure. Magneto rails against this cause and bands together mutants and finds the Dark Phoenix to support this cause. Goes to factory to stop production. Battle ensues. Movie ends. When I can explain the plot of the movie in 3-4 lines, theres probably something wrong. Oh well, maybe it's just me...and don't even get me started on the after credits scene...sigh...