Muhahaha, watched X-Men 3 couple days ago. I like.
I thought it was quite well done, all things considered. Only had two nitpicks about the whole darned movie.
And being able to eat caramel popcorn was a bonus. Haven’t seen a movie in ages, and haven’t bought sweet popcorn in forever. :)
Warning: Spoilerific. Avoid if you haven’t seen the movie!
Nitpick 1: Halle Berry is STILL so miscast as Storm. Storm’s tall, and Halle Berry is a fucking dwarf. Nothing personal, I’m short too, but the role is so not for you if you’re not going to make an effort. Wear stilts or play a few camera tricks at least, huh? No one bothered to give the vain actress long tresses either, and that is so not Storm in short white hair.
On the bright side, that was only two strikes out for Halle Berry instead of the usual three. So suspension of disbelief was ever so slightly easier.
As much as I dislike her drama-queening about “oh, not being given enough leadership roles and screen time,” and dislike the screenwriters yielding to the bitch on principle, I have to agree that giving the Storm ‘character’ more firm, commanding lines, stronger powers and facing down different X-Men and villains makes her more like Storm is supposed to be. But that’s in spite of the actress. :P
And there was one scene that looked like pure vanity and actress indulgence. When the pouting “Storm” inadverdently creates dark thunderclouds as she broods, and Prof X has to run out and ask her what’s wrong. Come on, Storm has more control over the weather than that. She’s more likely to be doing it on purpose, willfully, than oops, I didn’t know what I was thinking, I’m so sorry, Prof! Like some kid trying to impress. She’s a grown woman, she’s led the X-Men before Cyclops, act like you know how to fucking lead.
Halle Berry delivers the lines with mediocrity. Only passably well. God knows how many takes it took the new director forcing her to act more commandingly. I think her heart was more in it when she was acting perky and all-caring-like in X2 and X1. By ‘disbelieving the illusion’ and imaging another Storm in her place saying her lines, I could appreciate Storm’s role in the script and the story, which was written well.
But I still really wanted to laugh very badly when Halle Berry faced down (actually, faced up) Wolverine. Superimposed on this was the image of how it ought to look. A tall, stern Storm facing down the short Wolverine, telling him off about proper teamwork. Instead, we see this barely repressed perky half-pint halfling gazing up at Hugh Jackman, trying to act like she’s not intimidated by him. Trying. Hahaha.
Nitpick 2: Look, you just sold the idea in the first two X-Men movies that Magneto and Mystique were a pair. Or at least had some kind of relationship going. I was envisioning the ol’ Lucifer and Mazikeen duo in the Vertigo comics.
So poor Mystique gets herself shot and ‘cured’ of her mutation…Mind you, she suffered that –saving- Magneto’s sorry ass. He says so himself, “You saved me…” in a shocked tone of voice.
And yes, perhaps you wanted to sell the idea that Magneto is a villain.
But he’s not THAT kind of villain, idiots. He’s not going to leave a naked woman lying on the floor in shock, even if she suddenly became horrifically ugly to his twisted perspective. Even if homo sapiens are worthless to his plans. Magneto’s a gentleman, dammit. Cold-hearted but a gentleman. He’s civil to his nemesis/friend Xavier, don’t you think he’ll be civil to his ex-sweetheart?
I do. I think he’d at least pick her up and/or drape a cape/blanket/soldier’s flak jacket around her. Maybe he won’t treat her like an ex- anymore, but he’ll at least have the same compassion for an injured puppy dog. I also think he’ll be frowning at the same time, going, “I’m sorry, my dear, but you’ll have to hitch a ride from here. You can’t come with us. After all, you’re not one of us any more.”
Same result, just less “eeee, evil” impact. But that’s the point of the X-Men. Everything is shades of grey. No one’s a black and white villain or hero.
Personally, the most ideal version is that Magneto would put her up somewhere temporarily. In like some homo sapiens cottage. Because he’s the obsessive sort. Why can’t he find a cure to The Cure one day? She can still get pissed off about not being included in the inner circle and the sanctum anymore. But it really seems hopelessly unlikely story-wise that Magneto would spend sooooo much energy searching for Mystique, only to dump her the moment she turns human. It’ll be more of a “Sorry, dear, it can’t be just yet, not until I find a way to turn you back.” Not “Sorry, dear, you’re spoiled goods, ruined for life. Cya. Bye.”
Other than those two nitpicks, as I said, I do like this X-Men movie. I think it reflects more of the spirit of the X-Men. Big battles, lots of action – I’ll never forget when we had this class about violence on TV, and this group counted the number of laser blasts and explosions found in an X-Men cartoon (yea, we all knew it was an excuse to watch cartoons as “homework.” And the count was something like 113 and 67, respectively.)
But with that special morals, ethics, story, shades of grey impact that is so characteristic of the X-Men.
The villains are never cut-and-blue villains. They’re just people. With goals, desires, and the willingness to step on and over people to see them come true. The heros are never the ultimate cool good guy – they can resort to as dirty tricks and means to get the job done.
I loved it when they decided to use The Cure on Magneto. It already seemed so dirty when Magneto was planning to use it as weapons to stop any misguided mutants in the way of his plan for mutant world domination. And then, hoo haa, the X-Men use it to stop Magneto. Is that right? Is that good? The question’s left unanswered. What makes the X-Men different from Magneto then? Is it just them fighting on the side of humanity? To protect the weak?
That then leads to the question…is it a ‘good’ action to be protecting the weak? To protect those who can’t protect themselves? Isn’t it…stifling in a way? Who are you to decide that they need protecting? Or guarding?
Like Xavier did to Jean Grey! (See, more moral tie-in! Muhahaha…)
Was he right to do that? Put the block in? Without it, would she have learned to control it, or would she have gone Dark Phoenix right away? Or is it that stifling that aggravated Dark Phoenix to become the destructive juggernaut she was? Oh, the brilliance of it. And of course, as the kicker, Wolverine has to kill her to save mankind. Too sweet.
Let me mention btw, that I thought the Dark Phoenix subplot was a clever idea. I was wondering how the heck they would put the whole aliens and spaceship and funky phoenixes arc into a ‘realistic’ x-men world. Having a repressed personality was very clever. And Famke Jenssen (sp?) pulled it off believably. Kinda scary, in a way, how the personalities switch, and you see glimpses of the Phoenix in Jean, and then Jean in the Phoenix for split seconds.
The other thing I found myself being VERY amused by were all these little references to (of all things) City of Heroes. I don’t know if it was inadverdent or not. But it looked almost like the screenwriters were consulting the CoX manual when they planned out the extras’ powers.
Jubilee’s (at least I think it was Jubilee, I didn’t catch the name of the gangsta girl in the movie, and I saw a Jubilee name listed in the credits) powers referred to as sonic blasts? That crazy chinese guy with porcupine SPINES sticking out of him? The other girl - a super-speeder?
And there was this great scene in the mutant camp when Wolverine (claws/regen scrapper, remember!) comes across some guy guarding it – who has these tentacle thorn-like objects coming out of his wrists and he /throws/ them into Wolverine! Unfortunately for him, he didn’t seem to have a control set. So…claw/regen scrapper vs /thorn dominator…We all know how that’s gonna turn out, right? :P
Thorn dom thorny darts and kites said regen scrapper. Attempting to build domination. Scrapper closes in. Thorn dom goes for a skewer. Scrapper does his melee attack. Dead dom. :P Scrapper regens back wounds. *cackles*
Oh, and there was this great scene in which I have high hopes for the future of CoX. Remember when Positron said he’d like to see more combo stuff done, just like oil slick getting lit up by fire attacks? Magneto and Pyro standing side by side – Magneto’s doing this magnificent Propel with metal cars, of course. :P And Pyro is LIGHTING the cars up with his fire blasts. And they’re raining down like meteors. Ultra-cool. Oh, if only I could do that in CoX…for now, I can only dream. :) But hey, destructible environs in I7, combo attacks in…I9? I10? Hahaha.
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