X-Men : L'Affrontement final

Wow, where do I start on this fiasco of a movie. In regards to my affection for the first two movies in the series, please see my rating for them. I gave them both high marks, and had anticipated the third movie with much joy and glee. My glee turned to flee not long into this horrible flick. The only thing that remotely saves it from being a total disaster is the graphics, and the hope that you will see it develop into a good movie. If you wasted 8 buck o roonies like myself to see this in theater, well don't feel bad, because some poor jokers sat out all night to see it on opening night. This one is even debatable on rental. Let it go to the special section, or as I call it "The Last Stand."

I have the luxury of not being a fan of the comics, so I find no offense when some character's superpowers or origin don't match the "book." Also, I have seen enough Marvel-licensed projects to set my expectations low. In short, I was expecting almost nothing.

The first two X-men were poor projects, but at least had *some* imagination. Sadly, it wasn't visual or cinematic. This lacks everything, but you can read all about that elsewhere. Here, all you'll find is some speculation about the root of thing: why it is rotten and probably unfixable at the core.

The book depended on a the universality of differentness. The idea behind the notion of "mutant" was that there were perhaps tens of millions of mutants including nearly every reader. Different, strange but talented beyond the norm in some usually unappreciated way. Spurned or at least misunderstood by parents and bosses.

In this cosmology, we all live in a modified noir world, one that toys with the fate of a whole class rather than a single, accidentally selected individual (and his girl). When we see higher level mutants behaving heroically, they do it as representatives of us, or so the comics go.

That's turned on its head here: lower level mutants are innocent pawns just as all the other types of people, soldiers, random motorists — whose idea was it to show that every car had children in it, then use those occupied cars as firebombs?

And if the target demographic is 14 year old boys and those who wish they were, why use 40 year old women? Or is it not supposed to matter? Well, it didn't to me, but the complete lack of cinematic imagination says this needs to go away.

The anti-mutating mutant was apt, though.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

I was able to catch a preview of this film on May 18. I am a huge X-Men fan and was reading earlier buzz about this film's shortcomings from other critics. I was very surprised at this film's quality. This film was very good especially for a third installment. I would venture to say this film was my favorite of the three, narrowly beating out X-Men United. I felt there would be a lot of confusion in tying in Magneto and Dark Phoenix but the story was very coherent. I also felt like Halle did a little better in this installment, considering better powers and better writing. The action scenes were great, especially in Jean's house. I was pleased to see them stay faithful to certain scenes in the Dark Phoenix Saga comic. The other "bit-part" mutants were not as annoying as I'd anticipated, as some of them actually were very impressive. I was very impressed with this film's "shockers" and unpredictability. Some things I definitely did not see coming. While not the perfect experience everyone hopes for, it was still well-made and should satisfy the X-Men fan base. Good story, great fights, great special effects, true to some of the comic stuff, great unpredictability, annoying Pyro. 'Nuff said.

First of all, let me say that X3 was a great action film. If you want to have a great time at the movies, this is a fun film to watch. However, as a fan of X-Men and the film trilogy, there were some problems with the film.

There are a lot of characters that are undeveloped. It's not such a problem with the one's we already know, but it is for the one's that we don't. There's also unneeded information for certain characters that aren't really in the movie. Certain characters play big roles, but we don't get to know them. Others have minor roles, and the info is meaningless. For instance, a character is introduced in the prologue to the movie, but is barely seen in the remainder of the film. The movie was way too short. It seems like everyone's in a hurry throughout the film. If it had been 2 and a half hours, it would have been able to develop all of the characters, and the back stories would have been more relevant to certain characters. The movie is action packed and fun, but it really doesn't draw you into it the way the first two did, say for a couple of scenes.

Overall, it was worth seeing on the big screen, and I'm glad that I saw it. It is a good film. But again, you'll be a little disappointed as an X-Men fan. 7/10.

One final thing, stay after the credits for the final scene. It seems nobody saw the entire movie.

The latest X-Men movie is disappointing to say the least. I don't know who had the final say on the finished product, (Brett Ratner, the producers or editors, or the studio) but the end result is an eyesore that has been rushed through production.

The movie is full of unexplained cut scenes that run into each other, that leave you frustrated and a little confused. The plot is sub-par with very poor dialog. The plot is not that difficult to follow, it's just full of holes. Holes that leave true X-fans wanting more. The music score throughout the entire movie is horrible and off. Music makes a movie. The writer of the score of X-Men 3 should be ashamed of the final product.

The unexplained introduction of a dozen or so new mutants was attempt to cover up the lame plot. The new mutants come and go without explanation or warning and spout a cheesy one-liner of dialog before they are rushed of the screen. There is an occasional curse word that gets all of the prepubescent teens in the audience a chance to chuckle like a little schoolgirl in their Sunday's best.

Brett Ratner was a poor choice to direct the third installment of the X-Franchise. With his not so impressive track record of Rush Hour movies, with Rush Hour 3 in preproduction; he should have been last on the list to direct this highly anticipated movie. It's like the powers that be just drew his name out of a hat and said lets go in that direction.

I'm not saying it's the worst movie out there, but it is defiantly the worst of the three. It was a poorly planned and over rushed movie that doesn't live up to the standards of true fans, such as myself. I've been reading and collecting X-Men comics for years and I know all of their back-stories and sub-plots and I expect it to at least live up to the standards of the previous two movies.

The end result is a movie that does not live up to the standards of the trilogy. The bad plot and dialog is replaced by CGI and special effects that try to district you from this poor movie that you shell out your hard-earned cash to see. It's worth seeing, but try to go see the lower priced day showing of the film.