X-Men: The Last Stand (spoilers)

[kate_nepveu]

I know, I know, you're all waiting for more Lord of the Rings, but we saw X-Men: The Last Stand this afternoon and I might as well talk briefly about that while it's fresh.

Short version: starts out better than I expected, but the more I think about it, the less I like it.

There are a great many structural things wrong with this movie, almost all of which could have been fixed if it had been not one movie but two. The cure and Angel would fill one movie very nicely, and Phoenix another. The latter gets ridiculously short shrift here: she kills Scott and the Professor, and then . . . stands around a lot, until she flips out at the end and gets killed. (I have the vague impression that there is a great deal of controversy over the feminist implications of Phoenix in the comic; in the movie, it seems to me it's one of those fake-feminist things, create a very powerful woman—who is ruled by emotion only, is used by others, and then is stopped by a heroic man penetrating her [*]. Whee!)

[*] In a scene straight out of a bad romance novel cover. Seriously, didn't anyone else think that? The guy's naked chest, the swoon backwards, the flowing dress . . .

As that suggests, the thing that would not have been fixed by making it two movies is Jean's death. I admit that the pyrotechnics were effective enough at clouding my brain that it wasn't until I was walking the dog after the movie that I thought, "Wait, are you expecting me to believe that the four shots of the cure that they used on Magneto were the only whole ones left lying around?"

Once started on this train of thought, of course, one can construct entirely plausible ways of stopping Phoenix without killing Jean (that, say, involved teamwork, as they'd made a point of not five minutes earlier?). Or of making her death meaningful and interesting rather than passive. But alas, that's not the movie we got.

Also, the Professor's exposition about the Phoenix was muddled and incomprehesible even for this genre, which is saying something. Seriously, did anyone (who's not familiar with the comic) understand that?

Other random things:

• In the comics, when did the Professor lose the use of his legs? Did it have to do with his falling-out with Magneto?

  Dear Hollywood: I would love a prequel that's about the two of them and that backstory. If and only if Bryan Singer would come back. Very truly yours,

• The whole Angel thing was practically a cameo rather than a reasonable subplot—granted it would have been a little "what, another father-son issue?", but still. And did he stow away on the jet, or did he actually fly from Weschester County to San Francisco? (Chad: "he took a commercial flight.")
• Dear Magneto, you couldn't find, say, several big pieces of sheet metal to float your mutant army across? I gotta think that would have been a lot less work. Love and kisses,
• So, did Leech cure himself? That was him at the end hugging Storm, wasn't it? If not, if his power still exists, then what's to stop fanatics from kidnapping him and getting the cure going again? (The eventual knowledge that the cure isn't permanent, as the last scene before the credits suggests?)
• I did like, in the not-very-subtext area, that the new henchpeople that Magneto picks up in the church are all non-white, and that one (the one with the shock waves) appeared to be transgendered (I could be wrong, but that was my distinct impression).

  [Edit: apparently I am wrong. See comments.]

I'm not sorry I saw it, but I am sorry that it wasted two perfectly good storylines to the benefit of neither.

Also, the trailers were dire. We got the Superman Returns trailer, which was almost as incomprehensible as the exposition in the movie that followed; The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, a.k.a. another "white American goes to Asia, kicks all the Asian people's butts in competition, and screws their women too" movie; Ghost Rider, in which yet another actor takes a role that doesn't show his face (a flaming skeleton on a motorbike? Seriously?); My Super Ex-Girlfriend, which packed an amazing amount of offense to feminist sensibilities into a very short time; and The Omen remake, to which I can only say, "Why?"

And now, I will go read the Le Guin essay on Tolkien's pacing that rushthatspeaks recommended.

Comments

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I really wanted to like that movie, and I couldn't, no matter how much thought I put into "why that really DOES make sense!". I just kept wanting to slap the writers and go "LOOK, you stupid bastards! It's JUST NOT THAT HARD to make things internally consistent! Don't your characters ever do anything *because it's in-character*, and not just act whatever way the script requires, regardless of character?"

It was a lot like _Batman Begins_, that way. Batman, at least, had consistent characters acting consistently. It just had Impossible Moron Physics.

[kate_nepveu]

Fortunately my expectations had been dialed way down by the initial spate of negative reviews, so I was just hoping it wouldn't be that bad. And I thought the opening had some promise. But, well, yeah, not really making much sense at all.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was how I felt about Batman Begins too; the movie was trying so hard to make sense that it was disappointing that the evil plot was so illogical. It wouldn't have been so disappointing in some other superhero movie; I wasn't particularly bothered by the craziness of Doc Ock's fiery ball thingie in Spider-Man II.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

At least Doc Ock's Giant Glowy Fiery Balls weren't, say, him "harnessing the power of burning magnesium", with Peter Parker going "Magnesium? Oh, no! If it gets out of the containment field it will ignite the atmosphere and destroy the planet! I know this immediately due to my in-depth knowledge of Science!".

Basically, Spider-man 2 didn't involve
A) Elementary physics nonsense
B) People who should know better buying into elementary physics nonsense
C) Characters WHO DEAL WITH THIS EVERY DAY IN THEIR JOBS saying "Oh no! Physics nonsense! We're all gonna die!"

As such, it was much, much better than Batman Begins.

That Colin Farrell Movie with Al Pacino about the CIA was the same way. Anyone with the *slightest* knowledge of how computers work knows that the Ice-9 virus is complete bullshit but, of course, we have Farrell's character saying outright in the movie "No, I know it SOUNDS like total bullshit, but trust me, I know computers. It really works, because I know computers!"

Oh, that, and their portrayal of CIA training's primary purpose being that you can't trust the CIA or CIA training. That didn't strike ANY of the characters as counterproductive or jarring? Not even one of them?

[kate_nepveu]

Didn't _Spider-Man 2_ have a *runaway fusion reaction* (or something like that) being quenched by a river?

Mind, I haven't seen _Batman Begins_ yet, though I may someday. And I liked _Spider-Man 2_ a lot (though I'm worried that the third might all try & cram too much in).

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

"Something like that". They started from the premise that it was not normal fusion, and worked from there. The nature of the menace also wasn't critical to the plot - Doc Ock was doing something horrible and evil that could explode and go very, very wrong, and did it really matter exactly what that is?

Whereas Batman Begins had a microwave emitter that turns water into steam but:
* Only affects water in pipes, not water in, say, people, the ocean, the air, puddling on the ground next to the machine, etc.
* This steam, despite generating enormous pressure and bursting out of the pipes with tremendous force, isn't hot. It isn't even WARM.
* As soon as the steam reaches the water mains in the middle of the city, all the water in the entire city will boil.

And the plot depends, specifically, on all these things being true.

And the supergenius villain who's been leading the supervillain group for centuries? Well, he didn't think of getting the machine to where it needs to be AND ONLY THEN TURNING IT ON. That would have been just too easy!

[kate_nepveu]

Dude. Okay, then. Comparison retracted.