Yeah, Rebecca Romijn looks good with black hair and laying naked on the floor.
By the way, why did a school that was built FOR MUTANTS only produce 3 new X-Men? This movie was lame as hell. I don't feel like typing an in-depth review. All's I'm saying is it wasn't good. Period.
H'oooo-kay......are you guys ready for this? Go and grab a soda and a snack, cause this could take a while. I'll wait.....
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Ok.....here goes!
I went into X3: The Last Stand with the baited breath and anticipation that I think that every fan of this series (comic geek or no) had. And let me tell you, there are going to be two schools of thought on this one: You're going to have the fanboys (and girls) that come away UBER-pissed and hate this thing. Then you're going to have the casual or movie fan that loves this to death for the big, dumb action flick that it is.
And caught in between are going to be the moderates that enjoy the action but are pissed in general at the treatment of the characters......and those that like the story, but feel the need for more action. Myself, I fall into the moderate category. There are several key things that I'll get into that really dissapointed me with this, and left me feeling like I had just been given a big FU from Brett Ratner and Fox. Let's discuss the story, such as it is, shall we?
The story deals with a bunch of things from the X-Universe, mishmashing the Dark Phoenix Saga in with about a half dozen other stories. The principle one involves a Cure for mutation, developed by the Worthington Company (as in Warren Worthington II, dad to the high flying Warren Worthington III, AKA Angel) that is derived from a mutant named Leech, whose power is that he cancels out other mutants' powers when he gets near them. The government makes this Cure publicly available to any mutant who wants it, and this in turn devides the mutant populace into two camps, one headed by Magneto that plans on a preemptive strike against humanity, thus taking out the Cure before it can be made mandatory; the other headed by Charles Xavier who intend to peaceably resist the Cure.
That is the crux of the story. The old cast pretty much all return, save for the mysteriously absent, with no explanation, Nightcrawler. We've got two new X-mutants in Beast and Angel, not that you'd notice by the amount of screen time that Ratner gives them. He seems to think that scenes with dialoge exist only as spacekeepers between overly-elaborate action set-pieces. So to run down the roster, we've got Wolverine (Hugh Jackman, excellent in the role as always), Storm ( a horrid as usual Halle Berry, who continues to prove her Oscar to be more bogus than Marissa Tomei's), Cyclops (A WASTED.....OVERLOOKED and frankly UNUSED James Marsden), Xavier (Top notch Patrick Stewart, who has made this his ICONIC role), Beast (Underused Kelsey Grammer, who really could've hit a home run with this....damn Ratner) Colossus (Daniel Cudmore, who has one GORRAM line, and HAS NO FRACKING RUSSIAN ACCENT!!! DOUBLE DAMN YOU RATNER!!!), Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page, who does what she can with her role, and makes me wish she had a bit more to do than make moon eyes at Iceman), Iceman (Shawn Ashmore, who finally "ices up" and they manage to make THAT underwhelming....if you can believe it) Rogue (Anna Paquin, whose excellent character from X2 is all but an afterthought here), and Jean Grey (a sexed up, randy Famke Jansen).
To counter that, on the side of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, we get an assload of generic, bland mutants, including Antler Man, Porcupine Man, and He/She-man...but also a returning Mystique (Rebecca Romjin, who will surely get the boys' attention in and out of blue paint), Magneto (A more evil than ever, and loving every minute Ian McKellen), Pyro (Aaron Stanford, who makes me forgive the fact that the movies have butchered St John Allerdyce's character) and gives us Juggernaut (Vinnie Jones, and yes he does say THAT line) Calisto (Dania Ramirez, who is waaaaaaay too plastic and pretty to be playing the leader of the Morlocks....but Ratner wouldn't know that, he's apparently never READ a comic in his life. I digress. ) and Multiple Man (Eric Dane, who, in his five seconds of screen time, won me over and made me actually wish for an X-FACTOR movie).
The flick is pretty much what you'd expect from Brett Ratner, who has given us both RUSH HOUR flicks. He, in my mind definitely proved that he's not the man for this job. Rushed by FOX or not, Ratner with this slap in the face to the comic fans, has soiled his credentials with me. Being crunched for time is no excuse....NO EXCUSE for the lack of ATTENTION TO DETAIL that Ratner shows here. A few examples: SPOLIERS FOLLOW, so BEWARE!!!!!
1. As Grapejellydoesit noted, the SENTINELS, or LACK THEREOF: Ok, so last time, in X2, we get a peek at Strykers' CPU screen over Mystique's shoulder. On it, we see PROJECT SENTINEL. Then, in X3, we see that Xavier has programmed a SENTINEL into the Danger Room. WTF? Did Stryker give ol' Chuck his plans for Mutant Hunting Sentinels out of the goodness of his black heart? A little explanation here would have been nice, Ratner. This is an instance where comic fans will go "Sentinels! Cool!" but non-fans will go "WTF was that thing? Giant Robo? Wha?" but of course, Brett Ratner could give a crap less. He's too busy bragging to Entertainment Weekly about how he cheats on his girlfriend and gets away with it.
2 Colossus' Russian Accent: In the ONE LINE the big guy gets to speak, it's NON-EXISTANT. WHAT THE BLUE FRACK? This was the second biggest FU to the fans from Brett Ratner in the movie. Obviously, Brett was too busy banging Maxim models to actually spring for a TPB.....like a quality director like Bryan Singer would do....and did for the last two X-flicks. The guy's name is Piotor Nikoletivich Rasputin....and he is a PROUD RUSSIAN! Where are the rolling 'R's? Where is the dialogue for Colossus, period? And what the hell is up with him not being an item with Kitty? Get it right, Ratner: It's GAMBIT and ROGUE, and COLOSSUS and KITTY. Douche.
3. We get dozens of annonymous mutants for cannon fodder, but no Gambit, no Omega Red (although bizzarely he's listed in the cast on iMDB....I never saw anything that looked like him) no Psylocke (also listed, but I never saw her) and no Nightcrawler. Once again, Ratner, not a comics fan, gives us the lame She-he Arclight and Porcupine Man, but he couldn't be arsed to listen to fans and give us some Gambit action. Here, Brett, I'll do it for you, you lazy sack of ass you: Rogue, in line at the Cure Clinic, bumps into the guy in front of her. He turns, and without missing a beat in shuffling his deck of cards, says, in an unmistakeable Cajun drawl, "Hey, chere'....you bettah watch where you goin' ! You nevah do know who you gon' run into inna place like dis one!" . See? Just like that, we get Gambit. I'd have damn sure preferred him to the androgenous Arclight.
4. Pretty Callisto: Ok, Ratner. I give up. Did you just panic and decide to call Stephanie McMahon for ideas for this movie? Cause this is just so retarded I have a hard time believing you could come up with this on your own. According to the comics, Callisto is the PALE, HOMELY, JEALOUS leader of the sewer-dwelling Morlocks. Here, she looks like she just stepped out of Maxim magazine her damn self. No Morlocks, no Caliban. And she has super speed. Ratner, you are officially the Biggest Douche in the Universe. I hate you. The whole dynamic between Callisto and Storm comes from Callisto's jealous hatred of the fact that Storm, a "surface-dweller", is very pretty and is worshipped as a goddess, while the PALE, HOMELY Callisto is forced to live in crap and urine amongst the reeking Morlocks. Ratner prolly hired this chick who plays Callisto just so he could bang her. Douchebag.
5. New Mutants? Where?: The amount of screen time devoted to Beast and Angel is PATHETIC. Maybe two minutes TOPS between them. Angel never really fights, and Beast's action scenes are blink-and-you'll-miss-it fast. I mean, what a LAME cop out. We never get a feel for what Angel can really do, or who he really is. We see as a child that he HATES his wings. Then, as a young adult, when his father tries to cure Angel of his mutation, he suddenly likes his wings. Why? What the fudge happened in between then and now? As for Beast....for some GORRAM reason, he has an X-jacket, and the line "This doesn't fit me like it used to..." . Why is Beast saying this? Ratner, you retarded dribbling douchebag, WE'VE NEVER SEEN BEAST ON AN X-TEAM IN THE MOVIE SERIES. Christ, I swear that Special Ed from Crank Yankers could craft a more coherent storyline.
6: Cyclops? Futz him! (SPOILERS!!!) : Like another poster said.....Cyclops, who is THE X-Man, one of the founding students, and a GORRAM Team Leader, is completely shat upon in this movie. First,
Judas Xavier turns his back on Cyke. Then, Cyclops gets all up in Wolverine's face, only to go all emo and run away. Then the BIGGEST FU to the comic fans in the entire flick: Cyclops is KILLED BY PHOENIX, and his role in the Dark Phoenix Saga gets inexplicably shifted to Wolverine. Excuse me while I go punch a wall.....with my HEAD. Once again....Brett Ratner, you ARE the Galaxy's Biggest Douche. Bigger than Billy Kidman, even.
In the comics, the DARK PHOENIX SAGA was THE Cyclops/Jean Grey love story. But Brett Douchebag decided it would be waaaaay cooler with Wolverine in the place of Cyclops, even taking Cyclops' pose at the end, with Jean in his arms....one of THE Iconic comics images, and inserting Wolverine in there. I hate you Brett Ratner. Now, we never DO see Cyclops' body, and all comic geeks know, if there's no body, the person AIN'T DEAD. So Cyke could come back. Not likely, but I'm just saying here.
7. MISSED CHANCES:(SPOILERS!!!!) The worst part is, because of the shoddy writing here, we can never have Cable, or Stryfe or Racheal Summers, or Bishop even. Not with their original origins anyway. Sooooo much was messed up because of this, it ain't even funny. Although a lot can be fixed. As was mentioned, Xavier was shown to be alive, and the Cure was shown to be temporary....which means Magneto can come back, and so can Mystique. What I want next is for Bryan Singer to come back and give us X:ZERO, a tale of the first ever class at Xaviers', which consists of Thunderbird, Banshee, Storm, Cyclops, Jean, and Beast. They have their first mission against Mr. Sinister, and his lackey Havok, who happens to be Cyclops' brother.Sinister, who almost destroys the Summers' brothers, is directly responsible Scott and Jean falling in love, and teaches the team of young mutants about heartbreak when he kills Thunderbird. Then, Singer could follow that with Generation: NeXt, where we see a team of young mutants consisting of Jubilee, Iceman, Gambit, Rogue, Shadowcat, Colossus and Siryn take on a revitalized Brotherhood consisting of Blob, Toad, Avalanche, Pyro and Mystique. Throw in cameos by Banshee and Nightcrawler, and you've got a HIT.
But enough carping....I did like the action scenes for what they were, and the final battle doesn't dissapoint. I just wish I could say the same for the entire flick.
Recommended ONLY to those who could care less about the comic, or who haven't EVER read an issue of XMEN in their lives. All other will leave upset. I know I did.
R.