Sunday, May 28, 2006

The Last Stand of the X-Men?

Last night, we went to watch X-Men 3, which was good actiony fun. Character development was pretty much abandoned in favour of introducing masses of mutants and high energy fight scenes in this segment.

M enjoyed it but went into lengthy critique of why it wasn't true to the characters/storylines afterwards. He is/was a fan of the comics, so he had a lot of good points about it. I don't know that much about that side of it, but this is what I thought about the film, (in background colour to avoid spoilers for anyone who may happen to read this & intends to see the film):

I did think Cyclops' off-screen death was a cop-out; however, I suppose it did leave the opportunity for him to be found alive, should there be another film. His character was woefully underused and he was a hugely important X-man so his elimination so soon and with so little spectacle was wasteful.

But the door seems to be very much open to another film. Even the cure seems to be temporary, as indicated by the wobble of Magneto's chess-pieces, which means Mystique and Rogue's powers could return. And even Xavier could return: why else was there mention of this brain-dead body and the morality of whether to transfer a mind?

I felt Magneto's callousness to the fate of his mutants didn't fit with his self-appointed mission to have a mutant-dominated world. I don't think he would have abandoned Mystique so easily once she was "cured", especially after her loyalty and "taking the bullet for him", as it were. Although he was the "bad guy", he was once a friend of Xavier, and it was more that he believed in mutant superiority and the need to defend mutants from being ghettoised or subjugated by humans, by violence if necesssary. Whereas Xavier believed that through low-profile diplomacy and negotiation, humans would come to accept the mutant population. It wasn't that Magneto was a purely evil kind of guy, so his callousness with regard to the fate of his pawns doesn't fit, to my mind. And if there is a cure in injectable form, it seems to me that it would be possible to reverse its effect *(especially since Beast's hand turned back to normal once he moved away from the boy who was the source of the cure), so surely that possibilty would have occured to Magneto when faced with the loss of his most loyal and useful henchwoman?

I felt Rogue's taking of the cure was under-worked and her character was barely in the film. Shadowcat was good and I enjoyed her scenes, but again, not enough of her - and the Ice-Man/Rogue/Shadowcat triangle wasn't that strong.

Phoenix/Jean Grey was amazingly powerful, but she seemed to be zombied out; rather than revelling in her power or leading, she was the led. I didn't think that sat well, and the only time she became active was to destroy. I think there should have been more of her, more struggle with herself, less passivity. I don't think she would have followed Magneto so docilely.

But that said, it was good fun, but not as interesting as the first two.

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