*If you haven't seen the movie yet, and don't want to be spoiled, leave now. I will not use spoiler tags*
This is more than just a review. This is a summary of what I've been going through for the past 3 years, heavily in the past year and a half, only to be thanked with this.
I thought that despite certain creative decisions, such as the deaths of Cyclops and Xavier, that I would be able to come in here with a positive reaction to the movie. I anticipated getting all the bad stuff out of the way up front, so that I could end it on a high note. But I can't.
This movie was not the "X-Men" movie I've waited 3 years for. And this movie was not the movie I've been hyping up for the past year and a half.
They always say you should trust your first instinct, and this is a perfect case of that.
When I walked out of the theatres for
X2, not only did I think they could never top that, seeing as how good
X2 was. But knowing about contract situations, how not everyone was signed, and other things going on, I just have a feeling that
X-Men 3 would have problems. And problems it did have.
Singer left to do
Superman Returns, and took his creative team with him. Fox hired Zak Penn and Simon Kinberg to write the script, who between them are responsible for such films as
Elektra,
Fantastic 4,
xXx: State of the Union, and
Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. The only good movie on the resume of either of these writers was
X2 on Penn's resume... but even he didn't write that movie. Dan Harris, Michael Dougherty, and David Hayter wrote the script, based on a story idea by Zak Penn. Then Fox hired Matthew Vaughn to direct, and who knows what he wanted to do, but surely it would have been even worse than what we got... he had no respect for Singer's movies what so ever. Then he walks, or was booted, whatever happened we may never know, and Brett Ratner comes in.
And now I come home from seeing this movie, and all I can say is I want Bryan Singer back.
Bryan Singer created this world on the big screen. And despite a few flaws, the world was the X-Men through and through. Sure, Singer lacked a bit in the action department. But he more than made up for it with character, depth, and heart. He may not have been a fan of the X-Men going in, but he surely did his research, and he truly understood it. And as a good filmmaker (with the acclaimed
The Usual Suspects already under his belt), he understood that you can't have a movie that means much of anything without characters that you care and feel for.
This whole aspect is lost in
X-Men: The Last Stand. Even Magneto, who may be the character most brilliantly adapted from the source material to the movies in this franchise lacked much emotion or depth this time around. Heart was totally null and void.
Sure, we got a bunch of comic book nods. We got the Danger Room. We got a Sentinel (well, if you want to call that us actually getting a Sentinel

), we got the Fastball Special, not once, but twice. But we lost what these characters were about, and lost what we loved about them in the first place. We lost what Singer truly understood.
I defended the filmmakers adamantly on the issue of runtime. I was the one arguing that they best know how much time they need to tell this story. But it's obvious that they didn't.
You are taken from Point A to Point B, with no explanation at all of how we got there. We're just there... quicker than a Nightcrawler "bamf". The film isn't given any room to breathe. We don't get a chance to learn who these characters are, what their motivations are. They are just there, and they just go along for the ride. With no explanation of anything, Magneto just already has an army that's invading Alcatraz. Characters like Multiple Man and Juggernaut have no idea what they are signing up for before they just state "I'm in!". Characters go from one location to the next in no time at all. The quickness at which they travel through this movie would put Quicksilver (or his movie-verse counterpart Callisto) to shame. And characters like Arclight have absolutley no definition what so ever, until all of the sudden the military is using plastic guns instead of metal, and Magneto needs his right hand man (or woman, in this case) to take out the threat.
And then there is the Phoenix. And it actually pains me to call her that. Because, the Phoenix, in the X-Men lore, represents something huge, something major. But here, it's just a sideplot. Never living up to a fraction of the glimmer of hope seen at the end of
X2. Jean's dead. Scott hear's voices. Goes to lake. She rises all of a sudden, and when Scott asks "how"... "I dunno"
And then all of a sudden, back at the mansion, she was awokened, and needs to be controlled, because Xavier supressed her darkside, that referred to itself as Phoenix. What? Okay... how were these blocks broken in the first place? And then she kills Xavier because... he put blocks in, and wants to put them back in, so she flips out and kills him. And Magneto witnesses it. And is in horror over the situation. But yet... he still takes her. WHAT?!!
And why exactly does Pyro all of a sudden hate Iceman? They were buddies back at Xaviers. And sure, Pyro is a smug, cocky sun of a *****, that went with Magneto because Magneto stroked his ego, but to all of a sudden develop a hatred for his old buddy? Even Magneto still respects Xavier.
Juggernaut, one of the better additions to the film, runs into a wall with Leech right next to him, and all of a sudden he's done for? What happened to "I'm the Juggernaut, *****!"?! A wall, with that THICK ASS METAL HELMET ON HIS HEAD, knocked the JUGGERNAUT out for the count? Please.
And then there's the cure... this crazy almighty cure that Magneto bombs cure clinics, and rearranges the Golden Gate Bridge over. The cure that he abandoned Mystique for. Beast jams the cure down Magneto's throat, pretty damned close to literally, but Magneto is moving metal chess pieces around with his mind? One review got it right; they make these huge decisions for the film, and then don't even have the courage to stick by them.
What was the point of Angel? I thought the whole purpose of leaving Gambit out was because they didn't want to underdevelop bigger characters. Angel's role is absolutley POINTLESS. He rejects the cure, shows up out of nowhere at Xavier's mansion, and then shows up out of nowhere to rescue his father, and then flies aimlessly around.
And the lack of the Phoenix flame effect... now this wasn't a major key to me, but I understand why it was to many people. It's ****ing trademark. I do like the effect used for Phoenix, don't get me wrong, but last I checked, the Phoenix wasn't Emily Rose. The Phoenix flame is a trademark of her character, and it was even used in
X2... so it'd be in continuity to have it here again.
Now I didn't totally hate this film. Let's take a look at the good:
*Marsden DID have a good performance, but I guess it's easy to capitolize on like, 4 ****ing lines.
*Beast was portrayed really really well.
Those are really the big things. And Beast is really the only one that makes an impact on the film, seeing as though Cyclops won't be around past the 15 minute mark.
But with that said, the movie does have moments. Unfortunatley, they are just that; moments. This film had all of the right ideas; the cure, the trigger to Magneto's war, the Phoenix, Xavier's manipulation... all the pieces were there, laid out right in front of them. But Kinberg, Penn, and Ratner did not know how to put it together to resemble the picture on the box.
The single biggest problem with this movie is the pacing. It moves TOO quick. It doesn't allow anything to take hold. And it doesn't allow for any kind of depth or emotion, and doesn't allow us to get to know any of the characters. Even Storm and Wolverine, the obvious front runners, even they didn't have much in the way of character. This film, to me, proves that Halle Berry didn't want Storm to be done justice... she wanted to have her name on the headliners. Storm doesn't have anymore characterization here than she did in
X-Men or
X2. In fact, she probably had more in
X2 than she had here. Here, she just had some more action sequences, and has her name next to Hugh's above the "X-Men: The Last Stand" title.
This movie should have been so much better. The glimmer of hope that
X2 leaves us with for what is to come delivers more than this did. This was supposed to be such an emotional film, more emotional than the other 2. It's not. There's no chance for there to be any emotion. Everything happens so fast. Killing off main characters does not equate to good drama. It has to be done in a meaningful way. And when the movie is moving too fast to actually deal with what happened, it's not being done in a meaningful way.
Except for Beast, we didn't get to know any of the characters. Even Wolverine. We hardly get to see how he deals with the Phoenix. It's more of a "I wanna bone you" scene, where he realizes "wait, didn't Cyclops die?", and then runs off blindly with a generic "I'LL SAVE YOU" attitude. We didn't get to know who the Morlocks / Omega Muties were. They tattoo themselves because they are proud of being mutants... and? We didn't get to know who Multiple Man was. He robbed some banks... at the same time... so he's blindly in on Magneto's plan? We don't get to know the Juggernaut. Magneto releases him so he can take a pee, and then he blindly joins Magneto's plan?
Trask was a waste of a character. The government didn't know if it wanted to be pro-mutant, or if it wanted to cure them all.
These aren't the X-Men that Bryan Singer brought to the screen. You can use the same sets, actors, and costumes all you want... but all of the substance that made the 1st two films great was completely lost.
Again, it's not all bad, there are glimmers of greatness within this film. But they are only glimmers.
And for someone who's been waiting for this for the past 3 years since the end of
X2, and for someone who's fought so adamantly to be positive about this film for the past year, this film did NOT deliver. It was not the epic that
X2 promised it to be. It was not the emotional film that the film makers promised it to be. Hell, even the action wasn't that far superior. The opening scene of
X2, Nightcrawler's White House attack, is still the premiere action sequence in this trilogy.
Bryan Singer once went to a superhero franchise to ignore it's 3rd sequel and make a movie that could deliver. The fanboy in me can only hope that Singer will come back to the franchise he started, and ignore the 3rd sequel, and make it what it was supposed to be.
This is NOT what I've waited 3 years for.