ntcrawler said:
That's because it's not really a movie you can keep watching over and over again, unlike LOTR or Star Wars. Fans were deceived by all the fake hype and misleading advertising. It was set up to get as many people as possible to see the movie ONCE. They weren't counting on return business.
Sr I can see over and over again. X3 I really don't want to, except for the sake of doing a little bit of research for fanfics and rewrites. And for that there's more than enough clips already posted online.
You should be careful about generalising your comments as though you represent the voice of the nation. Because you don't.
Your feelings against X3 are now very well documented on here. You were never, ever going to like the movie, let's face it. Why bother to justify an inherent bias? You will say anything, and quote anything, to appear to make your own bias seem like fact. Very tiresome.
As for X3, I find there is tons more to see each time you go. Cameo characters to observe closely, great sequences to revel in. I know many many people who've been many many times. I agree that the pacing and subtlety might have been improved in places, but it's by no means a bad movie. Singer said X3 was to have been about mutants vs evolution itself, and that's what we did get. People went to see this because it was highly marketed, much more than any vague memory of the previous two movies.
In my local bookstore, Borders, a girl who was checking stock in the comics section spoke to me about X3 being the ONLY superhero movie that has hit the mark as far as she is concerned and the best by far of the X-movies.
In my local Forbidden Planet comicbook store, the guy at the checkout said he had hated SR but loved X3 and had seen it several times. At the time, I was looking at the SR merchancise (and I bought The Art of Superman Returns and the SR novelisation in an attempt to try to like the movie more and see what the hell they were thinking) so i did not influence his response in any way - he looked sheepish about saying he didn't like SR until i agreed, then he said 'But there's one comic movie i really did enjoy - X3.' He loved Beast, Angel, Juggernaut, Storm, thought Colossus underused, was actually glad that Cyclops was dead, and loved the Dark Phoenix interpretation.
I've yet to find ONE SINGLE person who hated X3. I know someone who thought it lacked Singer's touch, a few people have disliked a line or two of dialogue or questioned a part of the plot (one girl asked why they didn't try the cure darts on Phoenix, but i reminded her they had tried and she vaporised them all). But no one has hated the movie, no one said it was a bad film.
With SR, I didn't feel i ever wanted to go again because the entire premise of the movie (not a bad idea in itself to have Superman returning to earth after an absence) is badly executed to render it cringeworthy and unwatchable. An opening scene of an irrelevant, never-to-be-seen-again widow dying (immediate lack of emotional engagement for the viewer) and a child ridiculously screaming when thrown Luthor's wig (very bad scene). Clark and Superman reappear the same day and no one suspects. The totally unresolved issues between Lois and Superman - he left without telling her (out of character), she never knew about the remains of his planet (sheer absurdity), she meets and has sex with Richard quickly enough for him to believe he is father of the child (more nonsense), Luthor creates real estate no one would ever want (more stupidity). The movie is riddled with inconsistencies. A glorious and spectactular triumph of visual production style over substance and emotional content. And even the production design was flawed - why couldn't New Krypton be something more desirable, more alien, more magical, rather than craggy black rock!? Superman demonstrated his might againt the inanimate - rocks, planes, fire - but never once did he seem to engage with anything living/human to give us the conflict vital to a story. I cannot believe I watched something that could have been an epic blockbuster reduced to an emotional wasteland as barren and lifeless as Luthor's island. Must Bryan Singer stamp his understated, introspective internalised neurosis over every movie rather than bringing out the emotion?
You only have to see X2 where Cyclops vanished for half the movie and Jean didn't appear to care at all about him to realise that the Lois/Superman relationship was going to be just as soulless and underdeveloped. SR was a failure of film-making on a colossal scale - full of great moments (Superman hovering in space, listening to the noise of earth) - but a few great moments do not make a great movie.
