Stuff by Steve

It’s finally time to write my “big three” summer blockbuster reviews: “Pirates,” “Superman,” and “X-Men.” I have procrastinated doing this, being a bit daunted by the task of summarizing three major films. But they are out on DVD now and if I don’t get on it, well, it will only further entrench my reputation of lameness.

For these three movies I will write each review individually, but be sure to catch all of them for the big picture (ha ha).

Synopsis: The third installment of the recent X-Men series of feature films. This week: trouble brews as Magneto continues his campaign against humans, but the X-Men have bigger problems as Jean Gray mysteriously reappears, not quite herself.

X-Men has been a fine series of films, with the second movie breaking the sequel stereotype and surpassing the first in quality and depth. This third movie is easily the worst of the lot, but in the same way that orange creme chocolates aren’t as good as hazelnut centres or coffee cremes. I still like them, but they aren’t my favourite. The truth is, it could have been much, much worse. See, Bryan Singer, the writer/director of the first two movies, was sitting in his cabana one day reading his mail. He thought to himself, “Let’s see here, we’ve got a pre-pre-pre-production overview of the new X-Men movie script. I’ll have to give that a look-see later while getting my knee-cap massage from my incredibly well-paid house staff… Wait a minute, what’s this? A letter from Warner Bros.? They want me to direct Superman Returns?!!?” At this point he cancelled his knee-cap massage, called every single one of his production staff from the first two X-Men movies, and moved down the block to the WB studio backlot. The new director did a good job, but you could tell that the magic was gone. The movie didn’t seem to have the same charm or wit, and the pacing and plausibility started edging into “Batman and Robin” territory. I liked that the story was more serious than the last two (kind of an “Empire Strikes Back” thing, I suppose), but while it should have been psychologically disturbing, it was far more disturbing that it played out like an old light-hearted episode of “The A-Team.” I mean, a lot of people died in this film, including one or two principle characters, and everyone else who remained alive seemed to shrug it all off like they had discovered their milk had just expired but-you-know-they-were-on-their-way-to-the-store-anyway. Maybe the problem was the dialogue, which was almost non-existent; it was an action film through and through, and as such it rarely paused for any much-needed introspection. There were many high points, however. I was pleasantly surprised with how well Kelsey Grammer portrayed Beast. Things could have gone either way on that one, and it really worked out for the better. We were introduced to several new mutants, although far too little time was spent on anyone for there to be any real character development. The special effects were incredible, and for maybe the first time I felt that the “powers” of these super-heroes and super-villains were tangibly portrayed. I think the best part of the movie was in the form of the ethical questions it raised surrounding the mutant “cure” that formed the baseline for the story. If you chose, you could let your mind delve into the issues that were presented, and make any comparisons to real-life ethical debates that permeate our culture today. This alone created the most value in the movie, in my opinion. Otherwise, it was just an okay action flick with pretty people and Kelsey Grammer in it, and my second favourite of the “big three” summer blockbusters in 2006.

See also:

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
Superman Returns