Xtf? (Spoilers for X-Men movie)

Cafe Society
81

[QUOTE=Viridiana]
Take Chinese Porcupine Boy. Why not make him Skin, and have the spines be just one of his powers, so he wasn’t so useless? Why not adapt Fishnet-Shirt-Androgyne Hipster Girl into a girl Havok or something? And Needlessly Belligerent Jada Pinkett Clone Girl could have toned it down a bit, learned to fly, and been M.
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As noted above, they were all named mutants from the books.

[QUOTW] The Mystique betrayal on both sides was blindingly fast and superficial.
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Not hardly. She turned on Magneto after he abandoned her because she was normal. That kind of betrayal by the man she had followed for all these years would certainly prompt an attack from her, in any way she could.

The littlest X-Man never made a play for Bobby. She was lonely and scared, and Bobby reacted like a loving older brother. I thought Rogue taking the cure was completely in character. As others have mentioned, she desperately craves human touch and her power is useless.

I agree. They could have done so much more with this.

You don’t remember the Village People, I take it? Minority group adopting a manner of dress or marking as a symbol of unity or a sign to others of their affiliation?

Angel was totally wasted.

Only if you want them devoid of special effects. The show costs money, and that means a known director. We are caught between a rock and a hard place here. To get them made at all, there have to be compromises.

82

On the whole, I would give it a B- without really going into too much detail I present bullet points:

The Good:
Wolverine was allowed to cut loose (what me pun?)
You really saw his healing factor in action
His power was key to the climactic scene
His love for Jean, even to self-sacrifice shows a great deal of growth on his part
The friendship between Magneto(Eric) and Professor X (Charles) was keenely felt
Hank McCoy was Kelsey Grammar before Kelsey Grammar was Hank McCoy – and was great fun
Angel
Really seeing Magneto turn into that which he hated most: An advocate for genetic superiority who pushes the destruction of the lesser groups.
Two Words: Danger Room
One Word: Sentinel
Quite a few white knuckle moments (probably more if you’ve managed to avoid spoilers)
Action sequences were great

The Bad:
Convoluted and muddled mixture of two unrelated stories crossed in a less than pleasing manner
No Phoenix effect – WTF is up with that?
The Bridge was unnecessarily pointless – many other possibilities
I guess in Movie land Magneto can’t manipulate the iron in our bloodstream
Famke Janssen seemed to have two expressions, neither of which conveyed much of anything
The reason she had to die was fairly lame (come on, destroying a world, got to die, I at least understand how some might feel about that) But she’s dangerous and we can’t control her? She killed Scott, but really, who liked him apart from her? (okay, that’s just snarky) but you never really saw much to worry about until she started dismantling things left and right on a molecular level (or nearly that)
Because of the plethora of characters, none of them got adequate characterization. Even Bobby’s friendship with Kitty (which is open to interpretation, but should have been more firmly stated) and his love for Rogue were poorly written and that whole bit seemed muddled
Halle Berry (beautiful house, nobody’s home–clearly she just doesn’t have any business in this franchise and seemed to add little with all she had to do)
There is no way to carve an X on a tombstone and have it not be funny
To sum up – it was better than Okay, because the action basically saved it, but the writing was sub-par: Action A; Story C-/D+; Character work C; Overall Average Performances across the cast: B;

83

D’oh. I should note that I am absolutely out of the loop on X-men now, though I followed it from the beginning. All the alternate timelines and such were too much for me. I figured the “made-up” characters were probably real characters somewhere down the line, it was just a cheeky sort of wish to see more of the earlier characters. :stuck_out_tongue:
I stand by my dislike of the way they handled Kitty, but I should add that I also really dislike Bobby. I disliked him from the beginning, though, so it wasn’t really new and postworthy to me. I realize that he was making a move on Kitty, but she’s also not stupid - there were a number of scenes where she made it apparent that she knew what was going on, or at least they were situations where anyone would know what was going on. It was the story that weaseled them together, and I’m still annoyed at the lack of resolution. Plus it still seemed like there was no real reason for Rogue and Bobby to be together in the first place, nothing for either of them to have grasped on to (no pun intended). If the point of their relationship was that it was a mistake with two horny teens, fine. But you can’t just drag the idea out and not resolve it at all within the movie. It may be part of a potentially endless series, but if the movie’s not going to be self-contained, it might as well be a tv show.
Rogue pissed me off because she turned into such a non-character, taking the really obvious road, demurring to her teenage angst and disappearing, with no real strength of character, for the sake of sequel setup. And she was my favorite X-man when I first read about them.
Sure, I could theorize a number of general reasons for the tattoos, I’m just saying it wasn’t much skin off their noses to have some kind of distinct origin. They just appeared on them, they “always” had them. It only takes a minute here and there to present more depth to the situation.
Oh, and it seemed kind of weird that the X-men made up Sentinels for use in their danger room. I guess Trask is supposed to find that data later?

84

I don’t think Bobby was making a move on Kitty, more that he was acting as a friend and brother. I don’t think Kitty was into Bobby, either, other than as a friend. And really, if anything, it was made to imply that Rogue was the one getting jealous, but that everyone else around them saw nothing wrong in the way they were acting.

I don’t think the way Rogue came back is a sequel setup. I think that she remaining with her powers, unless she learns how to control it, would have been even more angst-filled than just giving them up for the sake of affection.

85

Based on what was said and shown in this movie, it’s possible that Rogue could recover her powers. The professor mentions that Jean Grey is the only class 5 mutant he’s ever met, and Callisto mentions that Magneto is above a class 3, so he pretty much has to be a class 4 mutant. It doesn’t look like the cure is 100% effective on Magneto, so he might regain his powers in a future sequel. If Rogue is also a class 4 mutant (reasonable, if Callsto’s not and Pyro is), she might also get hers back.

86

Something that occurred to me: Scott and Jean never got married?

Also, Jean was just too uncontrollable. Eventually somebody was going to have to kill her, no way around it. She was atomizing people and the only 2 people who might have been able to calm her down she’s already destroyed.
I liked Cyclops in this one much better than the others. That’s not being snarky, we just actually saw some personality here. Also, Angel has a pretty useless power for a confrontation, so of course they didn’t use him much.

87

[QUOTE=KarlGrenze]
Ok, am I the only one who doesn’t see Kitty’s actions as weaseling, just as being friends? She could have done more if she wanted to supplant Rogue, instead she didn’t and remained a friend. And Bobby was looking out after Rogue, he wasn’t interested in Kitty in anything other than a friend.
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That’s how I saw it, too. He was holding Rogue’s hand during Xavier’s funeral, then picked up Kitty’s hand, too, when he saw she was so upset. I took the ice-skating outing as an attempt to boost Kitty’s spirits. To me it seemed like they were just friends (although I can understand why Rogue was so upset).

I was a little disappointed that Rogue took the cure (or appeared to take it – the dialogue in the scene was ambiguous and, as at least one other poster has noted, the scene cut away before we could see whether that hand-holding had any effect on Bobby), but the whole point was that she did what she wanted instead of what other people thought she should do. I would’ve done the same in her place.

I liked this movie. Not quite as much as the first one, but more than X2. But then again I’m an X-Men fanfic veteran, so I’m used to seeing vastly different approaches to the source material.

88

[QUOTE=Love Rhombus]
Something that occurred to me: Scott and Jean never got married?
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IIRC, in X2 she told Logan “I married a good guy.” But that’s the only reference to their marriage that I heard in any of the movies.

89

[QUOTE=ladybug]
IIRC, in X2 she told Logan “I married a good guy.” But that’s the only reference to their marriage that I heard in any of the movies.
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Okay, first off, I LOVED the movie. But… This was my problem.
The supposed ‘love triangle’ with Scott / Jean / Logan? Doesn’t come across as much of one. In the first two films, and now in this one, Scott is given no personalty except as jealous, sort-of flaky lover-boy with uncontrolled powers. Logan is the trully passionate protagonist and ‘bad boy’. C’mon. There’s a decision to be made here?
And if Scott and Jean were, in fact, married in the films, doesn’t it make Jean’s choices even less … Empathize-a-ble-with-a-ble? (Dang, I just can’t think of words today). Yes, I know the actor playing Wolvie is amazingly attractive. Yes, I know that, for whatever reason, the movies tend to focus on him and the Prof more than ANYONE else, but…
I dunno. The love triangle seemed forced and insanely lopsided to me. shrug

90

[QUOTE=ladybug]
IIRC, in X2 she told Logan “I married a good guy.” But that’s the only reference to their marriage that I heard in any of the movies.
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If that’s the scene i’m remembering (the “girls like the bad guys, but marry the good guys” one) i’m pretty sure she just says “we marry the good guy”.

91

According to Box Office Mojo, X3 had the 2nd largest opening day in history, and the 3rd largest single day gross in history. $44+ million. Gotta love it!

92

Just saw it a couple of hours ago and we really liked it. One of our top Ten? No. Well worth the time and money? Without a doubt. I agree with the couple of plot holes mentioned (the bridge thing) but it is what it is; an action flic based on a comic book. We had a good time.
Someone asked earlier if the chess piece moved. Yes, a little bit. My question is how did Magneto kill all those people and just walk away and sit in a park playing chess? No prision time?

Go see it. Have fun. Don’t over-analyze the thing. Enjoy.
And as far as age goes…just turned FIFTY last week.

93

[QUOTE=Nic2004]
My question is how did Magneto kill all those people and just walk away and sit in a park playing chess? No prision time?
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Obviously he was never captured. Things were chaotic at the end, and Eric slipped away in the confusion.

Yeah, that’s it.

94

[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
If that’s the scene i’m remembering (the “girls like the bad guys, but marry the good guys” one) i’m pretty sure she just says “we marry the good guy”.
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I was curious enough about this to review X2. As near as I can tell, the quote is: “Girls flirt with the dangerous guy. They don’t take him home. They marry the good guy.”

95

I may just be a big softie for these kinds of movies, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Perhaps my viewing pleasure was enhanced by the extremely attractive girl who inexplicably sat a seat away from me and seemed to know more about comics than some fanboys I know, but I digress…

Some quick thoughts:

Marsden was not only tolerable, but actually good in his role this time. It took 3 movies, and might be because he was only in it for a few minutes, but there you have it. I thought his comment about fast healing to Wolverine was a great way to go out.

Berry was mostly tolerable, finally. Every time she opened her mouth a part of me would cringe in anticipation of some dreadful one-liner. They spared us that much, though her eulogy was pretty weakly delivered. I did like her calling out Wolverine (If you’re with us, be with us) as representative of her blossoming leadership abilities. Even after having just lost the Prof and Cyclops, and with Jean running off, she was still telling Logan to shape up or ship out–essentially that his lone wolf complex wouldn’t be tolerated.

Was anyone else annoyed at the blatant plot device of having the mutants seeking the “cure” stand in a single file line? Outside the building? I imagine that even something as relatively routine as a flu shot has less of a depression-era breadline feel and more professionalism to the whole process, but with something so socially sensitive as this to just have them standing around with just a few cops for crowd control is silly.

The bridge scene, while impressive and host to one of the funniest one-off jokes, was utterly pointless from any logical perspective except eye-candy.

They could have skipped over the whole Bobby/Kitty/Marie ambiguous love triangle bit and used the time to give more background on other characters.

Angel was portrayed as a useless character, but he was a useless character. In the comics, didn’t they eventually give hiim metal wings that shot shards of metal or something to compensate for the fact that the ability to be mistaken for a seagull from a distance is not really as cool as it sounds?

I was disappointed that no one capitalized on Pyro’s obvious weakness… his reliance on his homemade Zippo. A little ice on the flint, say, or in the fuel line, for example, and he’d be completely neutralized.

As far as a sequel goes, supposedly this is the last one, however, IMDB has listings for both a Wolverine and a Magneto movie to be released in 2007. Perhaps the Sentinel/Trask introductions here were set-ups for one of them?

96

[QUOTE=FilmGeek]
which lost big time points for having one of the worst lines in cinema history, spoken by Storm to Toad’s bits. You know what line I mean. AWFUL.
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I’d like to chime agreement with this – anyone who rates X3 as lesser than X1 has forgotten the last 40 minutes of X1, which was pretty mediocre.

97

[QUOTE=soulmurk]
Angel was portrayed as a useless character, but he was a useless character. In the comics, didn’t they eventually give hiim metal wings that shot shards of metal or something to compensate for the fact that the ability to be mistaken for a seagull from a distance is not really as cool as it sounds?
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He got the metal wings when he was working for Apocalypse; I don’t think they shot anything, but I could be wrong.

More usefully, he’s supposed to have a healing factor that, while it’s nowhere near as strong as Wolverine’s, can be used on other people. A flying ambulance is pretty useful.

98

[QUOTE=ddgryphon]
I guess in Movie land Magneto can’t manipulate the iron in our bloodstream
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X-2 was on TV about a week ago. It established that Magneto can’t manipulate the normal level of iron in Human blood, but:

Mystique injects a prison guard with an enriched-iron solution. Magneto feels the elevated iron levels in the guard, extracts the iron, and uses it to break out of prison.

I liked X-3, though (as other people noted) it did skimp too much on the various characters. Rogue in particular – she isn’t as useless as people are saying; she could neutralize any mutant, especially a certain out-of-control psychokinetic mutant.

I don’t see why everybody’s dissing Angel – yeah, feathery wings are a lame power in comparison to regeneration, teleporting, and various methods of walking through walls. But Angel’s mutation is the wings, not the flying – when he’s airborne, it seems to me that he’s not using mutant powers at that point, so power-wise he might be undetectable. So he has great use as arial recon, transport, and fire support. One example, discounting the events of X-3: Have Angel carry Cyclops over a battlefield, providing Cyclops with a clean shot at just about any adversary.

Keep in mind that Mystique’s power isn’t immediately useful in combat, either; as far as I could tell, her combat ability is simply excellent conditioning and training. Her strength lies in infiltration, espionage, and similar tactics. The key point: A weak power used creatively can be more effective than a strong power used stupidly.

99

With Rogue’s mutant ability, if she can control it, she can be very good. As it is, what good for someone is sucking up mutant powers (briefly, and not something you do every day) when you cannot show affection to those near you?

100

[QUOTE=silenus]
Obviously he was never captured. Things were chaotic at the end, and Eric slipped away in the confusion.

Yeah, that’s it.
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::Jon Lovitz:: Yeaaahh… that’s the ticket! ::Jon Lovitz::