X MEN 3

X MEN 3 THE LAST STAND
By Ken Leicht

When negotiations with Bryan Singer hit a snag and he ultimately bailed to do SUPERMAN RETURNS, the members of Geek Nation were understandably upset. Things had been going so well. Would a new director fuck things up? The terror mounted when it was announced that Brett Rattner would be stepping in to direct. While Rattner had been successful directing the action packed RUSH HOUR films, he has mostly been regarded as a hack. So basically everybody was in an uproar. When a very negative review of the script hit the web, everyone pretty much began the dreading. After seeing the end result though, I think all the hating was wasted.

X-Men 3 opened huge and the critics were pretty mixed. The geeks decried the revisionist take on the Dark Phoenix story line and the mainstream critics just pretty much did their usual tongue in cheek snarky dismissals. Perhaps it was because of all of the negative buzz that I went in with very little in the way of expectations. Much to my surprise, I not only liked it but I really liked it.

There’s a lot going on to be sure. We begin with both Logan aka Wolverine and Cyclops still mourning the loss of Jean. When Cyclops goes to visit the lake where she died, he is shocked to see her appear out of the water. At first she seems like the normal Jean but soon afterwards she shows that she is no longer her old self. She is in fact, the Dark Phoenix, a powerful but dangerously unstable mutant.

Meanwhile, a pharmaceutical company has found a supposed cure for the mutants. Now all of the mutants must decide whether or not to take it. This event triggers the long simmering civil war between the philosophy of blending in espoused by Professor X(Patrick Stewart) and the “Mutants are superior and should rule the world” school led by Magneto(Ian McKellan).

Magneto assembles a rogue’s gallery of mutants to stop the cure while the X Men have to bring up some new recruits from Xavier’s academy. Stepping up to help the fight are Collossus, Kitty Pride and Iceman.

A lot is crammed into the roughly 1 ½ hour running time. Both the Dark Phoenix and the Cure story lines are lifted from the comics. There are several major deaths and battles and subplots. To go into them all would just confuse. Remarkably, despite all that’s going on and all of the zillions of characters, somehow Rattner pulled up a satisfying sequel. There are a couple of great set pieces. The battle in the house is particularly amazing and the Golden Gate Bridge sequence is fantastic.

All of the characters get some good screen time and some good moments. More time is given Halle Berry’s Storm character and she earns it. Of course there’s never enough Wolverine but he’s definitely in top furious form. Ian McKellan is WAY over the top as Magneto but it’s all in good fun.

It should probably be noted that I was not a big comic reader so I don’t have the baggage of the original text to get in my way. If so, I might have been annoyed by the deviations. But as a comic reading friend of mine noted, the way the films have been done sort of necessitated the changes. I can’t say what they are here without spoiling it. But if like me, you are unaware, then you will probably enjoy it as much as I did. And if you are, try to get past it because I think it really works.