Reviews

Being a late-comer to the X-Men cinematic franchise (not unlike the way I belatedly became a Matrix mark), I am blessedly free of the purist tendentiousness that so often biases reviews of comics-based movies of this sort. I also think that my relative disinterest in the behind-the-scenes goings-on about old directors leaving and new directors taking over frees me up to look at "The Last Stand" in its own light and in the context of the film trilogy itself.

That said, my take on X-3 is pretty similar to what I thought about "Revenge of the Sith": it gave us only what we should have expected, and not much else.

In "Sith" you knew what was going to happen - Anakin Skywalker turning to the dark side and becoming Darth Vader, the Republic crumbling into the Empire, the Jedi Order annihilated. In X-3, the "war" between mutants and the rest of humanity that had been the undercurrent of the first two films had to finally play out on the big screen.

And it does, spectacularly. As I wrote about "Attack of the Clones," the special effects X-3 are mind-blowing and more than justify the price of admission. Heck, what Magento does to the Golden Gate bridge does that all by itself. You can tell that by how it is only upon reflection afterward that you come to realize how thin and clichéd the plot (what there was of it) really is.

There are two story tracks that have almost no connection with each other: Magneto's long-promised "war" and the resurrection of Dr. Jean Grey. Of the two, at least the former was established in the first two installments as a looming possibility; the latter existed only for the purpose of offing two central characters for no plot-evident reason, and the first fatality doesn't even take place on-screen. A rather ignominious end, it seems to me, especially as Grey ends up dying again at the end, and in highly implausible fashion.

As to Magneto's gotterdammerung, it had a few good moments - his rebuke of Pyro for dissing the Professor, showing that even though the two mutant leaders ended up on opposite sides, they still had a bond of mutual respect; the aforementioned special effects, as when Magneto liberated Mystique from the police convoy by crushing and throwing aside cars and a semi truck like they were soda cans; and his smirk at a family on the Golden Gate bridge locking the doors to their car - but on the whole Magneto was reduced to a one-dimensional "bwa ha ha ha" villain. Before you could believe that he didn't see the irony in a survivor of the Holocaust becoming a racist, fascist, would-be tyrant; Ian McKellan brought a nobility that made his blinding self-righteousness understandable, almost compelling. It fit in with the moral conundrum of what to do about the "mutant problem" in general, and the eternal tension between security and safety on one hand and freedom and liberty for all on the other. Here Magneto was an unreasoning, tunnel-visioned baddie. Also appallingly stupid, as when he abandons a "cured" Mystique because she's no longer "one of them," after she took the medicinal dart intended for him, which made an instant enemy of his closest associate who knew everything about all his plans. Dismissing all the followers he recruited as "pawns" to serve as cannon fodder was disappointing character contempt as well.

Then again, the "war" itself was little more than a skirmish, despite all the pyrotechnics. Why didn't Magneto take a longer range view? Try to recruit more than just a few hundred followers, and from across the country - perhaps even in the government itself? Think big, like, say, nuclear blackmail (He COULD control metals, right?)? What did he have to gain by attacking Alcatraz besides eliminating the cure and its source, which was a purely defensive objective that would make him and his "brotherhood" even bigger targets?

Magneto wasn't alone in being miniaturized, though. How is it that the government needed Mystique to find the "brotherhood's" secret staging area, but the whole inconspicuous lot of them marched right onto the Golden Gate bridge *against traffic*? And that six X-Men (and -Women) could take on hundreds of fellow mutants like the hero in a "B" kung fu flick? Oh, yeah, that's right, Storm - Halle Berry's snarl as she fried Callisto was tremendous.

Ah, well. At least the introduction of several new mutants that get no development whatsoever is explicable. After all, you're not supposed to care about cannon fodder. Or, I suppose, a Cookie Monster-esquire Frasier Crane. And Iceman and Rogue do get satisfying development and a nice resolution to their romantic obstacle.

Just one parting tip: Stay through the credits. You won't regret it.