X-Men: The Last Stand

X-Men: The Last Stand. I saw it last night.

That's right. Spoilers, bitches! Stop reading. Go see the movie and then come back. It opens today! I went to all of the trouble to see it last night at midnight. Sheeeesh.

Well, to start off, a couple of disclaimers. I had 4 hours of sleep and then worked for 11 hours. Needless to say, I was very tired. Still, excited about seeing the flick. I bring the girl with me to see. She, not being a big comic book fan,but a good sport and all about it. I have a couple of beers since we are way early to meet some friends. I told her to look out for my friend, Mike. "Just look for an Asian dude with glasses." At that point, we looked up and saw a gaggle of Asian folk gathered in front of the theater. Must have been  2 for 1 at the laundromat. Hey, I'm Asian. I can get away with that! We get in the theater and right away, I was uncomfortable. It was so damn hot in there. Seriously. Isn't it normally freezing in a theater? It was that type of hot where it makes you doze off. And, already being tired.....

You see where I'm going. I don't know if I can give this a fair review. What with all of the other circumstances happening. We had some annoying people sitting behind us. Things just weren't looking good.

The movie starts off and immediately feels like it was dragging. And, due to the tiredness and heat, I started dozing a bit. The girl had to poke me and get me alerted as if to say, "If I have to sit through this, so do you!". All in good fun, of course! She made a good point as well. A lot of the actors just seemed bored. The dragginess of it made the semi-stolen plot line fall flat a bit. I say semi-stolen because it's widely  known that they took a major idea about curing the mutants from Whedon/Cassaday's run on Astonishing X-Men. The action sequences were cool. As expected. Hugh Jackman as Wolverine was his normal brooding and engaging self. I really like Famke Janssen as Dark Phoenix. Gave her a chance to show her dark side. Yes, Halle got more screen time. But, is that necessarily a good thing? A couple of new editions: Kelsey Grammer as The Beast was basically Frasier in blue fur. Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde (the 3rd girl to play that role in the franchise) was intriguing and fun to watch.

What else? Random and seemingly shock value type deaths. A big fight scene or 2. Cool effects. Not a bad story line. Fun new characters. Yet, it seemed to just take it real slow. One friend also made a good point as well. It seemed a bit sillier than the previous ones. I feel like I need to see it again when I am more awake and comfortable. Until then, I just have to say it was.....

okay.

Nothing spectacular. We'll see what the critics and fans say. Most were worried when Brett Ratner took over. He's basically a hired gun. I wasn't the big Brett hater like everyone else. That is, until I read the recent article in Entertainment Weekly. He came across as a whiny little bitch!

I encourage you all to go see it. It's a comic book movie after all! I'm going to see it again, so I can assess it with a better mind and well being over all. Make sure you stay until after the credits. There's a little bit that might suggest this isn't "The Last Stand" after all. If it isn't, maybe Bryan Singer will come back from his world of Krypton and put the franchise back on track.

I give it a thumbs sideways for now. Maybe after I see it again, I'll have a more definite opinion. Until then, go check it.

Comments

[mike.]

I'm a bit of a Ratner-hater, I admit, but I thought a lot of the movie's failures was a result of other factors -- the studio's rumored attitude of just-make-the-damn-thing I thought really showed in some pretty shoddy writing and some pretty bad effects. A lot of these problems might have still been there had Singer directed. Or, perhaps with a proven serious filmmaker like Singer, the studio would have relented a little bit vis-a-vis schedule, rewrites, what have you. Who knows?

I haven't read many X-Men books and just wanted to see a continuation of/conclusion to what I think is the really good story told in the first two movies...and I thought X3 sucked harder than Lois Lane on Superman's birthday.