X-Weekend

[kingandy]

Saturday: Popped around to Russ's house to watch X-Men and X-Men 2. As good as I remembered. We also watched the Incredibles, which may in retrospect have been a mistake as it raised the bar in terms of imaginative application of superpowers.

Sunday: Saw X-Men 3: The Last Stand. Overall: A bit patchy. There were some good ideas and scenes, but they were tied together in awkward ways and, in general, handled really badly. Basically I think they tried to squeeze too much in - the Jean Grey plot had no real bearing on the Mutant Cure one, and should really have been a separate movie done in an entirely different way. (Whether X3 should have been Phoenix or Mutant Cure is debatable. I could have stood to have Jean dead for an entire movie, just to see the mourning process.)

There was, it seemed to me, a world of not thinking things through. If nothing else, if you think about it, using the cure as a weapon is more acceptable than offering it to people for free. In the former case you're punishing people who misuse their powers by taking them away. In the latter, you're telling people that it's not OK just to be who you are.

Also filed under "underdeveloped" was the use of powers. Storm had a few good moments (though she's now spinning around and throwing herself at people instead of hitting them with weather, WTF is up with that), but aside from that things were very mundane. Exemplary of this was the Iceman/Pyro showdown which consisted largely of standing 10 metres apart and blasting a steady stream at each other. These two have perhaps the most visual and versatile powers in the movie and they just stood there spurting. Bobby could have iced up the floor, StJohn could have tried reaching his flame around behind him - any number of things. Very disappointing.

The movie did have its high points, though, possibly the greatest of which was a gun that was loaded in Act I and wasn't fired until after the closing credits. I also liked Magneto's mutant army, but - like so many things in the movie - these were vastly underused and underdeveloped. I could also have stood to, er, see more of Colossus (*cough*).

So, yeah, in summary: entertaining; pretty; somewhat scatty. So not unlike myself, then.

Following the movie I proceeded directly to Bolton where I joined si_lloyd and his lovely wife Lindsay to celebrate her impending birthday. We sang Kareoke. I did Your Song (the Moulin Rouge version) and Nobody Does It Better. I was fantastic. Oh, some other people sang too, they were alright I guess.

Comments

Great minds

[renniek.livejournal.com]

Separate Phoenix/Jean Grey and mutant cure plots is exactly what I thought as the single big thing that could have fixed a lot of what was wrong with the film. So much material there that could have made great cinema, but was skipped over entirely or wasted in a quick throwaway shot or comment when it deserved a couple of scenes.
Lask of good use of powers was another one I picked up on - why the fcuk is Storm bothering to enter into one-on-one physical combat with the I-can-sense-other-mutants woman (the character wasn't memorable enough for me to pick up on her name)? Can't she just fry her with lightning or something?

Overall, a disappointment - lots of potential, virtually none of it realised

Re: Great minds

[kingandy]

Yeah, that's another thing. Most mutants have one power (even if it's a big one that encompasses lots of little ones, like "controlling the weather"); "sense mutants woman" (again, shockingly underdeveloped, I don't think I even caught her name) got superspeed as well, for no readily apparent reason. I think the only real reason was so that they could legitimately beat her up.