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X-Men: The Last Stand June 5, 2006 |
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There’s a moment in the latter proceedings of “X-Men: The Last Stand”, something I like to refer to in movies of this ilk as the Big Scene, that both confounds and irritates me for its complete lack of subtlety and necessity, yet thrills me just the same for its total disregard for logic, in lieu of, you know, looking boss cool. Here’s the setup, for the few of you who didn’t contribute to the record setting 120 million dollar opening weekend: there’s a new government-issue serum being produced on Alcatraz Island that will cure the genes in mutants that makes them special, or as some suggest, “diseased”. The evil mutants, lead by the metal shifting super villain Magneto (Ian McKellen), consider this new serum an affront to the mutant kind, and, with the newfound support of ex X-Men hero Phoenix, who has risen from the dead to become the Dark Phoenix (Dark = Wicked), marches a band of toughs to San Francisco to wage war on the laboratory harboring the secret ingredient to the potion, which completely “heals” the defect mutant gene and renders the powers provided by them useless (i.e., no more metal works for Magneto). Upon arriving in San Francisco, with about 100 or so bad mutants in tow, Magneto, needing a way to transport the band of outsiders across the harbor to the ex-prison island, commandeers with his powers the Golden Gate Bridge, which magically stretches, after some wizardry, from shore to island in a remarkably unnecessary feat of super villainy and showoffmanship. Here’s my problem; earlier in the movie we learn that Jean Grey/Phoenix (Famke Janssen) is the most powerful mutant of all time, capable of levitating thousands of objects at a time on a whim, and that, once coerced by Magneto to the Dark Side (different franchise, I know, but same concept), she wishes to exact a painful hurt on those who oppose their rebellious right to live as genetic super freaks, begging the question, why doesn’t she just float the crew to the island with her sick powers? What’s up with the dramatics of moving an entire bridge, and tactically announcing your presence, when the easy thing to do is just fly the mile and be received unawares? My theory, and by theory I don’t mean to suggest that I actually lost sleep conducting a master thesis on the subject, is that, in the heat of the moment, Phoenix took Magneto aside (off camera, of course), and suggested the simple solution, to which he replied, “Yes my dear, but who’d pay to see floating mutants when you can give them the destruction of a national landmark instead, all for a few million dollars worth of computer effects shots?” You see, I agree with Magneto’s thinking, because one, he’s right, movies like this have to thrive on spectacle because its plot, dialogue, and characters are all on the sleepy side of predictability, thus making it worthwhile for the mildly intelligent moviegoer to latch onto something other than basic filmic aesthetics, which are hard to find, and two, because flying bridges are ultra cool. If you’re going to get nothing else out of a nearly two-hour mutant film, at least take pleasure in the meaninglessness of destructive bad guys and their will to blow up big things as some kind of political message. When a comic book franchise reaches its third outing, and the characters become tiring, the actors start mailing it in, and the dialogue has all the zip of a sleeping turtle, than there’s nothing left but decent effects, and “X-Men: The Last Stand” has those in spades, it’s just too bad everything else is missing in action. I used to like this franchise, with its neat superheroes Wolverine, Storm, Cyclops, Rogue, and now Beast (Kelsey Grammer, in blue fur), and its message that being different is inherently better than conforming to a lame, brain-dead crowd, but this third edition has dumbed down the original intelligence of director Bryan Singer’s vision (new director Brett Ratner couldn’t hold Singer’s viewfinder, let alone equal his brilliance as an actual movie director), and what is left is just another effects extravaganza with a story, and characters we hardly care anything about anymore. I know this stuff makes hundreds of millions of dollars in a few weeks during a typically dull summer, and it’ll make just as much again in two years when “X-Men: the Final Last Stand, Definitely” hits theaters to salivating Hugh Jackman/Halle Berry fan boys and girls (who you’re geeking over is a personal sexual choice, I guess), but I’ve lost interest, and no matter how many bridges, Ford Pintos, and softball bats Magneto decides to move with his fingertips, it’s all white noise at this point, and sadly, the comic book nerd inside me just gasped for his last dying breath. by Adam Suraf
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