Noisy, trainwreck ending to the series....

Rating: 6/10 (28 May 2006)

The third and final installment in this iteration of the big screen X-Men is easily the most disappointing. It is a fair movie, but not up to snuff with the other 2 entries, and for easily identifiable reasons.
First,direction. Bryan Singer is out, Brett Ratner is in. When Singer defected Marvel's X-Men to helm the DC Superman project, all fans of the series instantly got a bad feeling in their gut, and it can now be confirmed as justified. Ratner hit gold with the Rush Hour movies, but has also screwed up Red Dragon, After the Sunset, and Money Talks. But, Ratner didn't mess this movie up all on his own, he got himself some really bad writing to boot.
Next, writing. David Hayter begged off after doing 1 and 2 with co-writer Zak Penn, but Penn is beginning to look more Garfunkle than Simon. Penn contributed to the scripts for Elektra and Fantastic Four, which alone should have disqualified him from ever making another superhero movie, but until he was separated from Hayter on an X-Men script, his lack of writing chops remained at least partly hidden.
In Hayter's place, Ratner signed on Simon Kinberg, a British screenwriter who helped write xXx:State of the Union, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. This choice reminds me of Marvel putting Mark Steven Johnson in charge of ruining Daredevil, Elektra, and soon Ghost Rider, based upon his fine work writing Jack Frost and Simon Birch? In this regard, Marvel (and Hollywood overall) shows it's liberal stripes; only in Washington DC and Hollywood do people who completely screw things up get wads of cash and more important projects to screw up.
So, needless to say, X3 was doomed from the start, and it is a credit to the strong character foundation left by Singer that it did not completely suck.
And finally, the end result on screen. X3:Last Stand is uneven, overly dark, and a bit schizophrenic. The momentum from X2 is all that initially propels the movie, and the constant shifting of the story and characters kills that pretty fast. And, apparently, Ratner has decided to use the Hernando Cortez method of film-making, burning his ships behind him to make sure no one can come and try to make an X4. As a matter of fact, the wanton reckless nature with which he treats this franchise bordered on startling. And I couldn't help but think as I watched that Ratner was simply firing for effect at times, using shock to hold his audience where Singer would have applied solid, old fashioned drama.
Most of the established characters are misused, ignored, or just plain cast aside, and the unscripted omission of Nightcrawler is particularly distracting. New characters are jumbled in with little or no foreplay, the net effect being many of them serving as window dressing more than anything else. Vinny Jones' juggernaut is most notably squandered, and that Angel was even in this movie - offering an early story element, but otherwise gliding through - is the only thing leading me to believe that another sequel could rise out of the ashes of this one. Kellsey Grammar's Beast is interesting and true to the comic book, but borderline out of place with the choppy bits of story he gets. The core characters lack consistency in this story, so secondary characters like Beast, Collossus, Angel, etc, struggle to take root themselves. And Bobby Drake/Iceman's flirt affair with Kitty Pride was just plain run of the mill bad Hollywood writing, impeding his effort to be established as a main character here.
It's always hard to judge how good/bad a sequel is on it's own merits, outside of the larger context of a serial, and this is especially true with a sequel like this one that is the culmination of a series I am so fond of. Thus, my harsh judgement is not solely a reflection of X3, but is in part resentment for Hollywood studio fatheads that gave X3 to Ratner, Penn, and Kinberg, throwing away the capital Singer had built up the past 6 years in this tossed together finale. I mean, how can us fans who pay our $10 to see a movie spot a disaster in the making like this writing/directing team a mile away, while studio executives whose multi-million dollar existences are funded by avoiding said disasters cluelessly blunder forth as they did? I mean, did someone flip a coin to select this team or something? Has anyone in Hollywood seen xXx:State of the Union? After the Sunset? Fantastic Four? Hello? If you were to leave a DVD of any of those three movies on a sidewalk in a town that has pooperscooper laws, you would be fined.
X3 is perhaps less horrible that I make it sound - it certainly has it's moments - but calling it anything less than disappointing when placed along X1 and X2 would be misleading.
2.5 stars