Fascinating reaction to a bad movie

Rating: 6/10 (26 May 2006)

I've just left the theater on opening night of The Last Stand, talked to a few people about their reactions to the film, and read several reviews on it as well. I found the third film in the X-Men series to be a major let down--not because it deviates from the X-Men comic book continuity (although it does), but more because The Last Stand is simply a bad movie. However, most people like it; despite myself, I'm awestruck and stunned.
The first X-Men was a good movie, though perhaps too hasty in its transition from realism to fantasy. The second film was VERY good, and built upon the world of the first film admirably while still maintaining a grip on the real world--which is something most comic book movies benefit from, since, in a world over-saturated with fantasy, things like mutant superpowers aren't nearly as impressive as they are in a world grounded in realism. Brian Singer's vision of the X-Men franchise was sizing up to be one of the best comic-to-film adaptations on the market.
But something's wrong here. Many people flatly liked X3, and understandably so, since it offers an abundance of pure spectacle (much of it extremely amusing, like Jones' Juggernaut, Jansen's phoenix moments and Iceman's final transformation into the blue-skinned persona familiar to comic fans) as well as many conventional, tried-and-true (ie, clichéd) plot points and themes. Beneath this circus of special effects and loosely tied-together subplots, though, lies an extremely weak screenplay. The marvelously patient pacing of the first two films is absent here, as X3 jumps right into the action and never lets up from it. The depth found in the characters developed in the first two films is not recreated in the new characters Beast, Angel, Shadowcat and Callipso, and in the case of existing character Pyro, is simply forgotten. The strong bonds formed between characters are not developed well in this film and appear forced, as in the case of Shadowcat and Iceman, Beast and Wolverine, Magneto and Dark Phoenix and many other cases. An unnecessary rabble of mutants is introduced to very little effect except for the purpose of spectacle, and other, more important and interesting characters from the first two films are ignored and left behind (who wouldn't want to see a Nightcrawler vs. Toad battle, a blooming affair between Storm and Nightcrawler).
The dialogue was chiche. Too many opportunities in the heat of passionate, dramatic moments were wasted, where additional dialogue could have added strength to the characters but was simply left out in favor of some crappy line a dozen other movies have already used. Timing was too compressed, this film would have benefited from some scenes being beefed up and drawn out, especially during the first act. Characters looked fake when in flight, and Beast looked ridiculous in the heat of battle (whereas, for example, Nightcrawler, Wolverine and Lady Deathstryke all managed to put on a great show in fight scenes in the second film). That cop-out ending with Professor X winding up alive after the credits was a yellow move too.
The more I think of it, the more it bothers me. Not so much that the movie was bad, because, as has been proved time and again, studios are all but uninterested in making a good movie when a blockbuster spectacle will suffice. What bothers me is that NOBODY REALIZES HOW BAD THIS IS. Maybe I just care too much about plot, and I can't accept that the public thinks its trivial.
But I have a dream, of a world where blockbusters can be both spectacular and well-told... *sigh*