Part One: The Hollow Hype
Whenever I would get angry as a child and bitch to my
parents, they would always tell me to write it down. While I'm not sure why because that would
just get me pissy later, it stuck around in the form of me writing reviews
about terrible movies detailing precisely why I hate them.
There was one movie that stuck with me like a broken fucking
thumb (the adjective "sore" doesn't cut it here). One that was different from all other movies
that I hated because it stole something that I truly loved from my
childhood. That piece of shit is X-Men 3.
I was counting the days until this movie came out. Bryan Singer had done such a great job with
X-Men 1 and 2. I mean sure there were
some things that I would have done differently, but overall they were a great representation
of both the classic X-Men franchise and the new Ultimate X-Men series that came
out in tandem with the movies.
One thing that I have to give Singer credit for is how well
he represents the tragedy of the X-Men. The X-Men are a group of young adults (and in
so many instances, kids) facing constant peril against foes that could wipe out
humanity. They live in a society that
hates the existence of them and their kind.
They are constantly watching those they love get killed, and they know
that they will never live to see the ideal society of tranquility between
humans and mutants which they are all fighting for. The story of the X-Men is sad; a tragedy
wrapped up in spandex and one-liners, and Singer represents that well in X-1
and 2.
For some reason Beast
always got the short end of this stick
The problem was, Singer wasn't the director of X-Men 3,
Brett Ratner was. This movie finally unveiled
Dark Phoenix, my favorite (anti) hero of not only X-Men, but all of Marvel. Singer had built it up beautifully in X-2,
showing the Phoenix slowly consume Jean Gray, and eventually emerge by her
self-sacrificial act at Alkali Lake in an obvious nod to X-Men issue #101 when
the Phoenix first emerges. I was so
pumped to see the Dark Phoenix take over and tear shit up.
Part Two: Brewing of the Shit Storm
I have no complaints regarding the first twenty minutes of
the movie. You start off by seeing
Professor X and Magneto abducting (see: helping) a young Jean Gray and Angel
going that awkward stage that every young boy goes through of growing wings
then trying to cut them off. This is followed
by the first (long overdue) appearance of the sentinels. The president, probably getting jealous that
Teddy Roosevelt got a stuffed bear named after him brought Beast in to be his
cuddle buddy, and Magneto is trying to pick random mutants up off the streets
(I would make a joke about him making sure that they have their shots but that
would be incredibly insensitive). Except
for a couple of cheesy lines, everything is going hunky-dory.
Then comes the twenty minute mark. The terribleness starts off slow. Beast visits Leech at Warrington labs and
doesn't say shit about these guys keeping this kid as his lab rat. I mean look where he lives. They keep him in a single locked room which
has nothing on the walls aside from a small window that he has to stand on his
bed to see out of. The room is creepy,
it's entirely white and sterile looking.
They don't even give him a fucking chair to sit in while he plays his
X-Box 360 with a white controller (I would make a red-ring joke but that would
clash with the white aura). Beast just
looks at his hand which is now normal like a teenage dude who just realized
what it could be used for, and walks out with a little skip.
Okay, brace yourselves.
Up until right now we had hopes and dreams about what this movie could
be and a mostly unadulterated respect for the X-Men movie franchise. If I could chose my exact moment of death, it
would have been right here, so I could die with my respect still intact for
these movies. If you haven't watched X-Men 3 yet, watch it up until right after
that scene with Beast then turn that shit off, cause nobody should see what's
about to come next.
Cyclopes comes prancing up to Alkali Lake on his motorcycle
trying to both cope the loss of Jean and to deal with the voices in his head
(or maybe he is just going to the lake to sing a song to the lake about the
lake) . Wait a second you say, did I say
prancing? Yes, and before I go into my
diatribe about this movie let me pre-rant.
The one thing that pissed me off the most about Bryan
Singer's X-Men was his portrayal of Cyclopes.
In the comics, Cyclopes was the powerful, charismatic (and dare I say
dashing?) leader of the X-Men who emulated Xavier's dream for a co-existence of
humans and mutants. He not only leads
the X-Men into combat, but helps shape the soul of the team by ensuring that
their moral compass stays true. His
leadership is evident by their teamwork and moral decisions that they make when
he is not around.
"I'm going to
eyeball you so hard..."
In the movies, Cyclopes is that annoying guy bitching
because his girlfriend is into the tough guy with the hair on the chest and the
muscles (but I mean can you really blame her, did you see him in Les
Miserables!?). He doesn't really say
shit, and aside from a couple of small commands never really shows any
leadership. The low point came in X2
when Wolverine, Rogue, Pyro, and Iceman were in Cyclopes' Mazda (okay I'll give
him points for that). They turn on the
stereo and Backstreet Boys comes on. I
mean what the fuck Bryan Singer? Your
portrayal of Cyclopes as a flat, unlovable character isn't bad enough so you
had to write in that he loved blasting Nick Carter? After that you can't even blame X3 director
Brett Ratner for what is about to happen next.
At this point Cyclopes is such an uninteresting and unlovable character
that the uneducated audience just wants him gone.
Part Three: 26 Minutes and 22 Seconds
Okay, I hope that you enjoyed that, because now things get
really shitty. As I was saying, shitty
movie Cyclopes comes prancing up to Alkali Lake, presumably listening to N'SYNC
help him deal with his feels of losing his #1 grill, and starts looking at the
water with his laser pointers. The
Phoenix then comes out of the water in a bad ass way that is truly the only
fair representation of the Phoenix in the entire movie. As she stands there, my rage starts to
build.
Jean Gray is played by Famke Janssen, and it was abundantly
clear that she was in her 40s at the time.
Hollywood has some kind of unwritten (or hell for all I know it is
written) rule that all female actors need to be young and hot, which is really
shitty and just furthers our society's misconception of what beauty is and who
deserves to be an actress. In this case
however, this rule should apply. In the
comics, the Phoenix was a god; a life-force which represented vitality, beauty,
and ecstasy. I'll get to this more
later, but at the time Jean Grey was in her twenties, making the selection of
Janssen for this role in no way appropriate.
Jean Grey's 20's
really hit her hard
Anyway, the Phoenix
then takes off Scott's glasses to control his laser vision and see his
eyes. I liked this, we can see the
compassion that these two shared for each other while being introduced to the
sheer power that the Phoenix
wields.
They then start to share some spit, and at 26 minutes and 22
seconds, the movie officially begins to fall apart, hard. We see Jean Grey's transformation into the
Dark Phoenix, and Ratner begins to tear apart everything that we know and love
(yes I'm including you, if you've gotten this far into this review and are not
a fan of X-Men, then maybe we should grab some dinner or something).
During the Dark Phoenix Saga, the one thing that always kept
her grounded was Scott. He was the one
thing that Jean Grey had any control over.
She would make sure that he was never seriously hurt, and he could
distract Dark Phoenix long enough for the rest of the group to try to gain the
upper hand. The fact that the writers
have Dark Phoenix kill Cyclopes for no reason other than shits and giggles
spits in the face of the Saga. I
honestly don't know what infuriated me more: the fact that she killed him, or
the fact that it happened off screen (an insult to the injury that was his
character in the movies). This one scene
resulted in a permanent increase in my blood pressure and decrease in my
dopamine production.
Part Four: Redefining the Phrase "Rock Bottom"
Wolverine and Storm find Jean and bring her back to the
mansion. Professor X then explains that
she is capable of incredible destruction and for that reason he put mental
blocks in her brain, partitioning her power into a separate personality which
calls itself the Phoenix. I was actually
okay with this. Would I have preferred
them to write the Phoenix as a god like it is in the comics? Sure. But that's a lot to ask of a movie and may
come off as corny to those who haven't read the comics (there are a lot of
these moments in X-Men). I felt that
this was a perfectly acceptable explanation of her going all murder crazy and
being able to stop a freaking flood from engulfing them.
Fast forward. Nothing else of note really happens in the
next fifteen minutes aside from Angel refusing to be cured of his mutation (I
also liked this, it parallels the issues that he and his dad had with his
mutation in the comics). Professor X, Storm, and Wolverine arrive at Jean's
childhood home and find Magneto and the brotherhood, umm, waiting for
them? They were kind of just standing at
the entrance and the X-Men were surprised to see them so they didn't arrive at
the same time. Whatever, I can't get too
distracted by small examples of bad writing, I'll miss the bigger
catastrophe.
Professor X and Magneto find Jean chilling all Exorcist-like
messing with gravity. She gets pissed, and becomes Dark Phoenix. Here we get the truth on how horrible Dark
Phoenix is going to be portrayed. In the
comics, she turns into this terrifying yet beautiful being who lets you know in
the most bad-ass of ways how exactly you fucked up and continues to taunt you
about how she's immortal and you're an idiot for thinking that you can even
scratch her. It's bad ass, and every
time you read it you can't help but think "yup, they're fucked," even
though you know that it always turns out okay.
"This is only but
a taste of my true power"
The movie's portrayal is abysmal. She just stands there,
looking all scary and ugly. The fact
that gravity warps around her is pretty cool, except that was never her
thing. She would engulf herself flame
that takes the form of the Phoenix. The
larger and scarier the bird looks, the more screwed you knew you were, and the
whole time she is talking shit about how screwed you are. None of this happens in the movie. She stands motionless and silent, and just
stares. There is no fire bird, there are
no taunts, just stupid, silent anger.
"CAAAAAWWWWW!!!"
Part Five:
Wolverine Fever
The Phoenix then kills Professor Xavier (also dumb, but not
outrageous. He "dies" several
times in the comics through various ways).
The X-Men mourn, and a bunch of unimportant dialogue happens. Back to Phoenix. She has now joined Magneto. This makes no sense. The Phoenix turns dark because of its lust
for ecstasy and power. In the comics she
experiences euphoria blowing up the M'Kraan Crystal and later causes a star to
supernova, killing 5 billion aliens, in
a search for that same feeling. She is
not inheritably evil, she just craves having that feeling again. In X3, she joins Magneto just because she is
now "evil."
Nothing much else of note happens for a while. Wolverine goes to say hi to Jean but Magneto
gets jealous and makes him leave. This
scene pissed me off because the entire time those two were talking shit to each
other about her, Jean is just standing in the background not saying anything. Dark Phoenix isn't much of a fan of people
talking about it when she's right there, but apparently in the movie it doesn't
give a shit. More nonsense happens when
the president sends about 35 troops to tackle a small army of mutants (several
of which could take on those 35 troops all by themselves).
We're then greeted with a scene of Wolverine inspiring the
X-Men to make the exact same mistake the president did. This scene really embodies how overly
obsessed the X-Men franchise is with Wolverine.
Don't get me wrong, I love Wolverine, he is one of my favorite
characters. He is so interesting and
complex that there are several comic spin-offs devoted solely to him. The cinematic universe take this too far by
having him be pretty much the focus character in each movie.
"RED! THE BLOOD
OF ANGRY... woops sorry, wrong movie"
Now they are having him act as the leader of the X-Men? This never happened. Except in a few random issues, Wolverine was generally
in the fringe of the group. Like in the movies,
he would often leave for long periods of time and when he came back he always
had a "I'm going to do shit my way" attitude.
Having him take the leadership role not only breaks
character for him but it further stifles Storm's character. Like Cyclopes, I felt that she never really
got the chance to develop as much as she should have. What really pissed me off is that they set
her up to take up Xavier's mantle in the beginning of the movie, got to this
point, and for some reason thought "You know what this movie really
needs? More Wolverine."
Part Six: One Man's Lust for Discontinuity
Finally, we're nearing the climax (hehe). Magneto throws caution to the wind and uses
the Golden Gate Bridge as a platform to get his army to Warrington labs, which
I got to admit is pretty damn cool.
Aside from the crappy CGI (seriously, you know we're getting old when
CGI from 2006 is considered crappy; go
back and look, it's really bad), this is my favorite scene in the movie. This is Magneto in his true form. He loves reckless, grandiose displays of his
ability to help both accomplish a goal and terrorize the human population. This
scene shows how powerful he really is.
Luckily graphics have
improved in the past nine years
San Francisco then experiences the fastest sunset in
recorded history as day turns to night in a matter of seconds. In a further display of Ratner's blatant love
for continuity errors, the lights of several of the recently-abandoned cars are
suddenly on. Magneto then watches as his
army charges and accomplishes absolutely nothing.
Magneto's complete disregard for the well-being of his
followers is yet another thing that pissed me off. Sure, he would unblinkingly sacrifice
somebody for a purpose at times, but he always cared about his followers. In his eyes, they were the future, and he
wouldn't have just stood there and watch a good chunk of them get neutered
without lifting a finger. Sure they had
plastic guns, but there is metal everywhere.
I mean what the fuck, you took the trouble of carrying the god damn
Golden Gate bridge, why not just pick up their guard towers, which are made of
metal, and smash the moronically close formations that they are standing in?
After the solders attack Magneto, he then has Arclight shatter
their weapons. I'm going to skip past
asking why this wasn't just done in the first place and point out that at the
very most five minutes have passed and we went from daylight to deep nightfall. Oh yeah, and when the X-Men fly over and view
the scene, most of the abandoned cars have their lights on. Maybe that one family who were stuck on the
bridge got scared and decided to turn them on? Storm then switches the plane into stealth
mode, because apparently they've been flying unshielded over the United
States. Didn't they learn that wasn't a
good idea in X2?
The X-Men land, and start battling against (or slaughtering
in Wolverine's case) the Brotherhood of Mutants. A low-point is reached when Juggernaut
charges through the soldiers which makes the sound of a bowling ball knocking
over pins. Ellen Page, who has yet to
get knocked up by Michael Cera, goes running after him, and sets up the scene
for the high point when he yells "I'm the Juggernaut bitch!" in a nod
to the hilarious Youtube parody of the X-Men cartoons.
After 98% of his force his depleted, Magneto finally decides
to get involved, and Wolverine again steps out of character and takes the role
as the leader. Iceman and Pyro go make
out behind the building, and this gives Bobby Drake the confidence that he
needs to enter Iceman's true form.
Wolverine, Colossus (who has said maybe two lines), and Beast give
Magneto a little booster shot to help him feel better. This removes Magneto as a threat, signaling to
the relieved audience that this shindig is almost over.
Part Seven: Where the Fuck are My Beta Blockers?
Magneto then looks over at Jean, and the audience is
reminded that the coolest and most powerful mutant has yet to do or say a
single god damned thing. Her inaction
changes when a bunch of soldiers come up and try to give her a chill pill (see:
spray her with thousands of rounds) and she murders them all. Dark Phoenix is now going all out, and Logan
turns to Storm and says the most moronic line of the movie: "I'm the only
one who can stop her, go." What the
fuck? What in the hell gives him that
idea? This is why Wolverine shouldn't be leader, because he says stupid stuff
like that.
In every other Dark Phoenix fight, the X-Men only stop her
by getting their ass kicked as a team long enough that the Dark Phoenix gets
overconfident and one of them gets the drop on her. She is one of, if not the most, powerful
being in existence in the Marvel universe.
In Unlimited X-Men, she makes Apocalypse, who is immortal and has taken
over the world several times, beg for mercy.
It's not like he can just walk up and stab her in the chest.
"Hey bae"
Oh no wait, that is exactly what he does. I feel that I've ranted enough about
everything that's wrong about the Dark Phoenix, so I'm just going to sum it up
by saying that at this point my rage has reached levels previously unknown to
me.
The cherry on top is
when the screen pans out to show all of the water that she levitated up (again,
rage) falling down and every single one of the cars on the bridge have their
lights on. Seriously, you go back and look at the progression of the
cars on that bridge, more and more of them have their lights on at the movie
goes on. Who does this? Did Ratner watch this scene and say
"wtf, where are all of the car lights, more car lights!?" Maybe it was an intern who wanted to look
good (in that case he should have refused to of been a part of this project). Luckily I don't care enough to know, I'm just
taking out my anger on the multitude of continuity errors that Ratner loves so
much.
In one final fuck you to the audience, as the scene is
ending and the screen is panning out to view the island burning then turns once
more to show the bridge (again, cars fucking lit up) and the city in the
background, it starts raining on half of the screen. Literally, on the left side of the screen
it's raining, on the right it's not.
It's like they are trying to show us how we feel about this movie:
"right now you are crying cause it's so awful, and when you leave you will
forever have a black pit inside of your soul when thinking about how bad this
movie was and how much better it could have been."
The movie ends with Kitty Pryde viewing the gravestones of
Jean and Scott. I think that's supposed
to represent less their mortality and more the death of the potential of both
of these characters in this movie. Wolverine walks out of the mansion,
realizing how they just came up on a castle, Magneto concentrates really hard
on playing chess, and the credits roll, listing a bunch of names that I never
want to see again. The last part of the
credits reminds me that this movie is a work of fiction and any similarities to
any real events is purely coincidental. I
think I'd rather be in the world of that movie than to be in this world which
fucked up something with such great potential so bad.
Finally, after Xavier comes back to life (because, duh), the
movie is over. I could go on for another
dozen paragraphs about why this movie was so god-awful, but I'd just be
repeating myself. I've spent the past
three hours writing this review; I need to go to sleep and start the process of
recovery. My parents were right, this
did help.
It also helped when Bryan Singer took back the mantle and
completely erased everything that happened in this movie at the end of X-Men:
Days of Future Past. I'd like to commend
Bryan Singer (and to a lesser extent Fox) for how cool that was. Very rarely do you see such an admission that
a movie studio screwed up. Singer knew
what the fans wanted: for that movie to have never existed. Since he couldn't go back in time and direct
X3 instead of Superman Returns, he did the next best thing: erasing the
chalkboard that is X3 in the X-Men cinematic universe.
I am so excited for
the upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse. He is
one of the sickest and most powerful villain that the X-Men face, and I have
every faith that Singer will pull it off.
If I had one wish, it would be that Phoenix merges with Jean Gray and
defeats Apocalypse similar to the storyline in Ultimate X-Men. This would give Singer the chance to give
Dark Phoenix the movie that she deserves.
Okay, a 4,000 word
review is a little hard to digest, so let me just sum up by pointing out five
reasons that this movie was so terrible:
- Most of the mutants in this movie breaking character
- The off-screen death of Cyclopes at the hands of the Phoenix
- The movie's obsession with Wolverine
- The dozens of distracting continuity errors
- The diarrhea that was the movie's interpretation of the Phoenix Saga.
Seriously, this movie was so bad that my eyes sting. Don't worry, there is a solution. Go to https://www.reddit.com/r/eyebleach and
look at the cute animal pictures. They will
slowly numb your mind from the pain caused by this sacrilegious movie.
