So let me get one thing out in the open, I thought X-Men: The Last Stand was ok at first, then I started to hate it. I find myself in a situation, where I think I might totally hate Wolverine in 2 weeks after a repeat viewing with a friend that never saw it, or god knows how I'll feel when its out on video. But ultimately, I have the same underwhelmed feeling I had when the lights went up after X3. "Really? That's it?"
Especially after the post-credits teaser scene that's become pretty much standard issue with every god damn comic book movie out there. In my opinion, Iron Man has been the only one to really pull off the 'Of course this is plugging a sequel.' moment. Generally when I drive home after a movie, and I really enjoyed it, I drive really fast. I tear out of that parking lot and don't suffer a fool willing on the road. But after Wolverine? I meandered around 57-63mph. Not exactly "I'm pumped about that movie." speed.
Was there anything that was spectacularly awful and lame? Not really. Will.i.am from the black eyed peas stuck out like a sore thumb as studio casting. In addition, a lot of the special effects look half finished, a few scenes in particular. The whole thing just felt like something that might have been an awesome script at some point, until they hired somebody to water it down and EXPLAIN EVERYTHING. As soon as I saw 'adimantium bullets', my overdone exposition sense started tingling. And that sense, unlike my other seven or eight never lies. Also, they make contradictory references to Colonel Stryker as General in the first 10 minutes, then Colonel again later. Did he get demoted? I think I'm only mentioning it because that leads into one of my later points...
On the positive side, the movie does generally seem to assume you know about mutants and the other X-men flicks by not even mentioning the word mutants until more than forty minutes into the film by my rough estimation. I mentioned that I got an impression that this was an almost good film, that there were seeds of something that could have been very very cool, but somewhere it got screwed. Probably by FOX. At first the only credited writer was David Benioff, then when I went to see the movie, I was surprised to see the name Skip Woods of Hitman fame/infamy.
One of the producers is on record as saying some rather dismissive things about comic book fans. Something along the lines of "Fuck them, we already have their money." My most reasonable guess, is that Benioff's draft had a much more character driven narrative with actual dialog that wasn't exposition or obvious foreshadowing. That's what probably got the talents of people like Danny Huston, the director Gavin Hood, and the always enjoyable Liev Schreiber. Then Fox realized that they had hired an art-house director to make a 100 million dollar summer tent-pole film. So, they hired 'middling master' Skip Woods to tone down the film for the drooling summer masses. And when the director tried to squeeze some character moments and some drama out of the film, Studio goons would show up and squash any inkling of original thought that came contact with the set.
As a comic fan, and not quite fan-boy there were departures from the source material that were certainly there, but nothing that will upset the casual viewer. Though as a word to Emma Frost and Deadpool fans, they get seriously shortchanged. Ryan Reynolds gets a few funny quips in as Deadpool, helping to justify his presence in a movie that doesn't do any favors to a character we all know he loves, but its much much too brief, as is the entire Weapon X team storyline. The most notable departures involve some things that happen around the Merc with a Mouth and how he acquires his powers and the abilities he is given. While not a 'die hard' Deadpool fan, I love the character and was irked by the insistence they had on teasing so much Wade footage in trailers, then seeing pretty much all of it in the movie itself with little left over.
Ultimately, there's a few decent action sequences that are all right to look at, and go 'Ooh look, some thing's exploding.' And lots of roaring. Can't forget the feral roaring. We get it, he's an 'animal'. I wonder if the lozenge budget on set rivaled that of Dark Knight or Batman begins? I digress. They don't turn Wolverine into the lame ass sobbing douche he was in X3, but he isn't quite as sublimely bad ass as he was in the fantastic sequence from X2 where Wolverine sliced a mansion full of special ops troops that wandered into the wrong god damn school. In the end, I guess it begs the question: Am I on board for a sequel? Yes, but with an asterisk. Its the same reaction I had to Fantastic Four. Sure, I'll be in for a sequel, as long as somebody takes the rights away from Fox to stop shitting all over these great properties. But, that's probably too much to ask for.
iRate it: C
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