Good movie, but full of holes - X-Men: The Last Stand Reviews

First, X3 did fair justice to the previous two, and did an admirable job of incorporating some complex issues from the comic books, granted that it is nearly impossible to follow them verbatim; something had to change to make it onto the big screen. From the beginning, it feels rushed, but captures your attention and pulls you into the story, but there's an uneasy tension to the entire film. The movie jumped right into action sequences with an assumption that viewers were familiar with the previous movies, and did a great job of introducing a version of the dark phoenix saga to help explain (barely!) about Jean Grey, and why she has such internal conflict about her powers... Speaking of powers, here's where the writing and direction had their greatest shortcomings (and don't forget that Brett Rattner is NOT the writer!): X-Men is all about mutants with POWERS, and we want to see them. As the characters are (or should have been) developed, they need to increasingly explore and demonstrate their powers to the audience, and in X3 we're only offered small exerpts of their true abilities. We should have seen explosions of power from the team, at new levels, but alas we only are offered glimpses. Cyclops is killed, but we don't see it. Damn. Angel runs like a sissy and isn't a strong character in the movie. Colossus barely gets any screen time; he should have been given more fight scenes (ie with Juggernaught) and allowed to demonstrate his strength. Movie physics were rampant... unrealistic, especially with the fastball. Too many of the flying scenes were obviously done on wires, and should have had their acceleration tweaked in CGI, especially the fastball. Pyros fireballs seemed slow and pathetic compared to the high-speed arcs we first saw in X2. Overall the graphics were done well, but had many rough edges. In the first two movies, Mystique's transformations were nicely done, with good detail and blending, but looked amateurish and obviously fake in X3. Some of the outlying debris on the bridge scenes were overlooked; bad alpha blends, physics were wrong, unrealistic splashes or missing particle explosions... very fake looking, especially the support cables on the bridge which followed simple bezier curves (or were stationary!) instead of complex motion based on their materials properties which would have added more realism. The direction and editing are suspect, as this movie was easily an hour shorter than it should have been. There are MANY holes in the story and individual plot lines that should have been more carefully explored. Scenes felt as if they were pasted together, and a lot of new scenes left the audience asking, "okay, now what's happening?" such as when Wolverine began his fight in the forest. When the mutants appeared on the bridge, it was sunny and not yet dusk, but when the bridge landed and the battle ensued, it was fully nighttime, yet the scenes were sequential and had no time lapse in between. Like I said, full of holes... and there were many more. Before Magneto tore out the bridge, he should have said, "These humans don't realize our TRUE power." Then BOOM! He rips out the whole bridge with some stretching tension and then a big bang and explosion, with intense fury (even for its size), with overboard gigantic subharmonics and crackling attack! In X3, it was impressive, but done too slowly. You knew he was powerful, but it could have been presented to the audience with more impact, rather than so much slow motion. It was great to see Shadowcat actually showing off her powers, and Iceman finally turned to full ice (for about 2 seconds), and his battle with Pyro was cheap and short. That should have been a major scene. Beast was AWESOME throughout and I can't say anything bad about Kelsey or his acting, and wish that the fight scenes with Beast were'nt so chopped up and rushed, but kept him centered more without all of the quick cuts. Again, way too rushed, as if the movie was in a hurry to finish. Overall I did certainly enjoy the movie, but left a bit disappointed. I've been waiting on pins and needles for over a year for this movie, and tonight at the midnight showing I finally got to see it, but felt like I was being ushered out the door as quickly as possible. Heopfully in X4 we'll get to see the mutants REALLY show off their full powers like we've never before seen (in X1-X3), because this is what makes us feel the awe and amazement. Sure the added emotional impact of the major characters' deaths was dramatic, as were many of the scenes, but this movie should have been about POWERS!!! Let's hope X4 will restore our faith in the X-Men.