X-Men 3

Although I would not describe myself as a comic book fan, I have enjoyed a number of the comic book movies that have come out in recent years, Spider Man 2 being the best of those by far. So I had fun watching the first two X-Men movies, and I was pleased with this third (final?) installment of the series. Briefly (and without giving away anything hopefully) here are the things I liked and disliked about the movie.

The things I liked:

• The special effects are fun, entertaining, and impressive. The action/effects sequences are worth seeing regardless of whether you like the storyline or not (loved the Golden Gate bridge scene).
• One of the problems that movies like this have is that, no matter what the peril, you can be pretty sure that most or all of the major characters will survive, because they have to be around for the next movie. This movie, on the other hand, is definitely designed to be a final installment to the X-Men franchise, so it was written without the constraints of a potential future storyline, giving it a much more intense feel than it would have otherwise.
• Movies of this sort have a definite pattern for the bad guys. There is generally a "big bad" master bad guy surrounded by maybe 3 or 4 major assistants, followed by the masses of followers in their band or army or whatever. The masses can be killed off at will, but the major assistants get the more dramatic ends, and finally the big bad master is disposed of. This movie certainly follows that pattern, but what I love is how they decide to finish off the big bad guy (I'm speaking of Magneto). I won't say more, but when you see the movie, you will know what I mean....definitely different from what might be expected.

One thing that speaks to the strengths of this movie is that my few criticisms are not about the storyline, acting, or production value, but rather they are these odd random moments in the film where something is thrown in that is so corny or unnecessary that it jars the viewer with its uselessness. You feel like they have created such a good movie, how could they have missed editing that out? None of them come anywhere close to ruining the movie, but they seem silly:

• Halle Berry's character "Storm" has one of the corniest lines I've heard in a long time when she is talking to Hugh Jackman's "Wolverine" just before they are to get on to their ship before the final confrontation scene. Wolverine says something about the ship being ready, to which Storm replies, "Yes, but the question is, will you be ready to do what is necessary when the time comes?" This completely unsubtle and clumsy attempt at foreshadowing the final big confrontation is delivered with such a pathetic attempt at being a big dramatic moment that my friend who was watching with me and I looked at each other and laughed.
• The explanation of Jean Grey's return is lame. I'm hesitant to even call it an attempt at being a serious explanation, it's so weak.
• My last criticism is a tempered one. Ben Foster's character "Angel" is, for the sake of the storyline, almost completely useless. He exists in the movie basically for one 10-second sequence near the end that itself is rather uninteresting anyway. In no other way does he contribute to the storyline. I seriously think you could remove his scenes from the movie with no explanation or alteration and nobody would know the difference. However, we do get to see him shirtless a lot, so I don't really care that his character is uninteresting.

So, great movie. Considering its box office success, you probably have already seen it, but if not, it's a fun watch and definitely the type of movie you will enjoy more on the big screen than at home on DVD.