Friday, May 26, 2006

Movies opening this week

X-Men: The Last Stand (Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen, Patrick Stewart, Kelsey Grammer, dir. Brett Ratner)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
I think some critics have gone a little overboard in condemning this film for its differences from the first two. I definitely agree that it's a step down, and I think it's a shame that Bryan Singer wasn't able to stick around and finish out the series. But, as I said to a co-worker, if this were the first movie I would have said that they did a good but not spectacular job. And this is a fun, effective blockbuster with exciting action and good special effects, as well as a few good character moments and philosophical moments buried in there. Ratner is a hack, sure, but he's a hack who's more than capable of turning out a reasonably entertaining movie. Wide release

3 comments:

Reel Fanatic said...

Thanks for the good word on X-Men .. I'll be going to see it later today, and am really hoping it doesn't just suck

Anonymous said...

I agree. I found the third installment of X-Men to be quite good, even though it really would have been nice to have Singer finish it out. I haven't read any of the criticism of X3, but I can say that I don't see the point if it's based around the differences from the first two.

First of all, it wasn't really that different from the first two; it was slick, with good effects, and some interesting philosophical undertones. Second, the first two weren't all that heavy to begin with.

I've always felt that the X-Men movies were more popcorn than substance, and I like them just fine the way they are. If critics are panning X3 for departing from the first two, it's like saying that Armageddon 2 focused too much on action and not enough on characterization. It's a little extreme but I think it holds.

Josh said...

Well, I think that the first two do feature significantly more character development and philosophy and less action. Re-watching them prior to seeing the new one, I was surprised at the lack of big, extensive action sequences. I don't think that makes the new one bad, as I said, but it definitely is different.