Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Enthusiasm Waning

I finally got around to watching the X-Men clip that aired on Fox last Thursday night (you can tell how excited I was to see it). It’s amazing how everything I see with regard to this movie just makes me less enthusiastic about it. First there was the clip I got from YouTube, which was just terrible. Even Wolverine was bad in it, and he’s the one character they have always gotten right. (I think Jackman is holding back, saving the goods for when he gets his own movie.) And I pretty much officially hate Halle Berry now. She is so not Storm. The Sentinel looked awful. The dialogue was atrocious. In general, it just didn’t look good. At least it had the Cannonball Special, though. That filled me with fangirl glee.

But on to the Fox clip. The worst thing about it was that it just wasn’t all that exciting. And no one really looks all that good. Beast should be furrier. Warren should be more handsome. Juggernaut should not make me laugh. The whole scene where the mutants are having a meeting to discuss the cure and Magneto gets up and makes a big speech just looked cheesy. It just looked so…phony street urchin or something. Remember how crazy the gangs in The Warriors looked? I got that kind of vibe from the assorted mutants, except instead of brightly colored spandex, it was just variations on black. If they are not going to be wearing their costumes, just let them dress like normal people. I couldn’t even figure out who any of them were supposed to be. Also, the whole thing just really lacked a certain cinematic quality. I thought it should have an epic feel, but it just seemed to be lacking. Hopefully it will look better on the big screen.

Another problem I have with the whole thing is the plot. I just can’t get excited about the mutant cure when not too long ago, Joss Whedon dealt with that topic in Astonishing X-Men. And he did it brilliantly. I know that’s not the only mutant cure storyline, but it’s the one I’m familiar with, and it’s the most recent, so it’s what this film has to live up to. Are Brett Rattner and the writers up to the task of matching on film what Joss Whedon and John Cassaday were able to do in the comic books?

Finally, Comics Continuum has an interview with James Marsden, aka Cyclops. There’s some interesting stuff about the character. I’m not sure about the “role reversal” between Scott and Logan in the movie, but since Scott is grieving for his wife (get used to it buddy), I’m keeping an open mind. Technically, he should be married to some chick that looks just like Jean and living in Alaska, but I don’t think we’ll be seeing that. What worries me is that they say “Cyclops is featured heavily early in X-Men: The Last Stand.” What happens to him for the rest of the movie?

Speaking of Cyclops, something else that bothered me about the clip that aired on Fox, was Wolverine trying to be the sensitive one talking to Cyclops about Jean’s death. They tried that at the end of X2 also, and it didn’t work then. And Logan just says wholly inappropriate things, like “Maybe it’s time for us to move on.” The guy who has a thing for the grieving husbands dead wife does not get to use the word “us” when referring to their grieving process. I mean, how obnoxious is that to remind a guy that while his wife was a live, you were constantly trying to put the moves on her?
All that said, I'm still going to see it opening weekend.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Merry Christmas:)
:) LauraW

Anonymous said...

Oh Logan, be careful!!! Oh Logan, we're a team!!! Oh Logan, I'm going to barf...

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