Went to see X-Men 3 over the weekend. Don’t know what possessed me. (Actually I do – a good friend I don’t see often enough invited me.) It surprised me by being surprisingly entertaining with a wealth of nice moments. It didn’t surprise me by being utterly incoherent, by featuring some jaw-droppingly odd storylining (let’s kill off major character from first two movies off-screen! And only refer to it in passing later on!), and by completely failing to dramatically or thematically resolve any of the numerous interesting issues at the core of the film. It felt akin to those movies where misfit kids save their summer camp from a nasty developer by pushing the developer in the lake during an exciting canoe challenge – action (a) somehow delivers result (b) despite there being no conceivable reason that it should.
Man, I remember after I saw X2 I was so stoked I went out again the next day and watched it again. Sometimes the movies get it right. X-Men 3 is not one of those times. Skip it.
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Went on a Queen’s Birthday Weekend road trip yesterday, up the coast. It was a nice day for a drive. Our road trip posse visited the controversial Market Gardener statue in Levin and the windmill in Foxton, and conducted a scientific experiment on Foxton Beach. We also did some balancing.
Posse included a the very stylish big geek, plus three new arrivals in the land of blog: Mr & Mrs Hall-Hall and !(Kate). Also Anna, who still survives blogless. These three are now on the growing list at right, along with old-friend-rediscovered Matt Wong (stick) – who was, incidentally, the primary motivation guy behind those Aliens weekends, for those of you who remember them.
I was pleased to note that my Edinburgh family went on their own road trip. They, being classier and more organised than I, and also being determined like bastards to make me miss them terribly, have a short film of it up on the web. I love the bit where the Scottish invade.
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Today’s lesson in the realities of freelancing:
This morning I visited the dentist to have the work done identified at the other week’s checkup. This morning I also received notification of my first royalties from my first sole-credit project.
Dental bill = royalty check x 40
*sigh*
9 thoughts on “Silly Movie, Road Trip, Realities”
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I also saw X-Men 3 yesterday, and I really enjoyed it. It rounded off a lot of the character arcs nicely, had some neat iconic moments from the comic books, and was big and flashy.
I didn’t like it as much as number 2, but it probably had more bang for my $ than number 1.
I wouldn’t say it was a _better_ movie than number 1, and it fell well short of number 2, but it was an enjoyable addition to the series that felt like an end of a trilogy.
Yes, it did feel clunky at times, and yes there were issues that seem like they should have been spotted and corrected at the script stage, but what ended up on screen entertained me and reminded me of the comic books and was fun.
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BTW, I _loved_ Jenni’s dream about you. Melty-man officiate!
I thought X-Men 3 was ok, not as good as the other two but hey, what can you do? The thing I find surprising is all this discussion about it being the end of the trilogy. I always thought that X-Men would be one of those sagas that just kept going. If this is to be the last film, then I will be quite disappointed. It’s ok as a disappointing chapter, but it would be a shame if it’s the coda that peters the saga out.
Ahh, the balancing. 🙂
I strangely enjoyed it, in that wonderful “this is crap but it’s flying by in an entertaining fashion” manner. It’s got absolutely no breathing space for any of the characters, and completely unravels toward the end, but has enough fun moments to carry it through. There’s a character death midway through which is a particularly good scene.
On the whole this is far, far below X2, but not really that much lesser than X1, which got a lot of mileage from the amount of character stuff they got right, but was still pretty sloppy. And fun!
What is this Market Gardener statue and why is it controversial?
X-3. It is worth pointing out that apparently (I didn’t see this) there is a revelation at the end of the credits. I believe that at least 1 of the major characters that “dies” is not in fact dead.
In other news, Ian McKellen’s IMDB page has:
Magneto (2007) (announced)
So, spin off at least…
IMO the post-credits scene in X3 is not worth waiting through the credits for.
Market Gardener statue controversy: it was originally going to look quite Chinese, and was de-ethnicised at a late stage due to opposition. Or something.
Those damn Chinese, taking over the coutry.
I just noticed that X-3 is from the director of Rush Hour and Red Dragon. Those movies were huge turds (especially Red Dragon, which wasted a fine cast) so I’ll be avoiding this one too.
There are apparently two spin-off movies in the works — Magneto and Wolverine.
The Magneto one, last I heard, was a prequel — I’ve read “Nazi Germany”, but who knows. 🙂
X3: had some nice moments – I wish they could transport some of the effects budget back to ep1 – but horribly disappointing, even going in expecting not much. The bizarre sidelining of characters, strange plot, and the end becoming a series of cliched line after cliched line (Magneto “what have I done”, Wolverine’s galvinising speech)…hated it.
But I wonder if the failure is felt bigger by fans aware of how it should have been so much better. What an appalling waste of the Phoenix story(becoming basically Jean in red in a trance for the whole movie). And Juggernaut being comic relief rather than awe-inspiring, what they did to Cyclops and Rogue…Whereas coming cold to the mythos, and seeing it as more throw-away mutant stuff, has garnered some middling reviews from critics.