The Occasional Solipsist

If you haven't seen X-Men: The Last Stand, you'd assume from all of the whining going on, that it's a bad movie.

You'd be wrong.

Making a movie adaptation of a comic book isn't simply converting the stories and characters from paper to film. And it certainly isn't taking one plotline directly out of a comic and writing a screenplay from it. And if it was, exactly which of the myriad, overlapping, continuity-bending plotlines should be chosen to write that screenplay from anyway?

Making a movie adaptation of a comic book is finding out the truth of the characters from all of those myriad, overlapping story arcs and creating a gestalt for each that stays as faithful to the stories they reside in as possible, within the confines of a few hours of cinema. Something that the first X-Men movie did well, the second did much better, and I think this third film does best.

So I am boldly stating, in blatant contradiction of what some so-called fans are saying about it, that X-Men III is a movie for the fans.

And here's why in my spoiler-free review:

The movie's central premise hinges on the discovery of a cure for mutancy, created from a mutant whose own ability is to suppress the mutant gene in others. Magneto and his band use this 'cure' as a rallying cry to wage war on the mundanes humans and the X-Men end up standing as the only force between Magneto and his goal of mutant supremacy.

In the film, we are reunited with many of the characters from the previous movies, with at least one glaring omission. Some characters have changed more than others, but all in direct response to the events of the preceding films. We also get to meet a few other mutants that have been notably absent from the first two films. And almost all the characters are true to the personalities fleshed out over years of development in the comics (or at least as faithful as they can be given the constraints of film - see comments above).

And now let's get the whole Phoenix thing out of the way, shall we? Every X-fan knows that Jean Grey comes back as the Phoenix. If you somehow didn't know about this, then you are not a fan, ergo I am not ruining anything for anyone that matters. And Famke Jansen is all over the trailers and posters (and toys, and slurpee cups, etc etc) anyway, so unless you live in a cave, you knew Jean Grey was in this movie.

Now. Prior to seeing the movie, I wasn't sure how they would handle the whole Dark Phoenix Saga, as it was a very complicated (and probably tied with Crisis on Infinite Earths for most beloved by comic fans) plotline. But the writers came up with a way to bring Jean back, introduce the Phoenix into the story in a meaningful way, and manage to keep the whole interstellar connection out of things. Here's one minor spoiler for you: The Starjammers aren't in this movie. All things considered, I think this major part of the movie was handled very well.

The action sequences are spectacular, the characters are true to their roots, and the franchise delivers its most intense storyline yet.

There are more than a few holy shit moments in the film, as certain things happen to certain characters that no one sees coming.

But the biggest problem I have with those whiners that I was talking about earlier is that the entire movie is basically one big valentine for the fans. I won't give anything away, but there are so many little touches that were painstakingly put into the film to satisfy the fan base that allowed this franchise to be so successful in the first place, I can't believe that fans have anything to complain about.

But I guess you can't please everybody.

I have been reading the X-Men comics for over twenty years, on and off, and after watching the movie a second time today, I don't think I would change one thing about it. (Okay, maybe one thing that had to do with Rogue, but whatever.)

So, if you are a fan of the previous movies, the comic books, or just like a great scifi/action flick with a real story, X-Men III is the movie to see.

And I haven't even brought up the special ending after the credits.... If you do go see this movie, stay through the credits for a coda regarding one of the main characters!

'Nuff said.

Labels: comics, movies, scifi