REVIEW: X-Men III:The Last Stand

I must say I never read Marvel Comics as a kid, so my back knowledge of the X-Peeps is limited. (I was heavy into DC Comics) Having said that my enjoyment of this series lies solely on what I know from the movies and a few episodes of the cartoon series I've seen here and there as a kid. I did have a yellow Wolverine action figure when I was a kid. I don't think he had claws though.... Onto the the review... I really liked the first X-Men movie. When I first saw it, it really didn't do much for me, but the second and third times I viewed it, it kind grew on me as a character piece instead of a blowhard superhero flick. Then I saw the 2nd one, X2: X-Men United and I was floored with what director Bryan Singer did. I consider X2 to be almost a perfect Superhero movie, and he did it by having restraint with the he first film and letting the characters breath and develop beyond a 30 second scene. Thus leads us to the main problem inherit within X-Men 3. In this adventure the good mutants are up against a cure made by humans from a special mutant that will turn them back to normal. Some are for it and some are against. Magneto and Captain Picard discover that the thought dead Dr. Jean Grey has come back but this time as Dark Phoenix, a hidden personality hidden within Grey's brain. Anyway she joins the dark side and whacks a few good mutants including two key characters. The mutants all fight each other at the end on Ellis Island and fun times ensue. I have heard from X-Men fans that the Dark Pheonix saga is a huge deal in the comics, and that it as handled wrong here in more ways than one. But not knowing Adam from Eve in the Marvel universe, it didn't bother me so much.

X3 is by all means a cool summer action movie with flying peeps and shit, but the characters are weak and the character scenes are so quick that you never get the chance to live with these mutants for too long before you are rushed away to the next scene. The action is great and I'm not dissing the movie by any means but the character development and the respect Singer had for the characters is pretty much gone. I missed that touch very much. There are new mutants introduced but never discovered and explored. The new characters just show up, blow some shit up and leave. So what director Ratner held over from Singers previous two still proves entertaining it just lacks the heart and soul of the first two movies.