He's a good friend of mine, I wish him luck.
-Bryan Singer on Brett Ratner
I wish them luck, but you know, not that much luck, within reason, I hope they're successful, but not that successful.
-John Cleese on the other Pythons
You will really like X3 if you haven't watched the first two XMen movies back to back the day you go see X3. It's good, BIG BIG summer stuff. So much happens physically. Lots of stuff happening. People running around, entering things, exiting, running, scene changes, destruction, big gatherings of people who do things. And there's nothing wrong with that.
It's not that Brett Ratner did a bad job, it's just that Brian Singer did such a GREAT job. Brett is incapable of doing a great job, it's just not in him. I'm glad he doesn't try. He will make good films the rest of his life, and that is far superior to most, and far above me right now. I think we all hate Brett because he didn't have to eat that much ramen while riding the escalator to the top. But the guy got to direct a prequel to Silence of the Lambs with the best cast of any movie that year and he got to make an X-men movie. Now tell me, if a buddy of yours did that, how cool would he be? And you'd be partying at the hottest club in Chicago while your buddy who didn't like X3 would be having a quiet night in a wine bar talking subtext with Singer.
If you haven't seen the first two films in a while, don't. Go see X3, then after you've journaled about how much you liked it, Put in X1 and X2 back to back. You forgot how great they are didn't you? I did, and I love those films. It's not Brett Ratner that I want to hate, it's Bryan Singer I want to hate so bad because he made Usual Suspects when he was, like, 12 and now he's 20 or something and bringing Superman back. But there's no way around it, Bryan Singer is beyond great, look at the delicate touch of the relationships in those two movies. It's pretty impressive. Look at how the struggles on the interior of troubled characters is so connected to the exterior of these climactic events.
X1 is not about the guy who puts the bomb on the statue of liberty and the men who must stop him.
X2 is not about the guy who tries to fry the minds of every human being on the planet and then men who have to stop him.
but X3 IS about the guy who created the cure and the men who have to stop him.
A good film about that.
Am I making any sense here? See I didn't have to bash on that little Malibu spoonfed jackoff, now, did I?
In X3 all those complex relationships that Singer sets up are also set up, if Rogue could get the cure, then she could finally have Bobby's wandering eye? Who has the right to control mutants? If the government shouldn't then why should Charles have the right to control Jean? To protect others? Then where do you fall in the argument over the cure? And shouldn't the destructiveness of Jean be cured?? How will Scott cope with his wife destroying mankind? It's a lot of slippery moral slopes and a lot of tough arguments. Luckily they sidestep every one of them. Everything's pretty glossed over, but a LOT happens.
I believe I was just saying that I hate when directors/writers let their audiences off the hook too easily? Well that could actually be the name of this movie. It is amazing the number of scenes that let you know what the problem is and resolve that problem in the SAME SCENE! What the fuck? We should shut down the school. Yeah let's shut it down. I need help. Sorry we shut down the school. Actually, maybe we shouldn't shut down the school - total screen time: 4 minutes.
The movie is actually quite good, but Summer Good, not history-of-cinema-good, not Bryan Singer good. Take it for what you will.
But it did feel like a good old fashioned X-Men comic, Claremont style. The comcis were never as subtle as Singer's movies, but they were deep (caveat)as comic books go.
The musical score is the worst, it is so nothing it's out of control. It's just nothing, a bunch of...things that are done...on instruments.
Ratner should direct a Fantastic Four movie, he's direct the hell out of one of those.
1 comment:
I thought it was fine. Larry did to, from what I can tell. I reminded myself how much I should aintitcool.com though, because the fanboy/haters, who I am sure would make a far better movie if they could write/produce/direct/get off their couches got to raz and vent. Harry used to have the coolest gig - a movie news site. But now he's all about being angry and an expert about how movies should be. He has enough money, he should shoot one himself.
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