Oh my stars and garters...

The title of this review (the first in quite a long time,) is one of Beast's (Kelsey Grammar, wearing all-blue make up) lines, and, incidentally, is one of the more realistic pieces of dialogue in this weeks film, "X-Men 3: The Last Stand." I won't spend any more time talking about the crappy dialogue (well, maybe,) but I felt that mentioning this utterly ridiculous line would help set the tone for this review. Granted, the film had pretty big shoes to fill, after the first two X-Men essentially set the new, fresh tone of superhero movies, thanks enirely to director Bryan Singer, who gave "X-Men," and "X2: X-Men United" a certain realism and drama that could best be characterized as gravitas. The films had intensity, and managed to take away the silliness and add an urgency to a comic book movie, even when the debate is of "mutant rights." The themes of the first two were honor, love, friendship, peace, and understanding. The theme of X3 is... I don't know, exactly... special effects? In X3, the 'war' that has finally been promised has finally come, with Magneto (Ian McKellan, undoubtedly the best thing about the movie) leading his army of mutants against humanity, which has now introduced and weaponized a "cure" for mutation. There are several good scenes debating whether or not it is right for a mutant to take this "cure," and we once again see the conflict between the two different schools of thought in trying to protect the minority: violence or peace? The plot itself is pretty solid, and it certainly does sound like agood time, but unfortunately, they also decided to stuff in a secondary plot about The Artist Formerly Known as Jean Grey (Famke Janneson, now a lovely redhead) becoming Dark Phoenix, an evil being of destruction... or something, it's not made entirely clear in the film. Not enough time. And therein lies the true flaw of the film: too much to do, not enough time. For some reason, the film ends at about one hour and forty odd minutes, while the others took a bit longer to draw their plot. They had two great plot ideas, each with personal and cultural significance, but tried to cram it into an unreasonably small amount of time. The result is a film that feels half-baked at best: teenage love triangles with very little heat, epic battle sequence leading into... epic battle sequence #2, and about eight characters each with their own half-a-scene long character arc that I'm somehow supposed to care about. So please, Mr. Rattner, no offense intended. It was a great try, and I wish you well on Rush Hour 3, but please... stay off Bryan Singer's turf. After all, how would you feel if he took a movie from your franchise and made it good? Sorry, that was snippy.

Grade: C+