X-Men: The Last Stand

I normally like to do a sports post after doing a superhero post, but there aren't any sports happening right now, so I'll just have to stay on the superhero genre for a while. Today, I am finally concluding my quest through the X-Men movies.

X-Men: The Last Stand was directed by Brett Ratner and stars Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen and all the same main cast from the other two movies. I was really excited for this one when it came out in 2006, but I was a bit disappointed with the end result. In fact, this was a rather difficult film to review. Some parts of it were pretty awesome, but other parts ... well, not so much.

It's always nice to start a movie with Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, even if their faces do look a little too plasticy to be younger-looking. I would have liked to add a point here, but I was really put off by Jean Grey. Why was she such a jerk? It seems these movies can never get her right, no matter what age they make her.

I will add a point, however, for the second flashback at the beginning. It was a shocking scene to see little Angel cutting off his own wings. This really shows how traumatic it is for kids to discover they're mutants. Unfortunately, Angel did very little in the rest of the movie, but this scene sticks with you, and for that, the score is now a 6.

The next scene is a good representation of the whole film. It's the X-Men training in the Danger Room. There's some nice action, but it's brought down by a few lame things. We do see Colossus, but he does little and says even less. We do see the head of a sentinel, but not the whole body for some reason. There's also some really lame dialogue, especially when Storm gets really mad at Wolverine for destroying the sentinel for some reason. Wasn't that what they were supposed to do? Sadly, the whole movie is just like this. Kinda good, kinda lame, overall just bland.

I will add a point for Kelsey Grammer's portrayal of Beast. He looked perfect, sounded perfect and acted perfectly. They even got the little things right like having him read books upside down and the design of his old uniform. It really is a terrible shame that we may never see him play Beast again.

Now it's time to start taking away points. The first deduction is caused by the super-lame "class" system they invented to rank mutants. What the heck is a Class 3 mutant? We've never heard that terminology used before or since. It was much worse than the mitichlorians in Star Wars. I really think they did a good enough job of showing how powerful Jean was without shoving the Class 5 thing down our throats.

Another point is deducted because of Cyclops. I know James Marsden couldn't get much screen time because he was filming Superman Returns at the same time, but what they did with his character here was just awful — especially after he did practically nothing in X2. So sad. In this movie, we see him whine for about two minutes, shoot one pretty pathetic-looking optic blast into the water, and then get killed for no reason. If you're going to kill a main character, you have to do it heroically, like Mace Windu, not Boba Fett. Hmm, I think I need to watch Star Wars now.

Before I take off another point, I will add one for the fresh take on Phoenix. This is one of the rare situations where the movie did better than the comics. Phoenix in the comics is super abstract and super confusing. In the movie, it is simply a split personality in Jean caused by Xavier locking away a majority of her power. That's logical enough for me. So our score is back up to a 6 now.

But the praise doesn't last long. It was a little annoying when they introduced hundreds of "mutants" who don't look like mutants and have lame powers, but it was a tragedy when they brought on the Juggernaut and practically ruined him. He was way too small, had a stupid-looking outfit, and suddenly became Australian for no good reason. They also explained his powers with a lame, "Once he gets some momentum behind him, he becomes unstoppable." So stupid!

We also lose another point for the nasty sex scene with Jean and Wolverine. In a way, it kind of makes sense with the Phoenix being loose and wanting to experience ... things ... but the way they showed it here was just plain wrong. Especially when Jean started ripping into Wolverine's skin. Gross, gross, gross!

Xavier's death scene should have been more powerful than it was. The problem with it might have been the unimpressive fight scenes with Juggernaut, Wolverine, Storm, and the other two lame mutants. Some parts looked quite strange, like when Juggernaut threw Wolverine up into the ceiling and he immediately fell down into the next room. How does that work?

But I will add a point for Magneto. He was one of the few characters the movie producers understood in terms of power, looks and attitude. I loved it when Pyro complained he couldn't kill Xavier and Magneto immediately rebuked him and defended his old friend. Perfect. Our score is now an average 5 heading into the final battle scene.

Like I said earlier, this was mostly bland. There were a few nice and interesting things, but they were immediately countered by boring, dumb things. Magneto lifting the Golden Gate Bridge was nice, but most of his mutants were just lame. Juggernaut chasing Kitty Pryde through walls was an interesting concept, but it was weird seeing she was shorter and younger-looking than the kid she was trying to save. We see Storm kill someone (which I guess fits into her character), but it takes her forever to do it. Maybe it was an overkill? Really, she was just too violent in these movies and probably could have gone evil in the fourth, had it been made.

I do have to take away a point for the cheesy climax. To hearken back to the suddenly important Danger Room scene at the beginning, Wolverine said, "We work as a team." And Storm said, "The best defense is a good offense." Why do these scenes never work with Storm? Is Halle Berry really just a bad actor or is the script that bad?

So the movie ends with several main characters dead — Cyclops, Jean and Xavier (but not really) — and the main villain, Magneto, deprived of his power (but not really). If they wanted this to be the final installment of the trilogy, which I think they did, hence the Last Stand, then they needed to end it in a conclusive, fulfilling way. This was just a depressing ending that seemed to point toward another sequel that would be impossible to pull off because they painted themselves into a corner. For this failure, I take away another point.

Overall, this is not a bad film, just a bland one. It lacked the emotion from X2 and didn't do a good enough job tying directly back into the previous movie. They did try, like with Rogue and Iceman and Pyro, but those plot lines weren't given enough time to develop and came off as rather annoying when they tried to force them in. I thought it was really lame how Rogue assumed that all Bobby wanted was to have sex with her, even when he said several times that wasn't the case. The introduction of Kitty Pryde also came out of nowhere. We did see her briefly in the other two movies (played by different people) but now all of a sudden she's a full-blown X-Man? Also, they failed to say what happened to Nightcrawler after he seemed so eager to join the team in X2.

So many complaints add up to a rather disappointing end for a franchise that hasn't quite ended thanks to the two new prequels. I guess I still need to review X-Men: First Class before I can say I'm done with this series. In the meantime, I think I'll begin to put some much-needed DC on this blog.

Final score for X-Men: The Last Stand: 3 out of 10.

Movie Review: X2

Well, I finally got back to blogging about superheroes, and to keep up with my random trek through X-Men, I decided to watch the best X-Men movie yesterday. I really forgot how much I loved this one, and I still do consider it one of the best superhero movies ever made.

X2 came out in 2003. It later took the subtitle X-Men United, but it's official title is X2, which is what everyone (including myself) calls it. It was directed by Bryan Singer, and starred Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman and Ian McKellen. It picks up right where X-Men ended and brings back all the same main characters. Like my other reviews, I start with a score of 5 out of 10 and add and take away points during the movie.

The movie immediately jumps to a 6 thanks to one of the coolest superhero moments ever. Simply put: Nightcrawler + Mozart = Super cool. It was such an awesome way to open the movie. Every X-Men fan had been dying to see a live Nightcrawler, and they finally got it with him beating up the White House security staff to the tune of Mozart's Requiem. It truly was his finest hour. Unfortunately, it was the only cool thing he did all movie, and he has yet to appear in another movie. Sigh ...

One thing I like about X2 is how it directly ties in to the first movie. We ended X-Men with Wolverine heading to Alkali Lake, so we start this movie with him arriving there and looking around. We also find out that after their fight with Magneto on the Statue of Liberty, Jean Grey's powers have not only become harder to control, but also more powerful. I think this makes sense. Magneto's machine somehow broke through some of the barrier's Xavier put in Jean's mind.

One scene that used to bug me was Xavier freezing everybody in the food court. Now I don't mind it anymore. If he's supposed to be powerful enough to be able to kill 6 billion people by concentrating too much, then it makes sense for him to be able to freeze 50 people for a minute. I also really liked his line there: "The next time you feel like showing off, don't."

Strangely enough, I found myself rooting for Mystique, even though I really didn't like her at all in the first one. But they improved her so much here, I'm actually going to raise the score to a 7. It was fun rooting for the bad guys here, and I liked some of the subtleties with her powers, like how she got Lady Deathstrike's palm print by shaking her hand, and how she got Stryker's voice by just talking to him. There's also a nice scene with her and Nightcrawler later on, where she explains that she shouldn't have to hide her true form, which is played up in First Class. So yeah, they made Mystique interesting and understandable — a big upgrade from the first movie.

I always love the scenes in the mansion with the little mutant kids casually using their powers to change the TV channels by blinking or to frost a soda glass by blowing on it. All of the X-Men movies needed more scenes like this. I think it's the little uses of their powers that add depth to the film more than the big uses.

Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen were amazing in the first movie. If at all possible, they were even better in this one. After we've sufficiently calmed down from Nightcrawler's spree in the White House, the film picks up again when Xavier visits Magneto and they're gassed. Magneto delivers two awesome lines here: "War has begun." and "You should have killed me when you had the chance!" The score goes up to an 8 right here because we feel like the world is collapsing.

And it really is collapsing with the cool invasion of the school. Yeah, Wolverine's keen senses are a little slow, but he makes up for it by brutally stabbing a guy through the chest and into the fridge. I also like the little girl Siryn screaming to wake everybody up and it was nice to see Kitty Pryde running away (even if she didn't do anything else). It was wonderful, yet painful to see Colossus for only two seconds. He offers to come help Wolverine, but he stupidly refuses it. Come on! It's the mighty Colossus! You need him! I also really didn't understand why Pyro went with Iceman to find Rogue. What does he care? Does he like to just look at the girl he can't touch?

But this is an awesome scene and it just gets better when Colonel William Stryker comes into play. When he's played by Brian Cox, he is one of my favorite villains. He's smart, conniving, manipulative, and ever so slightly sympathetic, but never to the point where we stop hating him. He's also not just a Washington lobbyist or scientist, but he is a soldier, out there leading his men on the front line. This scene easily pushes the movie to a 9.

I'm actually going to bump the score up to a 10, thanks to one of my all-time favorite scenes — Magneto's escape. It was so brutal and awesome to see him pull the iron out of the guard and then destroy his prison and kill the other guards with just three small iron balls. So, so cool!

Now, sadly, is where I start to drop points off. I really wasn't a big fan of the scene at Bobby Drake's house. One, how did his family not know he was a mutant? Wouldn't they have seen him accidentally freeze something? Wouldn't he have at least once frozen the toilet water before he learned to control his powers? Two, why was his brother so mad? What it just that Bobby was a mutant or he didn't like seeing other people wear his clothes, or he was jealous of Bobby getting to go to a fancy private school, or what? It really doesn't make any sense for him to call the police on his brother and his friends.

And then the cops show up and it gets even lamer. The cop is 10 feet away from Wolverine and shouts at him to drop his knives. Can't he see they're actually blades sticking out of his hands? But then Wolverine stupidly decides to not retract his claws, but instead says he can't drop them and tries to show the cop what he means. Then the cop shoots him in the head! Why?! Why didn't he shoot him in the arm or leg? Just because you think a guy is holding six knives does not give you an excuse to kill him so quickly. He had no idea Wolverine would survive that shot. That cop needs to be court marshaled or whatever they call it. Terrible. All these complaints drop the score to a 9.

We then get a lackluster scene of the X-Men getting chased in their jet. From inside the plane, Storm can create about 20 tornadoes to take out the other jets, but she can't summon one bolt of lightning to get rid of the last missile? Instead she just sits there and screams at Jean.

Speaking of Jean, I now see why my dad hates her so much. She really does nothing in this movie. I think Famke Janssen did a poor job of playing her and I think the character was poorly written. Why do you keep kissing Wolverine and leading him if Cyclops is your boyfriend? Maybe she forgot about Cyclops, which makes sense because he's only in this movie about 10 seconds longer than Colossus was. But seriously, that love triangle was forced too much. I would have been fine if it was just Wolverine hitting on Jean, but having her continue to deny him. But it wasn't just one-sided. Maybe you could say it was the Phoenix starting to come out of her, which led to these strange moments of flirting with Wolverine, but I still think it's kind of dumb. For the character of Jean Grey, the score drops to an 8.

One of the strangest parts of the movie takes place in their camp when Mystique comes into Wolverine's tent disguised as Jean and starts making out with him. Why did she do that? Did the producers just feel they needed a sex scene? It was lame, but not lame enough to drop a full point, mainly because some nice fight scenes quickly came up afterward.

Lady Deathstrike was put in this movie to be good foil for Wolverine. He finally had someone he could slash and stab all day and also be slashed and stabbed by all day. It was a nice fight scene, but not nice enough to give a point back to the score, mostly because the aforementioned random sex scene.

The ending of this movie was very strange and very dumb. I'll start with the X-Men on the outside of Cerebro, trying to figure out how to stop Xavier from killing all the humans in the world. For some reason, they think it's best to have Nightcrawler teleport Storm in there instead of Jean Grey, who is a telepath and experienced with using Cerebro. No, no, we don't need you, Jean. It'll be a lot easier if Storm just goes in and makes it really cold.

I think they did this because they wanted to follow up on Storm's earlier conversation with Nightcrawler about pity and faith. But that scene in itself was lame because Storm came off as an angry, human-hating mutant who should team up with Magneto. So because that scene failed, this scene also failed when Storm said she believes in Nightcrawler.

So they teleport in and they only see Jason Stryker disguised as a little girl. Now I like Jason in here, he's really creepy and tragic, and I understand why he would be a little girl to trick Xavier, but I don't know why he was a little girl for Storm and Nightcrawler. Did he really expect them to say, "What a minute, there's just a little girl here. Nightcrawler, you took us to the wrong room!" Very weird. Also, why did making it cold stop him? I guess a psychic battle between him and Jean would have been too abstract to show.

Then we get to the worst scene in the whole movie. They can't start the jet and dam is breaking, so Jean decides to leave the jet to turn it on and stop the water, while preventing everybody from leaving the jet, somehow stopping Nightcrawler from teleporting, and taking over Xavier's mind to say goodbye. Why couldn't she do any of these things from inside the jet? They could have had it work that way and still have her go into Phoenix mode, I think. Also, why didn't they have Iceman try to stop the water? That would've been a cool visual effect and it would have added something to a character that they spent so much time building up.

Here's how I think it should have happened. Bobby sees the water coming, runs out to stop the water, but collapses because it's too much, Nightcrawler saves him, and then Jean runs out to stop the water and lift the plane and turn into Phoenix. It's not the best fix, I know, but it would have been a whole lot better than having her stand out there for 10 minutes while Wolverine yelled at everyone else to do something and having everyone say Jean was stopping them. Ugh ... We're now at a 7.

I also didn't like the final scene with the president. Why did they need thunder and lightning in the background? Isn't that just a bit over the top? Why did they let Nightcrawler in the room? Wouldn't the president fail to agree to anything they say when he sees the same mutant who attempted to assassinate him with them? Oh well, these last few complaints aren't big enough to lower to score anymore. It is still the best X-Men movie ever made and probably the main reason they keep making X-Men movies.

Final score: 7 out of 10

Good-bye NBA!

Well, the NBA is officially in lockout mode now and it sadly seems like some or even all of next season will be canceled. I don't think I'll be able to really enjoy hockey, so hopefully college basketball will be able to hold me over. Until then, let's remember one particularly interesting 2010-11 NBA season.

The Decision

Everything got off to a kickstart last summer with the most anticipated free agency class in NBA history. This was largely because LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh decided five years ago that they wanted to play together. Everyone knew LeBron wanted out of Cleveland, but nobody knew where he wanted to go, so we saw teams frantically trying to clear up cap space to sign him. New York, Chicago, and even Los Angeles (Clippers) would have been legendary choices, but instead the two-time MVP decided to be the sidekick to someone who was drafted four spots behind him. But it wasn't just that he went to Miami, it was how he did it.

I remember his hour-long special on ESPN started half an hour before I had to go to work, and I almost was late because he dragged it out for so long. I was surprised that he never once thanked Cleveland or the fans for the seven years he spent there, and instead just seemed angry with everyone who didn't support him with his decision — an attitude that would carry over throughout the season and especially the post season. The most beloved basketball player in the world instantly became the most hated basketball player in the world in just one hour. Things only got worse with Miami's big party the next day, with the theme "We Did It!" as if they needed to justify themselves to the world. They partied like they already won the title and LeBron famously said they weren't going to win one, or two, or three, or four, or five, or six, or seven championships. He still might be right — they might end up with zero.

Everything went wrong for the Jazz

We started the season with bringing back the old original logo and giving it better colors, which was very nice. I love the Jazz note, which is the letter J, a music note and a basketball all in one — truly a brilliant design. Then came the roster changes. We were very happy to see Carlos Boozer leave, a little sad to see Kyle Korver go, and really sad to lose Wesley Matthews. But we did bring in Al Jefferson and Raja Bell, and actually got off to a good start for the season. We had a 15-5 record and put together a string of impressive comebacks against tough teams like Orlando and Miami. But as nice as it was to see how resilient we were, it was a little troubling to see us constantly falling behind by 10 and 20 points in almost every game. Memo Okur missed most of the season, came back for a couple of games and looked really good for a few minutes, but wasn't able to sustain it and had to go back to the injured list. Millsap played great, Jefferson was OK, but still learning the system, C.J. Miles would occasionally light it up, but the team really belonged to Deron Williams. He was our most consistent player, but he started to slowly annoy me and a few other fans. He didn't really seem to make any of his teammates better and often blamed others for the Jazz's poor performance. Everything fell apart around Martin Luther King Day.

From what I've heard, Jerry Sloan was sick of D-Will's attitude and wanted to punish him, but Greg Miller would not hear of it. When Sloan realized he wasn't getting anymore support from the office or the players, he left. He stayed with the same team for 23 years, but D-Will and Greg Miller were finally able to drive him out. This broke my heart. The Jazz stopped being the Jazz for me at that point. Luckily, I had the Jimmer to keep me entertained during this, so I wasn't even fazed when D-Will was traded. Although I do think it was the right move, I still think it was odd that we couldn't have convinced Sloan to wait for two more weeks until we traded Williams. Oh well.

The season dragged to a disappointing conclusion, where we became the first team in NBA history to start 15-5 and fail to make the playoffs. To make matters worse, we won too many worthless games at the end to hurt our lottery odds. We did get the No. 3 pick from the New Jersey trade, but if that No. 12 were a couple of spots higher, we could have drafted Jimmer. Again, oh well.

Changing of the guard

Another interesting thing in the NBA this year was the decline of several old dynasties and the rise of some new ones. The first was the San Antonio Spurs, who finished with the best record in the West, but got knocked out of the first round by the young, upstart Memphis Grizzlies. Then the defending champion Lakers got swept in the second round. The Boston Celtics also went down with very little fight to the new-look Heat. The only exception to this was the Dallas Mavericks, who won the title in probably their last chance with Dirk and Kidd. Among the new dynasties this year were the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Chicago Bulls, who won the most games last season, despite the incompetence of Boozer.

Back to LeBron

We have to end where we started, with the most intriguing player in the NBA. In the Eastern Conference Finals, LeBron handled the scoring load while also shutting down the MVP, Derrick Rose. But in the NBA Finals, LeBron played terribly, and disappeared for large, important stretches of the game. Unfortunately this overshadowed everything Dirk and the Mavericks did.

So now I have to wait and see how long it will be before I get to watch Jimmer in a Kings jersey and see the Jazz's new rookies — a center who didn't play at all last year and a shooting guard who can't shoot. Sigh ... Is it football season yet?