Rob's apolitical Memorial Day review of "X-Men 3"

I'm always at a loss for words on Memorial Day (or Veterans' Day, for that matter). I've never worked directly with the Armed Forces, I don't know any veterans, and as someone who firmly believes there are no souls to inhabit any sort of afterlife, I'm certainly not going to speculate on the wishes of the dead. I'm not sure if commemorating the deceased with a 30% off sale is the answer, either, only that it's a bit too tacky for my tastes.

I do believe, however, that patriotism has nothing to do with how big your flag is, how loudly you can sign the national anthem. or how much meat you can roast in your big honkin' barbecue. If we are to remember our fallen soldiers and honor their sacrifices, then let's strive to add no more to their number and to preserve the freedoms they died to protect.

(Obligatory political snark: I wonder if anyone has gone over to Arlington National Cemetery today with a seismograph? Between the government's warrantless wiretapping of millions of citizens, the detention of Americans indefinitely without habeas corpus, and the government's stonewalling of inconvenient lawsuits and investigations under the banner of "national security," the place must be buzzing from all those bodies turning in their graves...)

Since Memorial Day is the unofficial start of the summer movie season, today I managed to squeeze in a little time and caught an early-morning showing of X-Men: The Last Stand (hereafter abbreviated X3), the third movie in Fox's cinematic adaptation of Marvel Comics' merry mutants.

My knowledge of X-Men lore is somewhat dated; I fell out of the comics a while ago, sometime after Chris Claremont ended his 16-year stint as the comic's writer in 1991. I occasionally follow the latest earthshaking-event-of-the-month, but would be trounced in a round of "Beat the X-Men Geeks." I did enjoy the first two X-movies, though, for their deft blend of summer blockbuster action, faithfully deep characterization, and respectfully complex writing.

X3 is what you'd get if George "Star Wars" Lucas were to direct an X-Men movie -- and I don't intend that to be a compliment. Lacking the deft touch of Brian Singer in the earlier films, Brett Ratner jams X3 full of stuff with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Each scene appears onscreen just long enough for its purpose to be conveyed, each character appears just to deliver the latest plot point. You're never left wonder what someone's motivations or desires or demons are; every aspect of the story is spelled out in blazing neon letters a mile high. You know Storm is sad at the funeral because she's choking back sobs, you know Cyclops misses Jean Grey because he's got tears streaming down his face, so on and so forth. Slow moments are verbotten here; even something ripe with dramatic potential, like Xavier revealing a past ethical lapse to Wolverine, is simply blurted out, another plot point to be ticked off the checklist.

The blame is not solely on on Ratner's shoulders, though, as X3 suffers from a script that's jammed to bursting. There are two plots in this movie, each of which could have stood on its own to form two well-developed X-sequels. Instead, whether due to corporate greed or cinematic indecisiveness, someone at Fox simply decided, "Let's do them both!" Which is more the pity, because jamming both plots into one film left no room to develop either to their full potential.

Ratner's by-the-numbers assembly-line direction might serve the needs of the script, but X3 ends up unsatisfying as a result. Characterization is practically non-existent; people are introduced -- and dispatched -- with barely a second thought. Viewers not versed in X-lore will be forgiven if they see the movie's mob of mutants as nothing more than a set of indistinguishable ciphers, and whatever delight longtime X-readers might get at seeing their favorite mutants finally rendered in the flesh will be offset at how shallow they're portrayed. To list a few examples: Kitty Pride is simply a girl who likes snow, Colossus is a generic strong guy, and Madrox gets himself captured without a fuss in his one and only film moment. Kelsey Grammer's Beast fares a little better, but only because he gets a few chuckleworthy bon mots in the last Big Fight Scene.™

(Aside: Magneto may be a master of magnetism, but here he has no sense of irony. It's only a minor miracle for the Holocaust survivor that his big speech in the film didn't end with a rousing chorus of "Seig heil!"...)

In the end, X-Men: The Last Stand will be enjoyed by folks looking for a mindless summer movie -- lots of explosions and fight scenes, and no inconvenient characterization or thinking to get in the way. Depending on their level of familiarity with the previous X-Men movies or comics, everyone else will either end up slightly confused at the overwhelming strum und dang of it all, or upset at the latest direction the film franchise has taken. While it's not as bad as Superman III or Batman and Robin (or, heaven forbid, Sony's Godzilla-in-name-only train wreck), it's certainly no Spider-Man 2 -- or, for that matter, X2.