JUNKFILM

Yesterday at work I watched X-Men 3.  It was one of the few films I had that I hadn’t seen in the past couple weeks.  So I’m watching it and noticing things I hadn’t before.  If you are new to this blog then you probably haven’t read my loathing for Brett Ratner yet, but allow this to be an intro course.

Ahem…

I hate Brett Ratner.  When I found out he was directing the new Conan I almost shit my pants because the Ebola virus was transfered from from the news page online into my eyes and finally circled my large intestine.

Back to X3 theory.  While X-Men 1 and 2 (both driected by Usual Suspect’s director, Brian Singer) were arguably some of the greatest comic book adaptation films made, their immediate sequel was mind-numbingly terrible.  Like the 1990 Captain America mixed with Roger Corman’s Fantastic Four terrible.  But why did it suck so much?

I believe I found it.  It’s the character drama that makes it interesting and well, for lack of a better term, good.  I’ve said this for years with television series.  I can’t stand episodic shows (Burn Notice, Smallville Season 1, grand majority of things on tv) but I love continuity based shows (OZ, Smallville Season 2- halfway through 7, United States of Tara, Dexter).  Why do I like these kind of shows?  Because I like to live through the lives of these characters.  If we only see a glimpse of their lives in the episodic episodes we aren’t prevvy to everything their lives contain thus negating our connection to them and not having that intimate link with the show’s character.  This is why X-Men 1 and 2 work so well, there isn’t alot of episodic action, there is a lot of drama and character development.  Truth be told, most of the action sequences in movies I can by-pass the same way some assholes can just skip to them and just watch those scenes.  The action, yes is important, but it’s the parts of silence in between that make the characters and story worthwhile.

X-Men 1 and specially 2 delved into the character sides of the X-Men and made us feel who they were.  There were slow scenes that built up to character defining arcs that made you walk away with a good understanding of who these people are.  While on the other hand, 3 was determined to throw as many story lines as possible at the script where only one of them was needed and too much action for the story to handle.  We don’t care because the character we like is only on the screen for a few seconds (ie, Jamie Madrox, Psylocke, ect.).

I love the X-Men is putting in other characters from the universe, this has been my biggest complaint to date about the Marvel films.  In a universe as big as Marvel’s superheroes would be quite aware of other super heroes.  It’s just stupid to make a movie with a concept that Spider-Man is the only superhero in New York.  I understand the financial side where you can’t afford to drop a character in evry other scene and pay royalties to the creators, but a name drop goes a long way (ie, X-Men 2 with the data base with all the names of mutants).

But to throw in names and people haphazardly is irresponsible.  Ok, Ok, I understand the fandom side, it’s fun, but I don’t like seeing one of my favorite characters, Deadpool, in a fucking movie where the only reason I paid $10 was to see Deadpool in the movie for 5 minutes and he was out of costume….

But I digress.

X-Men 3 serves as a fantastic fan film.  But truth be told, that’s it.  If this was made in someone’s back yard I would applaud heavily and ask how the hell they got Ian to come back for Magneto.  But alas, it was not a fan film, it was a studio film and there in lies the problem. let’s hopeX4 and the following Marvel films don’t suck.

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