The Last Stand: Thank God

Let me preface by saying that I am not an avid reader of the X men comic books, neither did I enjoy too much of the previous two movies. But that being the case, I just may be a better critic of this movie because of that. I came in with extremely low expectations, as I only bought the ticket to spend some time with some old friends, albeit it was in front of a screen for a couple of hours. All I desired was an enjoyable experience, a somewhat sensical plotline, and even explosions could do the trick. But as I should have learned from my background in summer movies, coming in with little expectations is never enough. We must always push our extremes into coming in with none at all.

Much like Ocean's 12, Hollywood has once again substituted a comprehensible narrative for a collection of celebrities, hoping that their names as the credits roll will be the consolation prize for the 10 dollars paid at the theater. But audiences do not pay to see the credits roll. I can make that happen with the iMovie software. Audiences pay to get lost in the characters who for a split second, we fail to remember that they are people like we are, playing the game of pretend. We cry and laugh with the person we see in the film because they are so often like us, and many times, not. Did I cry and laugh? Sure! At the unintentional ridiculousness of a script so predictable and cheesy that I felt like its producers and screenwriters were in the back of the crowded theater, laughing at us. With soap opera-like lines like "I'm not doing it for them, it's for you" and "You have to let go! You love her?!", I do not blame them.

The sad part of all this is the potential the X-men series had from the start that it failed to achieve. A larger-than-life budget. Competant directors (Bryan Singer opted out of the third for a take on the new Superman movie, though Brett Ratner is not bad himself, directing the Rush Hour movies). A comic book story of some of the most imaginative and haunted super heroes of our time. And a cast that is second to none. Patrick Stewart (he's like a grade B Ben Kingsley, but I'm still comparing him to Kingsley). Hugh Jackman (expect a much better display of his talents when he finally runs away from this Xmen debacle to take on The Fountain, opening in August). Halle Berry (Oscar winner, I know it was for her getting naked, but still, Oscar winner). Ian McKellen (Oscar winner for playing Gandalf, and as one friend said, "he saved the Da Vinci Code movie"). Anna Paquin (easily one of the more talented and beautifully dark actors in our age - see 25th hour and squid and the whale). Kelsey Grammer (To be honest, I hated him in Cheers and even more so in Frasier, but his acting skills are more than TV). Add in a few pretty faces in Janssen, Romijn, and the Notebook's James Marsden. Mix in a former "24" costar in Shohreh Aghdashloo, rinse and repeat. Shouldn't you have a solid blockbuster that measures up to the Spiderman movies?

No. Much like my last paragraph of parathesis and quotation marks, it becomes nothing more than a jumbled mess. I see these actors pretend to cringe and literally "think" people to death, when the millions of dollars spent on special effects take over the screen. But as the cheesy special effects in Al Gore's global warming movie "An Unconvient Truth" shows, special effects are overrated in making a decent film. They are nothing more than an lousy attempt to visualize what our mind actually imagines and often falls short.

Instead, we desire to be heartbroken, spun around, tickled, and rolling. I've seen Wolverine's claws come out in the first one. I've seen Mystique's figure change from character to character in the second one. I've seen Storm gather up clouds in the sky 19 times. I'm done with these movies showing me something. I want them to make me feel something. If only the producers spent as much money, time, and energy in writing a script as they did in casting fine actors who deserve better, it just might break "not bad."