Brett Ratner's X-Men: The Last Stand (2/4 stars)

As I mentioned in a previous post my hopes for X-Men: The Last Stand weren't high. My caution was pretty much justified.

The previous X-Men films worked on the level of a comic book film because director Bryan Singer kept things moving at a fast clip. He didn't dwell too much on the details of the weak story, and even less on the paper-thin characters. This resulted in a pair of fast-moving, mindless effects-fests that one could appreciate in a summer action film state of mind.

This time around, Singer and two of his screenplay-writing cohorts are off to film Superman Returns, leaving Ratner and his Elektra and xXx-credited screenwriters to cope.

An aside: if you know anything about the source material, you just have to leave it at the theater door. This admonition is stronger now than with the two previous films. The Last Stand takes three well-known X-Men storylines from the past and mashes them into an unrecognizable mess.

Ratner wastes a stupendous amount of time attempting to establish a storyline which if better served with less of a set-up. In order to present a semblance of plot depth, he sacrifices all momentum for the first 60 minutes of the film's running time. The story threads that he attempts to weave into the story of The Phoenix are particularly troublesome, given that we end up with a half-baked explanation of Jean Grey's personality issues despite the arduous buildup.

Another weakness is the decision of the creative team to ditch many of the key characters from the two previous films. Some are written out early, and others don't even make an appearance. Where the hell did Nightcrawler disappear to after a substantial amount of screen time in X2? The power play by Catwoman herself, Halle Berry, for a more prominent role backfires on the whole project. Her Ororo Munro is completely passionless, and she gets upstaged continuously by Hugh Jackman's marginally more charismatic Logan. Storm is a powerful, charismatic and passionate character second only to Scott Summers on Charles Xavier's leadership team.
In Berry's hands, she shows less emotion than the unpolished Ellen Page in the role of Shadowcat.

While they ditch many X2 characters, they add a few that are entirely unnecessary. Warren "Angel" Worthington III is featured prominently on posters, even more so than Kelsey Grammer's amazing Hank McCoy. Angel doesn't do anything important in X3.

Overall, only Grammer and, surprise surprise, Ian McKellen turn in performances worthy of note. Everyone else ranges from forgettable to pathetic to simply annoying. (Oh, fine, I was entertained for a couple of minutes by Juggernaut chasing Kitty.)

Finally, one might call the last two scenes of the film (one before the credits, and one after) to be a cop-out. I'd call it leaving the door open for more X-Men films if The Last Stand is profitable. After the poor effort of the preceding 140 or so minutes, this kind of thing can't make it much worse. It's cheesy, but so was a lot of this film. Whatever happens, I hope they don't invite Ratner or the screenwriters back for any potential X-Men 4: What Comes After the "Last" Stand?

Bottom Line: This is easily the weakest of the X-Men films, and is one of the weaker heroes-in-tights films in recent memory. The special effects remain a key attraction, but overall the film fails as a comic-book film and an action film due to glaring missteps and questionable decisions by the creative team. The Last Stand isn't bad for a rainy evening Netflix rental, but there's no reason to go out of your way to see it in a theater.

2006 Key Art Awards - Movie Posters Category!

Posterwire has an entry on the 2006 Key Art Awards here. The Key Art Awards recognize excellence in movie marketing.

If you read this weblog you can tell I have a soft spot for movie posters. I've always enjoyed how one graphic attempts to represent a motion picture. Some of the posters are fantastic. Unsurprisingly, Sin City has a lot of nominations, but that's probably more due to the graphic novel roots of the project rather than anything the graphic artists did. More interesting are the posters for projects that are stand-alone films and not derived from other properties.

Posterwire likes this one:



This Saw II teaser poster was banned. Apparently two severed fingers is too much for a society that shows routine killings on the boob tube.

Anyway, I still like this one:

My Contribution to Viral Marketing: Snakes on a Plane!

The funny folks over at Michael and Evo's Wingin' It have been pimping the Sam Jackson film Snakes on a Plane forever. The concept is so simple that the title is perfect for it. Put snakes on a plane with Sam Jackson. That's it.

There's more background info here on screenwriter Josh Friedman's weblog. Bottom line is that this is a film that has all the potential of being special. Maybe not in the common sense, but "special." Yeah, that doesn't make sense. It doesn't have to, it's snakes on a motherfucking plane!!! Yeah!!!



Notice the similarity to the X3 and Supes Returns poster layouts. Man, are they lazy or what?

Snakes on a plane man!!!

Super X Poster Fun

Compare this one with the X3 one in the previous post.

Someone's been lazy with their poster designs.



It's even more amusing since this is the film that Bryan Singer ditched X3 to do, taking a couple of the guys who co-wrote the X2 screenplay with him. (Who are we kidding, X2 was all Singer so there isn't going to be a lot in common between X2 and X3 in terms of vision and composition.)

It's Another Third Installment, This Time a "Last Stand"

Slick Wolvie-oriented poster aside, am I the only one who's apprehensive about it despite having seen the trailer? So it's going to be Xavier vs. Magneto, one of the staples of early X-Men storylines. Whoopee. They're packing more muties into the film than ever before, including Angel, The Beast, Jugs and the appearance of Dark Phoenix. Whoopee. Despite the gaudy visuals, I have huge reservations about the screenplay which is being written by a guy who's got Mr. & Mrs. Smith and xXx: State of the Union as his major credits. His co-writer? He wrote Elektra and X2. (X2 wasn't bad because Bryan Singer helmed it.)

Director Brett Ratner's main credits are the cop comedy Rush Hour (and its sequel), plus the tepid After the Sunset.

Can the novelty of seeing and hearing Kelsey Grammer as Hank McCoy sustain interest in this potential train wreck? I'm probably going to find out in the theater. Fingers, crossed.

PS: If this makes money, no way is this going to be a "Last Stand" even if the Wolverine solo film materializes.

JJ Abrams's Mission: Impossible III (2/4 stars)

Sequelitis is a long-running affliction of the movie industry. Third installments are usually one installment too many. MI3 is no different.

The main draw for MI3 for me was Oscar (tm) Award Winner Philip Seymour Hoffman (never thought I'd get to write that) as the film's antagonist. He gets far too little screen time though, and Tom Cruise Crazy hogs the screen. That's bad, because PSH can disappear into the skin of his characters, in this case creating one of the coldest and most effective screen villains I've come across. Tom Cruise Crazy is still Tom Cruise Crazy, even if he's supposed to be Federal Agent Ethan Hunt. There just isn't enough PSH to wipe the memory of Mr. Katie Holmes jumping on Oprah's couch.

JJ Abrams is a curious choice. Best known for his small screen successes with LOST, Alias and Felicity (ok, maybe not Felicity), he reverts to some really annoying TV habits. One of them that I loathe is the shaky handheld camera schtick. What, are you scrimping on the SteadiCam rentals JJ? This isn't a hyper-realistic war film, it's Mission: Impossible.

Abrams also wrote the screenplay for MI3, and it looks like he's been taking notes from another boob tube hit that he isn't affiliated with, Federal Agent Jack Bauer's 24. MI3 moves along somewhat like a higher-tech double-length episode of 24 with more explosions but with less tension. Several plot points are truly implausible, and at least two of them had me wanting to shout "bullshit" at the screen. Worst of all, you know that because this is a film featuring Tom Cruise Crazy nothing bad could happen to him. That makes the film completely impotent, unlike 24 where you know that no one outside of Federal Agent Jack Bauer safe.

The rest of the cast is forgettable. Abrams favorite Kerri Russel makes an appearance as a tougher-than-Felicity Federal Agent, Ving Rhames is the sterotypical big black guy on the MI team, Morpheus himself plays one of the weaker-than-24 plot points, and Jonathan Rhys Myers works for a paycheck in a role light years easier than Elvis. Meiqi Li (Maggie Q to you) and random blonde Michelle Monaghan are the strong female cast members. Overall, no one creates much of a blip on the radar.

Bottom Line: Yeah, yeah, I'm critiquing a summer action film. It's got explosions and guns and Philip Seymour Hoffman, so I can tolerate it. However, you could do much better if you want a good action movie. Die Hard's throne is safer than ever.

Ron Howard's The Da Vinci Code (1.5/4 stars)

Yes, I read the book. I wasn't overly impressed.

I saw the film. I was even less impressed.

Book adaptations are always a tricky thing. For every Lord of the Rings (great), you have a Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone (pretty bad). The Da Vinci Code (TDVC) film adaptation is on the latter end of the spectrum.

It was a given that the information dump needed to make the book's plot work in the film would be fiendishly hard to pull off. True to form, you're got characters explaining stuff all throughout the film. Tom Hanks doesn't pull it off well, and comes off as a tremendous bore. Ian McKellen does a better job, letting himself go and hamming it up, but it still grates after a couple of minutes. It's so bad, the film's supposed scary-bad dude (Paul Bettany's Silas the Albino Monk) has to ask a nun to explain something to him before he makes mayhem. That's just lame.

Brown's plot peters out about halfway through the novel. It absolutely drags throughout the film. The visuals of the film aren't enough to replace the exposition of the book, simply because Howard has to make the audience look at stuff just so. You get tired of hearing the lectures on pseudo-history.

In an effort to soften the blow of the film on religious types, the screenplay turn Hanks's Langdon into a half-skeptic, which isn't part of the original character. It's really strange when he gets into a dialogue with McKellen's Teabing and takes up an obvious pro-religion tack, which is then clumsily explained away by adding a really weak story about falling into a well, which explains the strange claustrophobia that the movie Langdon exhibits. (The book Langdon has no such affliction.)

McKellen is amusing for a while. Beyond that there is nary a memorable performance. Paul Bettany fails to look menacing, ending up as a caricature. Hanks is almost wooden and so unexpressive that I wish he's yell "Wilson!!!" just to prove he's got emotions. My dear Audrey Tautou is completely wasted in TDVC. Her Sophie Neveu is almost as cold as Langdon. Needless to say, the pairing has no chemistry, and the kiss they shared in the book is excised in the film. Alfred Molina exhibits a fraction of the menace that he exuded as Doctor Octopus. What a wasteland.

Now, Ron Howard knows how to direct a camera. The are many gorgeous shots in the film. However, even he couldn't fix the plot and pacing of TDVC, and I think the effort to keep the film interesting deep-sixed any chance he had of making the characters work. Akiva Goldsman must share some of the blame, as his screenplay left a LOT to be desired. There are many cases where he needed to depart from the book, but he didn't. Okay, maybe it was the studio's call, but it's his name in the credits.

Bottom Line: I didn't have high expectations. The Da Vinci Code still fell flat on its face. With nothing to save it from its plodding plotline and uninteresting characters, I cannot recommend to anyone.

Back in Front of the Silver Screen

When we last left our interpid scribe, he had just gotten off a long flight from Manila to Minneapolis-St. Paul and was waiting for his connection flight to new Jersey. That was ten weeks ago. His last words were along the lines of "I'll catch the back end of Man on Fire on the way home and finish up that review."

Well, Denzel will have to wait a bit. I did complete Man of Fire on the way home,a nd it's been so long that I can't remember the rest of the inflight viewing inbound to Manila, much less what I watched on the flight to and back from Hong Kong. Hopefully, it will all come back to me.

Since then, I've completed the miniseries and both television seasons of the new Battlestar Galactica, and the first season of 24 (finally). We're also trying to catch up on LOST, but it's... so... sloooowwww...

Oh, sorry.

We got to see the beginning of Summer Blockbuster Season - Mission: Impossible III and The Da Vinci Code. Those two will be up next, with the rest trailing.

It's good to be back in the saddle.