X3

[ironymaiden]

C and i joined the line party at about 8pm. we were expecting to wait outside until about 11 or 11:30, but they cancelled the last showing of MI: III and let us in around 10pm. really cool, except for the part where C had run home to bring us a blanket and spent a lot of time on the bus for no reason. he's been good about it. i <3 him. there was a guy in a suit who took a picture of the line and told us how much he loved us for waiting. okay, he didn't tell, he proclaimed. i know exactly how he feels.

trailers: new Superman (the first one that caused me to consider buying a ticket), new Pirates of the Carribean, My Super Ex-girlfriend, Nacho Libre and... Snakes on a Plane!

non-spoilery response: wheeeeeeeee. the movie was filled with mutant goodness and flying cars. watch all the credits. i do not follow the comics. YMMV.
it was tremendously fun, but i had no idea why the X-folks stood up to Magneto other than Magneto=bad. there was no plan, no rationale. i missed Nightcrawler, and i was disappointed about the dismissive handling of Cyclops and Rogue. i have a soft spot for the Beast and would have liked more of him. (Buffy fans will enjoy seeing Calisto-i had mistaken her for Kendra, but she was actually Caridad. and there's a bit that is totally swiped from season two...)
interesting to me that they might connect the mutants to the Holocaust, but not to the queer or deaf communities. this is a straight-up adventure, without a great deal of emotional punch for the "cure."
a rockin' good time, but not true to the comics, i'm told. i admit that the Spider-man franchise is more my speed, but X3 is definitely better than a guilty pleasure and i might catch it again when it hits the Crest.

Comments

[buhrger]

interesting to me that they might connect the mutants to the Holocaust, but not to the queer or deaf communities.
the holocaust connection was quite explicit in the first movie, but Sir Ian made a connection to the queer community in an interview i read a week or two ago

[boldfeather.livejournal.com]

I have read many story lines in the comics, so it is possible that the story is taken from a few "realities."
I can't wait to see it now!

[ironymaiden]

i immediately made that same connection, and my cut of the film would have been more about the personal/political than the set pieces. (i think they made the correct summer movie choice.) the brain studies (it's biological! now we can make a cure!) hit when i was a senior in high school, and my best friend was completely willing to take a cure if it was offered to him. he had been miserable most of his life, and he could be "normal." what more would any teenager want?
maybe the idea was to be subtle, but i don't think the audience that might be introduced to these ideas for the first time is able to make the connections. i was making connections and i'm not sure what they told me. i think from the handling of Phoenix and Rogue they told me that "normal" is better. i'm not happy with that, and it wasn't the message of the previous films.

[mort-q.livejournal.com]

Yes you can... you just don't want to.

[boldfeather.livejournal.com]

Do you want me to come over there and kick your ass?
No heels for you, bub.

[buhrger]

he had been miserable most of his life, and he could be "normal." what more would any teenager want?
speaking only for myself, "normal" ceased holding any sort of appeal around age 10

[ironymaiden]

interesting. i don't know that i completely got over thinking about how i would be happier if i was dumber until i was twenty or so.

[bhagwanx.livejournal.com]

I'll still take that particular cure. Charlie was miserable once he knew how bad his life was before. Even in the "innocence" of hildhood, I knew what my life would be like.

And I wasn't wrong at all.

[buhrger]

now i'm trying to recall if there was a precise moment when "happier" also lost its appeal

[buhrger]

do the rest of us get to watch?

[boldfeather.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you could afford the ticket.

[buhrger]

my pockits are diep!

[pixxelpuss.livejournal.com]

Much of this movie rang little Whedon bells in my brain. I'm slightly irate that he didn't get a story credit.

I caught the cure parallels, but the Rogue thing seemed okay for me. Why? Because the metaphor took on different connotations for her. Angel really wore that hat for me, and I was glad to see him refuse the cure. But the way that Rogue has been treated in the film franchise, she's not really getting anything from her power. It's all just an exercise in pain and self-denial. So for Rogue, it felt less like the metaphor and more like a character decision. I was glad to see her touching Bobby at the end.

I found it somewhat irritating that there was so little fanfare over the loss of wonderful characters (Mystique, Cyclops, the Professor, etc). Magneto's loss made me sad. And I would have liked more Beast, more Rogue, more Kitty, and less Storm. But frankly I think this is more symptomatic of action movies in general right now. They tried to put too much plot and too many characters into the film and it came out with not enough of anyone and a little sloppy. That said, I thought it was great. I'll buy the DVD.