This way to the stars

X-Men: The Last Stand and The Omen

Watched these two movies with Jodie this week, and I thought I'd review them (ala-Sir Ron). Just my two cents, that's all. Warning: Spoilers ahead!

I didn't watch X-Men 1 and 2, so I won't be comparing them to X-Men 3. However, after reading reviews on the internet, I gather X-Men 3 is widely considered as mediocre compared to the previous two (it was even compared to the third film in the original Star Wars trilogy in this respect). Taking into consideration the film on its own merits, I'd say this is true. Sure, we get all the amazing effects, loud explosions and testosterone-charged fights required in a high-budget blockbuster action flick, but the characterization is lacking. There were just too many characters; although I guess this would illustrate the scope of the mutant issue and would be cool service to us comic- and cartoon-obsessed, you feel like they were just really pawns in the whole war thingy. Angel's backstory was shown in the first part of the film, but after that he disappears (despite him being featured prominently in the trailer). Other supporting heroes and villains looked as if they were just given 10 minutes to show off.

Now on to the major characters. Storm? Pffft. I didn't feel any leadership or power from her whatsoever. Cyclops? A broken man, but why was his death off-camera? Jean Grey definitely strutted her stuff, but she wasn't that intimidating as Phoenix. She just stared at the camera with her hair going poof (the veins and yellowish eyes were a nice touch though). I liked the scenes at her house (i.e. Professor X's death) and at the medlab, but during her time with Magneto she was just standing around looking pretty. Wolverine was great (of course). Cameron Bright really owns the role of the ethereal child. I'd have to say that Patrick Bateman and Sir Ian Mac-gay-en (hehe) did the best jobs with their characters; Magneto and Prof X looked like they were having the time of their lives being manipulative DOMs.

The fights were great. Mutants and humans kicking butt (oh wow). Iceman vs Pyro: who's hotter, fire boy or ice boy? I liked the chase scene between Kitty and Juggernaut; it proved that Juggy is a big lumbering eeeeediot (Don't you know who I am? I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!). It was really weird when Magneto moved the bridge to Alcatraz though; one moment it was the day, then the next it was night. And why'd he have to move the bridge anyway; shouldn't he just have asked Jean to levitate them there? And where was Angel during the fight, huh?

X-Men 3 is an okay movie, as expected from its big budget. However, it suffered from featuring too many characters and storylines (i.e. the mutant cure, the Dark Phoenix saga, the war, the love triangles...) in just 1 hr and 30 mins.

The Omen. I've been told the original movie was creepy as hell, but this one just ended up funny. The subject is overused; how many times have we watched/read something that warned that the end of the world is coming? The prophecies describing the "son of the devil" were too forced; the boy emerging from the "sea of politics"? A photographer predicting his own death based on a random picture he took of himself? Ridiculous. In the end, the psychological torture of Julia Stiles ended up more interesting than the whole omen storyline. A lot of questions were left hanging: Why did the hospital people kill the ambassador's real child? What was the reason behind the priest's paranoia and desire for repentance? Why did the nanny commit suicide? If the mark of the beast was on the child's scalp, shouldn't the parents have noticed it early on when the child was a bald infant? Who really were the nanny and the dog?!

The ending of the movie had implications, though. The son of the devil being the adopted son of the US President, making him a future power player in the world's leading economy? Just peachy; the "sea of politics" indeed! And how does that lead to the end of the world, exactly?

Thus, instead of giving me insomnia for many nights to come, The Omen earned more cynical scoffs from me than a true horror flick deserves. The apocalyptic mumbo-jumbo sounded implausible, a lot of plot elements were simply pointless, and the movie failed to give a larger scope of catastrophes than you might expect from a self-respecting devil. And oh yeah, was it just me, or did the kid look scary mainly because of his extremely dark eyebags?

posted by steph @ 3:16 PM