X-Men: The Last Stand Directed by: Brett Ratner This was a very plesant surprise. I definately liked the first two films, but I thought they were overhyped. I use to be a huge fan of the comics and while on the surface they were doing some cool things, I felt as if something was missing. In this film, they
recapture what was missing. That is, it really does feel like a whole new, exciting universe. One of the coolest things about fantasy is getting to step into a whole new universe, a whole new place to explore. It's part of what makes Star Wars and LOTR cool. It's especially true of comic books, which the stories go on for decades in thousands of different comics with hundreds of different characters and many different writers. This film captures the hugeness and the wonder of that sort of world. Also, it's considerably more interesting from a moral/philosophical and political standpoint. While the original issues faced by the X-Men were a not-so-thinly veiled commentary on the Civil Rights movement, the first two movies were a not-so-thinly veiled commentary on the gay rights movement. This one is a little more sophisticated then the first two, it brings up issues that are relevant, but not in such a heavy handed way. And the issues surrounding a power like Jean/Phoenix's power were facinating from a whole lot of different standpoints. It's hardly high art, but it handles such issues in a fairly interesting way, better then I thought it would. The plot is all over the place. There are more holes in it then the standard brick of swiss cheese. But that's so frequently true of comic book movies I was inclined to overlook it. Some of the jokes don't work, and I still think Magneto's helmet looks rediculous. But while flawed, it was a lot more entertaining and a lot more thoughtful then I expected. It rivals the first Spider Man movie as the best 'pure'* comic book adaption ever made, which still doesn't make it great, but makes it well worth a watch. 8.5/10 * - By 'pure', I mean one that took a well known comic book series and adapted it without changing the basic ideas and style of the comics. This probably discounts most of the movies that anybody might point out is 'Do you really think it's better then _________?" (Say, Ghost World, Dark City or The Incredibles). The answer would be no, but that's not what I'm talking about. [size=5]The Purple Heart Directed by: Lewis Milestone This was a WW2 movie made during the war and has to be judged as that. It's about the men who were captured after Doolittle's Raid over Japan in 1942 (if you don't know what this is, learn history, or if you must, watch Pearl Harbor :shutters:) and the torture they were put through to try to get them to tell where they came from. Apparently, it's based on a true story. As I said, it needs to be judged in context. The Japanese characters, while not sub-human, are clearly stereotypes and caractactures. Yet the struggle of the men to hold and not break is well done and in the end, the moral choices they must make, while perhaps glorified, is real and difficult. Judged in context, this is a fine little film. 7.0/10 [/size]
May 26, 2006
