I hate it when a good thing is pissed on. And that's exactly what's happend with the third installation of the X-Men movies. [WARNING! Potential spoliers here] Yea, you heard me. Bryan Singer allowed Brett Ratner to piss on his series. The dramatic drabble attempted in this film is about as moving as puddle of popcorn butter. The movie overflows with miserable attempts at pulling heart strings. Only the demise of our wise Professor had any gallbladderability at all. The movie should have been true to what super hero flicks do best: surreal action combat. Girl friend drama aside, the real tragedy of this movie come from it's lack of utilizing an obvious subplot. So caught up is the film with the unmutant "choice" that it forgets to give it's audiance anything else to ponder. The clear question of Offence vs. Defense was brought-up early in the movie but was given no traction. I mean why bother touching on such a subject if you're not going to do jack nabbit with it in midst of arguably the greatest opportunity to do so in the history of film? It's just too much to bare.

So, I'm "rewriting" the movie. Not completely. Just enough to make the movie worthy of the first two. If you've already seen it than read my alterations, close your eyes and imagine what I've written is what really went down. I think it makes for a much better tale. If you haven't seen it, well don't hurt yourself for my sake. But if you must, this site will be waiting with its' "fix" when you get back.

Here we go...

For starters, just cut the first scene out althogether. We get the point without a whimpering angel boy clipping his wings to prove it. How frig'n realistic is that anyway? "Oh gee how awful, I'm an angel." Come on. No one would ever be upset about being an angel! For the love of God, spare us. Oh, and just out of curiosity, how the hell did a ten year old kid get a complete set of surgical instruments into his daddy's government office building without anyone, including his dad, ever noticing? "No dad. I'm just going to do a little plumbing while I'm in there. That's all."

Next. What did you go and kill Scott for? That just flys in the face of Marvel history. How can there be the X-Men without Cyclops? Obviously that's just not possible. So now we know, you're just jerking our chain here. Scott's not really dead! Think about it. We never actually saw him get ripped to pieces, did we? So he must still be alive. Ah ha! You're planning a secret fourth movie. Damn you. Go back and fix this one than maybe we'll accept a 4th. Besides, we don't want to deal with his death, Xavier is more than enough. Don't divide our love man, it divides our response. So how are we going to fix this? This is difficult since he can't die for the reasons stated, but if he's not ripped to shreds we undermine the seriousness of the situation. Right? Wrong! It's too early to give away just how dangereous this bitch is. Save Dr. Jean's billy badass for later. We don't realize it when we're watching that scene, but the movie actually does this already. There is really very little action here. Our minds just tend to fill in what MUST have happened previously by what happens later. Well forget that. We don't need Jedi mind tricks. Let's have Scott manage to bring Jean into base, and with a little help from Storm and Wolverine who get their tip from Xavier BEFORE laser blocking Oakley's start floating about. Scott can take a good banging that lands him in the hospital. Leave his life hanging in the balance. Cool.

Now, about the Beast. Did you have to get a gay guy to play the Blue Fiery? I'm sorry. I'm not trying to slander here. That's just how it comes off. Was the idea to provide us with some comic relief? Well, sorry to dissapoint, but it fell flat. Look, one furry dog-like creature cracking wise ass comments is enough. Please, the BEAST should have been more like a Yale graduated biker dude. Then maybe his character would have been believable. Lets do this, add a little gravel to his voice and a little more macho to his swagger and feel free to cut these scenes to their neccessary minumum. The less Furby the better. We can give him a more edifying end battle in the streets of San Fran instead.

Okay, We've improved the movie with just these few changes, no doubt. But the real kicker is the ending. What we have here is the greatest opporunity to make a smack down, all out super hero KaBattle! What do we get instead? A puny ally brawl. Ugh! What are you doing? Look, we have Magneto there not a hundred yards from Wolverine and he does nothing but watch his minions get torn to shreads? No way! He could have snapped him in half like a twig. And besides, why would he hurdle cars randomly at the solders? He just moved the entire Gloden Gate bridge for fucks sake! He could have used just one car like a fly swatter and killed just about everyone there. And lets not even go into the stupidity of all the solders running out to the middle of open ground. Isn't there someone being paid to worry about these things? Or did he go help with the new Superman movie too? Well, here's the solution. Lets move back to San Fransico and have street to street fighting all over the city serving as a distraction of man power while Magneto makes his way to Alchetraz island. That would serve up much better action and overall destruction as our heros must stop the bad guys, save civilians and get to Alchetraz before the super villian. But once there, we don't need as many little sub-villians nor so many soliders. Make the count more managable. Primarily just the main characters. Everything else can happen as it did in the flick. The Juggernaut stuff was great. But then, at the very end, do me favor. Just say no to more emotional dribble!

"Why?" Jean asks.

"For you." Wolverine returns in his GQ come-on voice just before he dices her into bologna.

Yea, there's not a crazed psychotic lunatic in the wolrd that wouldn't melt for that phrase --Love will show us the way. Spare me. I didn't take my girl freind to see the movie. Let's get back to the forgotten Offense vs. Defense subplot here instead. Remember Strom trying to make a point about the importance of defense? How bloody American that she half earnestly conceeds later. Screw that. The clear proof to this ultimate question is only yards away. How in the world this film failed to capitailze on this I'll never know. If it were a snake it would have bit them! So this is how it really goes down.

As "Super Unmutant Boy" makes his way out of the prison, he sees Phoenix in the distance and in a flash "knows" what is happening and what he must do. As if his life was made for this moment, he starts walking toward her. It soon becomes clear that all the wrath the Phoenix is throwing off is not effecting him. It is as if a bubble encases him, a place where her powers cannot reach. He gets closer. The Pheonix seeing this boy approach is getting mad. She tries harder to offend. The world around them is falling into smaller and smaller pieces. But still he gets closer. She gets even more enraged and the world around them starts to fade into oblivion. Our other heros must run for their lives from the expanding Void taking over the island. If her rage continues it seems the whole world will be consumed. But still the boy gets closer. She lashes out in one last heaping fit of super fury with all her energies directed squarely at the boy. But he is untouchable. As the boy reaches the Phoenix he puts her hand into his and in an instant the world rushes back to relative normality as Jean collpases to the ground. [Fade out]

The movie ends at the school with Strom touching off Wolverine about how Defense, not Offense, won the day. And Jean's there with the boy forever safe as long as he is with her. In time maybe they can tame the beast within. [The End]

You can keep the end Magneto scene too and defintely keep the after credit scene. That at least was very cool.

(And I sware if I had the money I would pay to have the movie redone just this way!)  ¶ 10:57 AM 1 comments