Film "Instead of retaining all the wonderful subtlety and social commentary of the others, this movie throws itself headlong into the abyss of stereotypes and cheap lines and juvenile sexism. The point of the entire film seems to be a systematic disempowerment of the strong female characters, including Rogue, perhaps the strongest mutant of them all because she can pinch your power while she kills you. But in this movie, because she thinks her boyfriend might dump her over the fact that she can't touch (i.e., screw) him, she chooses to "cure" herself of her power and become a nice safe repository of physicality for him. Because of sexual jealously she castrates herself. I wanted to vomit." -- Shelley Rees
A touch late but I just wanted to applaud this brilliant feminist take on why X-men 3 was appalling. Yet another thing I've learnt during my university course is actually how disempowering to everyone the typical Hollywood-style film is.
For starters, not sure why you are slagging X-Men 3 again. It was just a harmless, entertaining film. Not life changing, but nowt really wrong.
ReplyDeleteAnd sorry, but anti-female? Thats just feminist nonsense and am amazed that you go along with that. Obviously showing Phoenix as the most powerful mutant in the world is disempowering women?
No female mutants get killed, plenty of male ones do. So is that disempowering the male characters?!
Sure, but the problem is that of enough harmless entertaining films are made that present certain situations in certain way they become the norm. Which is a shame.
ReplyDeleteIt's been a while since I had a go at X3 but really it's been some time since a franchise took such a nose-dive and misunderstood and misrepresented past relationships and stories -- the Magneto/Mystique dynamic being one of a few.
The problem with the film is that it's probably good enough as it stands, but it fails to live up to overall story that was set up in the previous two films -- and decided to kill off major characters in a very uninspiring and disappointing way.
It tried to ram together about two or three interesting and substantial storylines that would have sustained a whole film and in the end made them feel less than they should have been. It managed to make one of the great comic book franchises look ordinary and like everything else.
Also, yes Phoenix was the most powerful mutant in the world, but she was portrayed as mentally ill and towards the end under the thumb of Magneto, part of his plan rather than her own.
Terry Gilliam said something interesting on the radio the other day. He said the worst thing that a film can do is lead to the reaction 'That was ok'. Well, yes, X3 was OK. But it could have been more -- it could have been as good as X's 1 & 2 and as inspiring as the Superman Returns and the Spidermans.
I mean what was your immediate reaction when you left the cinema?
Well yeah it was OK, which for a Hollywood film is a success.
ReplyDeleteAnd to call Superman Returns inspiring I think is a little over the top. Now that really WAS an average film.
Superman having a kid? Please?!Noone noticing that as soon as Clark returns, so does Superman, and when Superman gets hospitalised, Clark disappears again. I know you are meant to suspend your disbelief a little, but thats too far. It may work in comics, it does not in film. Also Lois Lane looks about early-20's which seeing Superman has been away for years and they had years of a relationship before that, would make Superman a paedophile!
Plothole-a-go-go
Well, so long as people say -- well for a Hollywood film it was OK, the average Hollywood films isn't going to be anything better than OK.
ReplyDeleteAlso -- in the comics there's a kind of slow version of time (rather like The Simpsons actually) in which characters are the same age for years whilst everything develops ever onward. So we don't actually know how old all of these characters are. So I take your point. That said, the actress, Kate Bosworth is 23 at the release of the film but she's certainly playing older -- she played even older lets not forget in 'Beyond The Sea' ...
So are you saying that Superman Returns is worse than X3?
I'll save you both the bother - they are both rubbish. Also I would be very wary of anyone over the age of 12 reading any kind of comic book, sorry, graphic novel *chuckles*.
ReplyDelete