X-Men III: The Last Straw (updated June 9)

Okay, watched X-Men III again last night with Betsy and WBen and here's what I think of it (will contain spoilers):

The Good:

1) "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" and "Are you letting me out? Coz I've got to pee."

2) Wolverine's cigar-lighting scene in the Danger Room. Betsy also pointed out to me that afterwards, Logan's stubble was shorter on that side. :)

3) The casual and slightly clueless way Wolverine wanders around the Danger Room with explosions going on behind him.

4) Kitty Pryde rocks! Go Kitty!

5) Jean Grey's hair finally looks like the comic version :)

6) Storm's wardrobe.

7) The far shot of Jean and Wolverine after he kills her - truly a "Drawing the Marvel Way" panel.

8) The lack of Cyclops (and accompanying angst-a-thon) in this movie.

9) Kelsey Grammer as the Beast. Nuff said!

10) Now I wish I had Arclight's power...being able to clap and smash any annoying public utility vehicles into smithereens sounds pretty good, especially during gridlock.

11) Daniel Cudmore as Colossus/Piotr Rasputin. Yum.

12) Angel's new improved 'rescue' positioning - it beats the usual comics pose that looks like a scene from a bodice-ripping romance novel. Besides, who'd feel comfortable holding their dad that way???

13) The Phoenix's powers were handled quite well (what with the taking-people/cars/buildings-apart-at-a-molecular-level) but I have to admit I expected more gloating. I was pleasantly surprised to encounter none whatsoever. However, now we're left wondering: what was Phoenix's motivation for tagging along with Magneto then?

The Bad:

1) Storm's complete and utter lack of regal bearing (remember, she's supposed to have been worshipped as an African goddess for crying out loud!) annoys me in every Halle Berry scene. At some points she also channels her other superheroine role, Catwoman. *wince*

2) Jean Grey's rather Galadriel-esque transformations - when the Phoenix takes over, she reminds me of the scene from Fellowship of the Ring where Galadriel is tempted by the One Ring.

3) Why is there no blood? Wolverine goes through an army of Magneto's mutant henchmen, and...no blood? Are his adamantium claws mono-molecularly-edged?

4) They glossed over the Cain Marko/Juggernaut-is-Prof. Xavier's-stepbrother bit and ignored all the history between them. Juggernaut should have been chomping at the bit to take Xavier down, not content to play tiddlywinks with Wolverine.

5) Storm's hair is white, not off-white and grey. Sigh. And they were doing so well with Jean's 'do.

6) No one actually says the words 'fastball special'. And why does the FS looks so weird? Mine Keetee says it looked like Piotr was throwing a discus.

7) Again, Marvel has shown that they just can't quite bring themselves to knock off major franchises -- er, I mean, characters.

The Ugly:

1) Consider the lineup of the X-Men team. There's Wolverine, Iceman, Colossus, Shadowcat, and Beast (all white, and although Piotr/Colossus was supposed to be Russian, he seems very WASPy in the movie) and Storm (African-American), Now, consider the lineup of Magneto's side. You have a leader who's Jewish, a couple of white henchmen (Pyro and Juggernaut), a couple of Asians (Spike and Psylocke) and a couple of Latinas (Callisto and Arclight). Now which team seems to speak louder for racial tolerance? The point of Xavier's second X-men team (from the comics) was that they were from different countries, promoting that fact that man-/mutant-kind can put aside their differences and band together for a common goal. I'm not getting this vibe from the movie. Where's the fuzzy German guy? The proud Native American? The naive Russkie? The regal African weather witch?

2) That dweeb they cast to play Angel. I am *SO* disappointed in you, Hollywood.

3) I'm all for a sensitive kind of guy, but...WTF??? Wolverine??? CRYING???

4) Still no Gambit. Oh wait, they royally messed up casting Angel after all...they're probably biding their time until they can use some sad geekazoid to ruin Remy LeBeau too.

The Funny:

1) "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!"

2) You can tell that Magneto is being played by a gay man -- I mean, what straight man in his right mind would turn away from a naked Rebecca Romjin???

3) Kitty outsmarts Juggernaut! That made the audience (and me) laugh. :)

Things that made me go Huh?

1) The new, improved Mr. Sensitive Wolverine - what's with the 'time to let go and get over Jean' talk with Scott??? So wrong...on so many levels!

2) I found it very strange that the 'mutants' who were protesting against the cure looked so...normal.

Author's Note: Will add more stuff if and when I think of something new to rant/rave about.