Super Hero Movies revisited

The last post I made about Superhero movies, I believe that I expressed little interest in X-men 3, The Last Stand. Well, let me correct myself, and apologize to the fine people who created this movie.

I finally saw X-men 3 last night on DVD, and it was fabulous: just what a superhero movie should be. These people have awesome powers, and in this movie they are unleashed to nearly full effect, without going over the top. Yes, I know... moving the Golden Gate Bridge seems like a big deal, but come on... this IS something that Magneto is capable of. Superman moving planets in the old comic books was going over the top.

I liked a lot of things about this movie. Most of all it was entertaining without preachiness or mindless violence. Also, it was not predictable to any extent, at least not to me, and trust me, most movie plots leave me yawning after 5 minutes. There was an awful lot of violence, but let's use action as a better word. Violence to me is senseless killing and destruction. In this film, there is some of that, but there is good explanation for it all, and it moves the plot forward. This story is an all out war, and as such, there are casualties and property damage, as would be expected with beings of such power.

I was very surprised by the supposedly permanent changes in many of the main characters, which I will not go into for spoiler purposes. Usually, movies have one problem that comics do not face, and that is the real life of actors. When an Actor gets tired of a roll, sometimes they beg to be killed off so that they can go out in style, and never come back again. Of course, in comics, people return from the grave on a regular basis, but unless time travel is used, X-men 4 will be missing quite a few characters who have passed beyond the veil. This movie killed of some big characters, and changed others, in a way that was bold and surprising, and made the movie all the better,which begs me to consider that movies have that advantage over comics... movie storylines end. A comic series simply cannot kill off a major character forever, where, regardless of Star Trek, a movie franchise eventually ends. This allows a closure that we may never see in a long running comic series.

I still believe that movies and comics are, and should be, colleagues. Both have differences which just HAVE to be considered to make either work. This movie does what it should, in the way that it should, and I for one hope the next slew of Superhero movies follows in it's footsteps.

And hopefully inspire some of you movie-goers to go visit your local comic shop :0)

Cheers, JOHN :0)