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// Filed under: Entertainment on Saturday May 27th 2006, 12:26 pm It’s going to be difficult for me to fully make an objective review of X-Men 3, because I have a long standing love affair with the X-Men, so anything I say should probably be taken with a grain of salt. But I promise I’ll do my best. X-Men 3 was fucking awesome. Sure, it’s a little slow to start with, and at some points the sheer hammy cheesiness will make you cringe but The Last Stand is by far and away, the best X-Men movie to date and makes the other two look vague and irrelevant by comparison. I admit, I was worried. I saw the previews, and I was a bit worried. Vinnie Jones, as the Juggernaut? Kelsey Grammer as Beast? Halle Berry, not impaled on spikes and bleeding to death for being the worst Storm ever? Surely they were making it difficult for themselves. But no. Juggernaut works, and he works well, because they treat him entirely differently to how Juggernaut should be treated. He’s beautifully and tastefully underplayed - he had such potential to go horribly wrong but they steer gracefully clear. The real Juggernaut is a front-and-centre character, a ten-foot, only-possible-in-CGI-giant who is nobody’s bitch - which is exactly why he wouldn’t work in this film. So full kudos to the creators for recognising that. Beast? Beast is great. Kelsey does him flawlessly, both in scientific repose and in athletic combat action. He doesn’t go on any Beast-style long incomprehensible rants about random scientific data, but that’s a fanboyism I’ll have to deal with in my own manner - Beast is excellent, and Kelsey does him perfectly. If you’re worried about Angel, too, don’t be. He’s a pithy little bit-player, which is odd considering the attention the trailer and the opening scenes of the movie give to him. But don’t stress - it seems Angel’s only real mutant ability in this film is to swoop around, look like an underwear model and swoop his way out again. Don’t go into this movie expecting it to be “another X-Men movie”. This movie changes everything. People die. Major players die and the movie hurtles relentless on - civilians, normal people are killed in their hundreds and it’s only half an hour later when the movie crashes to its conclusion that you realise just how brutal this movie is. Nobody is black and white. Nobody is good or evil - this movie takes what has always been a delightfully grey-shaded world and blurs the lines even more. Compared to the previous two movies, where everybody danced their way around the issues, The Last Stand is all-out and total war and the way the X-Men fight you could truly believe this is their last stand. The Last Stand opens with some flashbacks to the happier days in the Charles/Erik relationship and it’s a beautiful thing to see these two actors together, doing precisely what they should do and making nerds cream their pants across the world. With a geniune warmth and a credible chemistry that few others could hope to achieve, Stewart and McKellen alone make this movie a pleasure to watch, even before the sheer scope of the movie and its events sweeps in and takes off. Okay, so this movie isn’t perfect. There are some lines, some phrases that will make you just wince in your seat. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if there was somebody in the 20th Century Fox offices whose job it was to insert lame puns and pithy parting shots into films, because goddamn, The Last Stand is jam-packed full of them. And there are more than a few continuity problems, and okay, for a movie where everything, everything our heroes hold dear is in the balance, sometimes the tactical decisions are less than sound. Okay, sure, they made Colossus American (He’s a fucking Russian, you idiots) and Kitty Pryde looks all of 12 years old, making her combat credibility somewhat questionable, but… you don’t care. You just don’t care. I’m not going to post any spoilers, or ruin it for anyone, but I will say this: Stay until after the credits roll. Because if you don’t, and somebody else tells you what happens, well - you’ll hate yourself for the rest of your life. See this movie. It’s relentless, it’s beautiful, it picks you up and it doesn’t fucking stop. If this is the end to the story arc, I don’t think we could have asked for anything better. // 6 Comments 
// Filed under: Life on Sunday May 14th 2006, 9:41 pm I have the most horrible cough. It lowers my voice about eight octaves and makes me sound like I smoke a pack of bitterness-and-sandpaper cigars a day before heading off to my job as a gravedigging baritone opera singer. I also let out lung-shattering coughs every few minutes in what appears to be an attempt to external viewers to vomit up my organs. We took Mum out for dinner tonight, for Mother’s Day, to a little place in East Perth called Little Moorish. Aside from the quite delightful food, I had the incredible epiphany that the back of East Perth is absolutely fucking gorgeous. Especially at night. It’s the most beautiful, cleanly landscaped and tranquil peace of lakeside delight, and I can’t believe I’ve been walking and driving through the city for twenty-odd years now, and never even seen it before. While we were strolling past the lake, a barge pulled in the through the lake mouth and gracefully executed a balletic turn at agonisingly slow speed, showing all the diners on board what I can only assume was a thoroughly exciting view of me peering into the darkness before pulling out again. It was like magic, or something. Anyway, I just thought I’d share. If somebody could go here and help me out with my application for that position, I’d be most appreciative. // 3 Comments
// Filed under: Random on Monday May 08th 2006, 2:06 pm
*cries quietly to himself* // 10 Comments
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