Monday, October 09, 2006

X-Men Revisited

You may not believe this, but I like science fiction. I know, you're probably thinking, "What? That can't be! Not Ryan!" But it's true. And I'm particularly fond of the X-Men movies.

It if funny. I spent my childhood playing superhero games that are surprisingly similar to X-Men. And my novel has some definite similarities. Yet, I wasn't really introduced to X-Men until the first movie came out. I never read the comics, since I've never been much of a comic-book kind of guy.

Anyhow, I loved the first two movies. Bryan Singer did a fabulous job of not just giving us action, but giving us strong depth of character. But then he was called off X-Men 3, and a new guy came in to take his place.

I saw X-Men 3 at the theater, and I'll admit, I was terribly disappointed. It was lacking something. That Bryan Singer touch, I guess. I was so disappointed, in fact, that I didn't really care much about seeing it again.

But, sitting on my shelf were X-Men and X-Men 2, so I had no choice but to buy the third movie to complete the trilogy. And, since I bought it, I watched it. Let me tell you, I'm glad I did.

See, there is always a danger going into a movie with certain expectations, because what might otherwise turn out to be a good movie doesn't seem to due to expectations. Of course, that's not always the case. I had expectations for Star Wars 1, 2, and 3, and later watched them again and again, but still find myself utterly furious at George Lucas for pretty much ruining the series. (Okay, Revenge of the Sith was pretty good, even if he cheated and ignored some of the rules he had laid out in the original series. But I digress...)

Anyhow, in my subsequent viewing of X-Men 3, I decided that it actually is a pretty good movie. Oh, it isn't as good as the first two. But it is enjoyable, and there were definitely things I missed the first time through that added some depth the second time.

Oh, by the way, if you do end up watching the X-Men 3 DVD, please take the time to watch the movie all the way to the end. And by end, I mean including the credits. Yep, sit there until the screen goes completely black as the last bit of text crawls out of view. Why? Because there is an relatively important scene they show that changes something that happens in the movie. And that's as much as I'm going to tell you. (See, I was talking about the movie with a friend of mine, and he wasn't aware of this scene, so I had to tell him about it.)

What's the point of all this? Nothing earth-shattering. Actually, I have no idea whatsoever, except to say that I enjoyed my second viewing of X-Men 3. That's it.