Ghost in the Machine

The Power of Snikt.

“Standing 5 foot 3, weighing 300 pounds (thanks to that metal skeleton), he’s a hairy-backed fashion victim from a country nobody takes seriously. But look around any high-school or college cafeteria during lunch hour at the armies of hairy-backed, height and weight disproportionate fashion victims and you’ll quickly realize that these are his people. If you’re a nerd, a loser, an outcast, or a misfit then there’s only one all-purpose tough guy for you. Wolverine: He’s just like us. Only Canadian.“

Over in Slate and in honor of his new solo movie (which I’m still planning to skip — I’m sure it’ll be mildly entertaining on TNT in a few years), Grady Hendrix doffs his hat to the enduring popularity of Wolverine. If you say so, bub. When I wasn’t crushing on Kitty Pryde — I was always more of a Nightcrawler kid, so i’ll take your word for it. At any rate, Hendrix’s evisceration of the trademark Claremont style is pretty funny (although I’d disagree with him that Wolvie is Claremont’s Malcolm X — That would be Magneto.)

Canadian Bacon.

Times are tough, bub. In a clear sign that the economic downturn is affecting actors and celebrities as much as it is ordinary working people, Danny Huston and Liev Schreiber pay off their mortgages alongside Hugh Jackman in the new trailer for Gavin Hood’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Ok, I kid, this doesn’t look completely terrible. But some of the shots here — particularly Jackman walking away from the explosion, hanging on to that chopper, or otherwise engaged in wire-fu — definitely have that C-movie, Punisher: War Zone feel to them. And after the directorial switcheroo that brought about the lamentable X3: The Last Stand (which has an equally overburdened title, come to think of it — what’s with the colons?), I’m not all that inclined to look charitably on Fox’s handling of this property anymore.

Fanboy-wise, I had mostly checked out of X-Men by the time they began revisiting Wolvie’s origin every other year — most of the stuff I do remember involved Kitty Pryde and feudal Japan — so I can’t really speak to what’s going on in this clip in terms of comic continuity. That being said, I’ve always thought the cajun mutant cardslinger Gambit (here, Friday Night Lights‘ Taylor Kitsch, no pun intended) was a pretty goofy, throwaway character, n’est-ce-pas, mes amis? It is interesting to see (I think) Emma Frost pop up for a second, but, again, I’m much more familiar with the character in her old, Hellfire Club incarnation, before she pulled a Magneto somewhere along the line and got retconned into a X-member. (And I always thought, movie-wise, they should’ve cast Rosamund Pike for the White Queen, particularly in her ice-castle incarnation from the otherwise-completely-forgettable Die Another Day.)

Eccch, Man.

Mutie alert: Despite a few all-too-brief glimpses of a better (or at least more enjoyable) movie scattered therein, Brett Ratner’s X3: The Last Stand is, as the fanboy nation suspected, a truly terrible film. In fact, with the possible exception of Ian McKellen hamming his way through Magneto, it’s hard to think of anyone who brought above their C-game to this woeful project — the directing is workmanlike, the effects look cheap, the shots have that Canadian backlot look to them, the score is hamhanded and distracting, the actors seem bored, and, worst of all, the script is flat-out embarrassing. What’s more, if you harbor any affection for the comic (and particularly the Dark Phoenix arc ostensibly in play here, although it’s been cross-wired with Joss Whedon’s early run), you’ll probably just leave irritated. In short, X3 is just the type of lowest-common-denominator, dumbed-down rush job that gives both summer movies and comic movies a bad name: Think Fantastic Four.

Compounding the aggravation, X3 seems like it might turn out reasonably decent for the first ten minutes or so. The film begins with two flashbacks: The more interesting one, although it steals much of its subtext from Raimi’s Spiderman, involves a teenage Angel trying to clip his wings (the other features not-quite-ready-for-primetime de-aging CGI.) But then we’re thrust into a really clunky Danger Room sequence, involving Sentinels that have all the terrible grandeur of an industrial-strength flashlight and a Corman-esque Colossus that screams straight-to-video. (Apparently, the Danger Room was built in Professor Xavier’s Bargain Basement.) And, from there, it’s just down, down down. As it turns out, Worthington industries (run by Michael Murphy of Tanner), with the acquiescence of the President (a man who’s prone to looking into the camera and exclaiming “God…help…us.” whenever needed) has, as per Whedon, created a “cure” for mutants, prompting outrage (Storm, Halle Berry), confusion (Beast, Kelsey Grammar), relief (Rogue, Anna Paquin), and righteous megalomania (Magneto, McKellen) among the varied facets of mutantkind. Meanwhile, as tensions mount and the timely metaphors fly thick, a bedraggled Cyclops (James Marsden) ventures out to Alkali Lake — site of the climax of X2 — where he, surprisingly, encounters Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) alive and well. Ok, maybe not well…

As you can see, X3 is playing with at least two quality story arcs out of the X-Men canon here, so you’d think it’d just have to ride them through. But, alas, screenwriters Simon Kinberg and Zak Penn — who, make no bones about it, deserve the lion’s share of blame for this drek — go crazier than Chris Claremont in his post-Mutant Massacre burnout phase. (Speaking of mutant massacres, no less than [Major Movie-Ruining Spoiler] SIX major characters — Cyclops, Xavier, Mystique, Magneto, Jean Grey, Rogue — are eliminated by the end of this flick, which, even given the lax standards one must accord this universe, seems both ridiculously brutal and exceedingly lazy writing.) Virtually everybody here — and particularly Xavier and Magneto — has at least one speech, quip, or action that seems totally out-of-character. (For her part, Halle Berry plays Storm as if she were Halle Berry.) Neither the good guys nor bad guys’ plans make one lick of sense. And, even despite all the X-Men on hand here, the film is overflowing with undifferentiated throwaway characters who all look and act like tattoo-riddled redshirts.

By the way, did I mention this film looks cheap? Oh, hell yes. Beast looks like a cross between a Metallica roadie and an alien on a Sci-Fi channel miniseries. Dark Phoenix — who, by the way, not once exhibits a phoenix flame — instead occasionally unleashes the terrifying cosmic force of scrubbly bubbles (a la the distintegrating vampires in Blade.) And the wire-fu…oof, it’s just plain sad. So, is there anything good here? Well, very briefly, Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page), Juggernaut (Vinnie Jones), Madrox (Eric Dane), Moira (Olivia Williams)…that’s about it, and it all totals about ten minutes of screen time. In short, after the surprisingly delectable heights of Bryan Singer’s X2 (Nightcrawler in the White House, Magneto’s escape), this film is at best a tremendous disappointment, and at worst an insult to the fan base. If this and FF is how Avi Arad and Marvel have decided to treat their best (non-Spiderman) properties from now herein, make mine DC.

R&R, X&X&X.

Today’s trailers: Crockett & Tubbs reunite as Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx respectively in the full trailer for Michael Mann’s film version of Miami Vice (This isn’t much of an improvement on the teaser, frankly.) And, Dell offers seven minutes of clips from X3: The Last Stand, of which all but 90 seconds or so (thanks to Ian McKellen, who’s clearly at home scenery-chewing his way through this badly-written drek) looks and sounds cringeworthy. From this, it seems the real problem with X3 may be less Ratner than the so-far really clunky script by Simon Kinberg & Zak Penn.

Can I get a (super)-witness?

The Religious Affiliation of Comic Book Characters, with a handy graphic of who’s a member of what “legion.” The site also includes impressively detailed individual entries on each character — not only the big guns like Methodist Superman, Episcopal Batman, Catholic Daredevil, and Buddhist Wolverine, but also everyone from Presbyterian Wolfsbane to the Mormon Power Pack. (Via Triptych Cryptic.)