X-Men: Last Stand 8. As is well known amongst my friends, I'm very critical of comic-movie adaptations because of my extensive geekified comic book background. And despite their commercial success, I've always been extra critical of the X-Movies.... Mainly because, from a real comic book reader's standpoint, they generally stink on toast. I've always blamed the screenplay writers for my vast disappointment. Now, after seeing X-Men 3, the director of the two previous movies gets to share the blame for their stankitude. Bryan Singer.... you, sir, are lame. I'm even more concerned now about what you'll do the to revered Superman franchise. I say all this because I rather enjoyed X-Men 3, with its new director, Brett Ratner (nice job, Brett) which just illustrates how clueless you really are about the comics.

X-Men 3 is a grand, comic-booky movie that captures more than just the obligatory look of the comics, it also comes much closer to nailing the story, feel, and pacing of the comics. Bryan... dude... you paying attention? This is what you want in a comic book movie... a movie that actually feels like the comics which were so successful by themselves to begin with! Screw your "I know better than they do" mentality which the first two films reeked of.

Not that X-3 doesn't deserve its share of my usual criticisms. I'm still enraged by the writers' self-granted license to pick and choose which established characters they're going to use and how they're going to fit into the screenplay (not to mention how old and/or experienced they're going to be). Witness Angel and Iceman... In the comics they were two of the original X-Men (along with Cyclops, Jean Gray, and Beast), not two children just dicovering their powers. And who decided Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man, is suddenly a villain now? Because we needed someone with his powers to make our movie plot work? It's shit like that that chaps my geekified hide.  ¶ 9:20 PM