But there was a worry: isn't there a bit too much going on? And there was. You've got all these new characters to introduce, a huge epic storyline and two and a bit hours to not only fit it all in, but also try and find some sense of closure.
And it all felt rather messy indeed. My favorite X Men movie is still the second one - all the characters had already been introduced, there were a few new guys, true, but the main ones kept the story going and Wolverine got to go completely ape shit. The moment in the mansion when he first kills one of the soldiers all I could think was "Holy shit! They let Wolvie kill someone! They didn't even show that properly in the comic books until the whole Comics Code thing got lifted!"
And I rejoiced.
But X Men 3 was another kettle of fish. So much shit was going on that nobody got a chance to breath, least of all the audience. I mean, come on! Scott (Cylcops) gets killed and nobody seems to bat a fucking eye lid! What's up with that?! It seriously felt like the studios were nudging their wicked ways, saying "the first one made money, the second one made more! We need to keep it up! Stick everything in these damn books inside!" And what do you get? An unfocused mess. And Vinnie Jones as the Juggernaut.
I recently bought the two disc DVD and watched the deleted scenes - there are so many cool battle shots that weren't used, probably because they were running out of time. But who knows? Maybe it would have paced it better? Or maybe they could have just chucked out a bunch of the sub-plots and streamlined the whole damn thing.
Spiderman 3 suffers the same problem, but in a way, worse. You can't even say it was the fault of a new director or writer because it's pretty much the same team working on it, but there are so many elements in that movie that feel chucked in purely because the studio wants to please the fans so that more will come to the cinemas - look at this! There's Gwen Stacy! Venom! Sandman! Harry Osborne's story arc! Tons of stuff!
And where does it lead to? Incredible coincidences. A meteorite containing the venom symbiote just happens to land nearby Peter. I know that trying to do the whole 'Secret Wars' storyline would be a bit too much, but that's just taking the piss! And Eddie Brock? I had no problems with the casting, I fucking love Topher Grace's work, but doesn't it all seem a bit too much that he wants to kill Peter Parker just because he found out he photoshoped a pic of Spidey? And what the fuck was the point of Gwen Stacy? She was just 'the other girl', but they didn't play anything from her original storyline, making her nothing more than a redundant blonde who just happened to be in Peter's line of sight. They could have used the secretary as the love interest. They played on it before, dammit. And it's been in the comics too, no meandering of the storyline there.
And, seriously, what was the point in having Sandman there? Visual FX? That's it?! He pops up, turns into the Sandman, does some cool sandmonster shit, then repents.
The bad guy I thought they should have stuck with was Harry. His story's been built up over the past two movies, and in this one, he gets to kick some serious ass in the first fight scene with Peter, a huge improvement on his daddy's fight with Spidey in part one.
But, amongst all of this, I still watched it, and will probably watch it again, the same way I watched X Men 3 again - because there is some fun to be had in watching these characters come to life and beat the crap out of each other just like we read about it in comics. The scriptwriting is bad, but in my opinion, the script was pretty bad in the first Spiderman movie too. At least now, the second time I watch it, my hopes won't be so high.
And besides, both movies still kick the shit out of the infernal turd that was the Ghost Rider movie.
