Movie Review: X's and Ex's

This is a warning to all the guys out there: don't take your woman to go see "The Breakup", with Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston. Don't do it man. I mean it.

You will get suckered into going; it looks like a date movie, and there aren't a lot of date movies out right now. But I don't care if you have to man-up and take her to see a ballet, theater, ANYTHING but this movie.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good movie. But it's a trap, man! There is nothing nice that happens in the flick. You will get elbowed in the ribs every 20 minutes, with her rolling her eyes at you and going "see?"

The premise is that the happy couple host a dinner at their relatively new condo they've purchased together, and while the dinner itself was a success their attitudes about it aren't. Vince's character is lazy; let's be honest about that. He comes home from work and immediately plops down on the couch, turns on his big screen television and grabs a beer - while Jennifer, who came home early, has spent all evening cleaning and cooking.

They start out arguing over lemons, of all things; she asked him to bring home 12 lemons, he brings 3. She wanted the lemons to make a centerpiece for the dinner table, he suggests not having one...and the shit hits the fan from there.

After the dinner they launch into a heated argument over responsibilities, expectations, and personal viewpoints that ends up with her ending their relationship.

Except...they own this condo together. And neither wants to give it up, so in the midst of this anger they're living together. It becomes a game between them, with Aniston trying to make him jealous and "see her way, and apologize" and him being absolutely clueless, but getting drawn up into her games and trying to outdo her.

You do not walk out of this movie happy. At all. These two people love each other, but they're both screwed in the head and just can't stop playing stupid games with each other. There is no communication, and without giving away the ending I'll at least say you're going to walk out of this movie with one of two emotions:
- depression
- anger

You've been warned.

I absolutely recommend you do NOT see this movie if you're in a relationship where you have communication problems. All it'll do is highlight all of the problems you're having, and you'll come out arguing about them. There is no happy ending here, folks. Don't do it.

I give this a 2-1/2 out of 5 bananas.

On the other hand, DO go see X-Men: The Last Stand.

Just...forget everything you ever knew about the comic books.

Understand: this is a movie based on the characters, and that's it. They are not following a specific comic storyline, and they do change up certain things about the characters. You also get the impression that this is the end of the movie franchise for the X-Men (I won't say why), but then again...who knows? I already know there's a Wolverine movie in discussion.

The premise is that a research company, Worthington Labs, has discovered a way to suppress the mutant X gene; they call it a cure. The mutants call it genocide - at least, some of them do. Others see it as a chance to be normal, to finally fit in.

I don't need to tell you what side of the fence Magneto and his Brotherhood stand on.

It's war, people, mutants against humans - with the X-Men holding the line between them.

Good luck trying to figure out the characters in the Brotherhood; they're such an amalgamated mish-mosh of other characters, you'll be hard pressed to name them. Callisto is given what should have been Quicksilver's speed and Caliban's mutant-sensing ability; Kid Omega is instead given the powers we associated with Quill. There's another character with the ability to turn invisible who I only found out was Psylocke after looking it up online. And Juggernaut is reduced to a one-trick pony, more reminscient of Rhino than the Juggy we all know and love.

Despite these changes (and more dramatic ones to the X-Men themselves), this was a pretty good movie. It was well paced, with just enough drama and action to keep you interested. I just wish certain characters had more screen time; Jamie Madrox (the Multiple Man) looks like he'd be a crackup, and I'd like to actually see Colossus speak once in a while. Rogue was practically a non-entity, although I rationalized that because they couldn't have TWO power-leeching mutants stealing screen time in the same movie (yeah, that's a big clue there!)

As long as you can forget everything you knew about the history of the X-men, you'll enjoy the movie for what it is - an action superhero movie.

Oh, and stick around after the credits. You won't be disappointed.

I give it a 3 out of 5 bananas.