X-men: The Last Stand Review

You may have noticed that there's been a delay in finishing the X-men film series marathon and getting this review out. Well, let me ask you this: if you were reviewing X-men 3, wouldn't you be trying to delay something even if you know it's inevitable?

Let's be fair. X-men: The Last Stand has had very divided feelings from its viewers. Ranging from a decent superhero flick to failure third installment. Movies one and two amazed us with its story, characters, action and much more. But after Bryan Singer left for Superman Returns, Brett Ratner took the helm of the X-men film series and many comic book fans got themselves a new photo to staple onto their dartboards.

The mutant phenomenon may be over when a new company set on Alcatraz Island develops a "cure" to relieve mutants of their abilities and turn them human. While the X-men, (Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Sir Patrick Stewart, Anna Paquin, Shawn Ashmore, etc) receive mixed feelings to the new product, it's very existence enrages Magneto (Sir Ian McKellen) and his Brotherhood of Mutants. They declare all out war on humanity and began marshalling an army of mutants to destroy the cure at any cost. In the mix of this, Jean Grey (Famke Jensen) has returned after her apparent death, with her power levels evolved to a dangerous level that has begun to corrupt her mind. Magneto inducts Jean, now under the name of Phoenix, into the Brotherhood as a weapon for his cause, and the X-men must make a final stand to defend humanity against their own kind.

What you receive in this installment is a rich usage of the comic book mythology that the X-men is based on. The problem is that many of those characters are adapted with little to know character basis and are mostly thrown together at random. Only newcomer Kelsey Grammer as Hank McCoy/Beast delivers a solid and intriguing performance.

Much of Ratner's direction shows a lot more dumbed down story, with action losing a lot of its intensity and music being nothing like it was before. Plenty of the plot could have been cut and many story arcs don't give these characters a comfortable fit of where they should have been going from the start. Thankfully this last stand would only be followed by spin-offs, because a fourth installment would have just broken the franchise's legs completely.