X-Men: The Last Stand Review
X-Men: The Last Stand is the third in a very strong series of comic book movies. In 2000, the first of the series came out and was a hit because it was the first quality comic book movie since Batman Returns. This doesn’t mean it was the only one though. There were 2 more Batman movies that came out in 1995 and 1997. These movies were pretty much flops. They did fairly well at the box office, but after the major departure that Joel Schumacher made from the Tim Burton directed movies, there was a serious problem. The bloated casts, and sub-par writing left a lot to be desired and there was no longer a fervor everytime that comic book movies were adapted. If X-Men had not been a quality film, then it might have put the genre back on the shelf for another 10 years at least. But, thank goodness, that wasn’t the case. Instead, we now have a major foray into movies by both Marvel and their counterpart/rival DC.
X-Men: The Last Stand is a fun movie to go see. It isn’t a perfect movie, and will never be seen as an amazing feat in film-making, but it is good to just go in and turn off your brain from time to time. When the first X-Men came out, it was a cast of relative unknowns who were in the roles of the characters that everyone loved. It was also with a director that had a passion to do this kind of movie and do it well. Halle Berry had not been a selling point in Hollywood yet. Hugh Jackman was an unknown from Australia who was getting ragged hard because many people did not think he fit the role of Wolverine at all. James Marsden had been in a few movies, but was only recognizable by looks. Rebecca Romijn-Stamos was only known because of the Stamos at the end of her name because she was married to John Stamos from Full House and her modeling career. Then there were the two pillars of the movie in Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart. Patrick Stewart already had a sci-fi following because of his work in Star Trek: The Next Generation. And Ian McKellan was known very well in the U.K. and was getting ready to be a major player in another Fantasy trilogy called The Lord of the Rings. And the director of Bryan Singer had helmed 4 movies, and only 1 of them was well known by the movie-going audience in "The Usual Suspects".
So the cast had 2 major players, a director who had only one well-known film under his belt, and a wealth of unknown players who had yet to make their mark on Hollywood. But the things they had going for them were a beloved story, a rabid fan-base, and a passion to do things right in this franchise.
Enough about the history of the movie, it is time to find out if the movie is really worth your money.
X-Men: The Last Stand is a major departure from its two previous counterparts. You have the same characters with a few extra thrown in, but it isn’t up to the quality writing of the first ones. The action is amazing, and it is a fun movie to sit down and enjoy. But the writing of dialogue has been left lacking seriously. The storyline is strong, but it has a good base story to pull from in decades of comic books. The main premise of the movie is that a pharmaceutical company has come up with a cure for the mutants who comprise the X-Men, as well as any other mutants who have the same gene difference. So, as you can see, this is a very strong storyline to go by, but the problem is that there was a new writer thrown in the mix who apparently has thrown his weight around enough to make this a dumbed down movie. Simon Kinberg has two major writing credits in Mr. and Mrs. Smith and XXX: State of the Union. Those are two other turn off your brain-type movies. And you have a new director to the franchise who is pretty much synonymous with the word "hack". Brett Ratner’s filmography is less than stellar. He has directed such cinematic marvels as Rush Hour 1 & 2, Money Talks, and Family Man. These movies are throw away movies that don’t have the edge that they really needed to be universally enjoyed. They are fun movies, but that is as far as they go. And the previous films are more storyline driven and a little darker, where this one is more about action and fun.
The film starts with Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart going to visit a young Jean Grey and you see that she is a little less than stable, but extremely powerful. Then we cut to a scene in the near future with the children of the school and teachers in a battle of some sort. I am a comic book fan, and I liked the idea of this fight scene more than the execution. Wolverine and Storm come out with lines like "We’re getting killed out here", "I told you they’re too young". Now there is some creative writing. The whole movie works out this way. As long as no one is talking, then the movie is great. And if McKellan or Stewart were talking, then it was all good. Then there was Kelsey Grammar playing the character of Beast in this film. I was hoping that he would come up to the standards of McKellan and Stewart, and he did well, but he was just underneath their caliber of performance. He did fine in the role, but I really think that someone like Lawrence Fishburne would have been more well-suited to the role of the big furball.
I have to say that there were some new characters and actors that I thoroughly enjoyed, and really wanted more of. The character of Angel played by Ben Foster was very impressive. I really liked his storyline and execution a lot. Unfortunately his storyline, though marketed hard through promos, is extremely short. He really could have used at least another 10 minutes of storyline. Then there was Vinnie Jones as Juggernaut who was a lot of fun to watch and really embodied what I wanted from his character, but again, he was underused. There could have been a whole new dynamic with the storyline of Xavier being his half-brother like it was in the comics. This could have been done through a single look or nod during a certain scene. The character of Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat was used only in the love triangle between Iceman and Rogue, where she could have been used more as a human interest storyline because she is supposed to be a character that people can relate to. And last is Colossus who we saw in the first movie and is shown in this movie, but you rarely hear him speak. All of these characters should have had more screen time instead of it getting eaten up by Halle Berry and Famke Janssen and their storylines.
As a whole, the movie wasn’t bad. In fact, it was pretty good. But it didn’t live up to the standards set by the former two films. I wanted more of an emotional storyline than I got. I heard one review where the person talked about how much they liked it because it wasn’t all storyline, but instead was like flipping through a comic to get to the action. I guess that is kind of true, but if you flip through to get to the action, then it becomes generic and all movies morph into the same thing. But it’s the storyline that differentiates the different ones. And that is not something that this movie focuses on. If you want a movie that has you glued to your seat to see where the twists are and you want to learn more about the characters, this isn’t the movie for you. But if you just want a fun ride that has you hanging on for dear life from all of the action, then you will enjoy this film. It is a beautiful film that could have been at least a half an hour longer for storyline purposes, but it is still a great watch. Even through all of my griping, I still have to give X-Men: The Last Stand a 7 out of 10.