Film Review: X-Men: The Last Stand

I'll try to keep this spoiler free.

X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

Directed by Brett Ratner

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Famke Janssen, Anna Paquin, Kelsey Grammer, James Marsden, Rebecca Romijn, Vinnie Jones, Ellen Page, Sean Ashmore, & Aaron Stanford

IMDB rating: 7.0


I had to split my mind into two points of view for this film. One is the lifelong X-men fan (ie. Comic Geek) who's been reading X-Men comics since the mid 80's to present. The other is a film buff looking for an entertaining couple of hours in a theater. The second guy enjoyed the action, a couple of surprise twists, and a few great performances by a few great actors. The first guy was ENRAGED by the casual slaughtering of mainstay X-Men (One of whom is killed OFF SCREEN, with barely a reaction from his fellow X-Men!), and actually groaned out loud at the cheesy one-liners tossed off by Wolverine and co.

The filmmakers took the wrong direction with the x-men from the start of the first film. Instead of using source material from the plethora of legendary writers at Marvel Comics, they just use the names and likeness of these characters and go about writing whatever haphazard crap they can cram into 2 and a half hours, disregarding anything done with the x-men before, and virtually killing all hope of this being more than a trilogy. (I know, I know, I stayed after the credits and saw the secret clip at the end. Another X-men film would still be crappy!)

(Take a deep breath)... ok.

There are a few nice moments here, especially with Juggernaut (Vinnie Jones) and Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) who both steal all the scenes they're in, and have a fantastic race through a building at the end of the film. Ian McKellen is also brilliant as Magneto, and he nails the nuances of Magneto's seemingly contradictory motivation. Kelsey Grammer's Beast is wonderful, and I do like Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, but his lines seemed to have been written by former James Bond writers. Average performances by Patrick Stewart (Prof X) and Famke Janssen (Jean Grey)and plain ol bad acting from Halle Berry (Storm) don't help. And Rogue, Iceman, Colossus, and Angel are barely there. Blink and you'll miss them.

A big deal was made over the departure of X1 and 2 director Bryan Singer (who's off making Superman) and his replacement with Rush Hour director Brett Ratnor. Ratnor did a fine job. The action, ambition, and scope of this film outdoes anything in X1 or 2, and I blame witers for making me hate parts of this. But this does work better if taken as a trilogy, and as such, this is a great "ending," wrapping up plotlines and dealing with almost all characters (some permantly, but where the hell is Nightcralwer?!?)

So expect the disappointment if you're an X-fan, or go enjoy yourself if it's only a movie to you.

The Sneaky Cheetah's Grade = B-