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May 29, 2006
Review (with spoilers) of X-Men: The Last Stand
Warning: This review includes movie spoilers.
X-Men: The Last Stand is unsatisfying fare for all but the most indiscriminant of movie-goers.
The plot goes something like this:
1. Cyclops goes to sulk at Alkali Lake. Jean Gray comes back to life as Dark Phoenix and kills him. Everyone mourns.
2. A company announces it has developed a "cure" for the mutant gene. A range of emotions are expressed. Storm continues her tradition of silly and/or obvious statements.
3. Charles Xavier and Magneto go to the childhood home of Jean Gray to try to convince her to not destroy the planet accidentally. She gets angry and kills Xavier. Wolverine cries like a little girl. Everyone mourns.
4. Rogue goes off to get cured so she can make wild monkey-love to Iceman.
5. Magneto continues recruiting his Brotherhood to fight the cure and hides out in the woods. Wolverine goes to find Jean, who has joined Magneto, and Magneto kicks his ass.
6. The Brotherhood takes over Alcatraz, which is where the cure is being produced and stored.
7. The X-Men stop them with a big battle. Magneto is "cured" of his powers and runs away. Wolverine kills Dark Phoenix/Jean Gray and cries like a little girl. Everyone mourns.
8. Magneto makes a metal chess piece wobble (implying the cure is temporary) and the movie ends.
After the credits, there's an additional short bit that suggests Professor X might have transferred his consciousness to a new body, but that's a pretty lame attempt at reconciliation.
So let me sum up: Three of the founding X-Men get killed, Wolverine cries TWICE, and there were at least three incongruencies with the comics (e.g., according to the film, Juggernaut is a mutant).
The whole film seems rushed -- we never get the chance to think about what's going on before we're bombarded by a new set of explosions, gun battles, or general violence and mayhem. Nobody gets any real opportunity to act (except Storm and Wolverine, and those attempts were pitiful), let alone develop characters beyond what we learned in the previous films. Sure, the special effects were fine and dandy, but the writing and overall plot just didn't do the finale justice, especially when compared to the excellence exhibited in the first two movies. Brett Ratner was true to his history -- this movie is a big-time action movie. The problem is, the first two were all that PLUS so much more.
My conclusion is that this is a sad way to end what would have been by far the best comic book film trilogy ever produced. Now, I don't even expect I'll buy the DVD of X-Men: The Last Stand when it comes out.
My Rating: 6 (out of 10)
Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
Comments
How sad... guess I am glad I didn't waste $ on it.
Posted by: Renee at May 29, 2006 5:00 PM
Very true, I was very disappointed with it.
Posted by: Linda at May 31, 2006 5:51 PM
I agreee. I saw the movie this week and was pretty dissapointed. Some nice effects, but otherwise not worth the price of admission. I just kind of felt after seeing it that all I learned was that 3 mutants died and that Magneto might come back. Other than the plot moving things forward, nothing really happened. Or what did happen didn't seem to have any effect on me. I gained no further insight on any of the characters. It was as if they weren't there, or just going through the motions. About the only interesting scene characterwise was between Wolverine and Rogue when she was leaving. That's about it! I also liked the CG that they did to make Xavier and Magneto look younger when they went to visit Jean as a child, but apart from that those two scenes, everything else was just... well, fluff...
Posted by: Levi Wallach at June 3, 2006 11:41 AM
The movie definitely felt rushed. Having three characters killed off was way too much to fit into this movie. They fit too much into a small package on this one. Wolverine was way too emotional to be tough. Juggernaut seemed pretty cool, but the way he was defeated by Kitty was a complete joke. The fact that cyclops was killed was a total low blow; cyclops is supposed to be the leader of x-men yet he had the two smallest roles in both of the last two movies of the trilogy. And yeah that scene with professor X at the end of the movie made no impact at all.
Posted by: Andrew at June 20, 2006 8:40 PM