X-Men: The Last Stand

May 26, 2006

Rated: PG-13 Runtime: 104 min Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Sometimes you just LOVE to be wrong. When Brett Ratner was brought in to take over the direction of X-Men 3 from Bryan Singer (director of the first two X-Men movies), I have to admit that my heart sank a little bit. Anyone familiar with comics knows that CONTINUITY is a good thing and, with Singer gone, there was no telling how jarring that would be to the continuing mutant war storyline that was developed in the first two movies.

X-Men: The Last Stand I’m glad…no, I’m thrilled to say that Ratner held the line and not only kept building the story, he also injected a crapload of adrenalin into it. In X-Men 3: The Last Stand, the homo sapien / homo superior war comes to a head and, BOY!, there is a huge body count. And it ain’t just civilians and soldiers either. By the time the movie gets going really well, we’ve already learned the lesson that NOBODY is safe.

War is hell. It’s just that simple. And this war is no different. If you’ve seen the first two X-Men flicks (and I KNOW you have!), you know that a conflict has been brooding for quite sometime between paranoid “normal” humans in government and the few but powerful mutants that seem to be coming out into the open more and more each day.

But as with humanity, the mutants are not homogenous. There are good ones, bad ones, and lots more in between. The two most prominent are, of course, Professor Charles Xavier and Eric “Magneto” Lensherr. These once longtime friends are now enemies. They both wish to see mutants flourish and live freely and securely, but while Xavier wants mutants and humans to peacefully co-exist, Magneto would simply rather kill and/or enslave normal humans that get in their way.

The government isn’t quite sure how to handle the situation, but in true government fashion, they set up a cabinet level department to oversee the problem and not much seems to get done.

Enter Leech, a young mutant who has the ability to cancel other mutant powers. A large corporation develops what they call a “cure” for the mutant “X” gene using Leech’s blood. The government latches onto this notion in the hopes that the mutants will simply want to cure themselves and the problem will take care of itself.

But you and I and every other comic book reader know better, right? While some of the mutants (including some of the X-Men themselves) like the idea of being “normal”, most don’t. At least most of the powerful mutants don’t. Magneto fears that this “voluntary” cure will become mandatory and decides that mutants must strike first in order to survive. Magneto doesn’t dress particularly well nor is he exactly “hip”, but the man definitely has a sense of STYLE! And the attack he plans and executes is QUITE impressive.

This movie is all about payoffs: Payoff for the mutant war, payoff for the Jean Grey / Dark Phoenix saga, payoff for some of the characters that were only peripherally seen before (Kitty Pryde, Colossus), and a big payoff for us in that we finally get to see just HOW powerful these guys truly are.

The characters are all known to us by now and everyone seems very comfortable in their roles here in their third go-round. One great thing is that none of the main characters are iconic. Such are the trappings of lesser movies about comic book heroes. Prof. Xavier is arguably the most “goody two shoes” character in the X-Men comics but even he is revealed to have made some morally questionable choices in the past. He even admits that he sometimes had to choose the “lesser of two evils”. There are many shades of grey and, though the X-Men themselves are the heroes, their foes are not completely bad or evil and we are shown ways to empathize with all sides.

It is this empathy that makes the carnage that much more shocking. It means little to see a cardboard soldier get burned to death or to see an evil mutant riddled with bullets. But if you can understand where they are coming from and know that they all feel like they are doing the right thing, then these deaths become tragedies unto themselves. Clint Eastwood showed the moviegoing world how powerful that this could be in Unforgiven and I think Ratner must have been taking notes. Good for him!

For those interested in the new castings (for Juggernaut, Hank McCoy, Angel, Callisto, etc.), they are a bit of a mixed bag. But they are all (save for Hank) minor additions to the story. Thankfully, however, casting Kelsey Grammer in that role was nothing short of inspired.

Special effects? Off the charts, baby! Just the way I’d always envisioned them. There will be an Oscar for this crew, for sure. These MUST be seen on the big screen! I cannot stress this enough!

In trying to think of negatives for the movie, I cannot come up with much. I can nit-pick the way they’ve changed some of the things from the comics (such as the Dark Phoenix origin, the nature of Leech, combining Callisto and Caliban, the origin of Beast’s blue skin and fur, etc.), but none of these things detract from the movie experience. Some of these changes, such as the origin of Dark Phoenix, serve to help add some irony to the efforts of the X-Men and go to show how similar Xavier and Magneto are after all.

Personally, I plan on seeing it at least two more times in the theater. And I advise you all to see it as soon as possible. And you will DEFINITELY want to stay put in your seat until AFTER all the credits are done. Trust me on this one.

Posted by Alex | Filed Under 5 Stars, Action, Famke Janssen, Halle Berry, Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, PG-13, Patrick Stewart, SciFi, Theatrical, Thriller