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Overall Rating
 Awesome: 5.53%
Worth A Look: 30.41%
Average: 27.65%
Pretty Bad: 19.35%
Total Crap: 17.05%
13 reviews, 139 user ratings
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| X-Men: The Last Stand |
by Erik Childress
"Has Anyone Discovered A Cure For Ratner Yet?"
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Halfway through what has been described as the final chapter of the X-Men trilogy, I was preparing myself to eat a generous bowl of my own words and declare this the best of the series. After all, it was yours truly who subtitled one such article about the worst director’s working today “…or who we don’t want directing X-Men 3.” Brett Ratner was on that list and a few short weeks later was announced as the helmer after Bryan Singer had defected to Superman and Matthew “Layer Cake” Vaughn cited quality family time as his excuse to leave the project. Ratner’s usual hands-off, no-style-at-all approach works just fine during the first half as Simon Kinberg & Zak Penn’s screenplay tries to take a talky, cerebral approach to the plotline. But then the film begins to unravel in displays of silliness and a lack of drive that fails to payoff all its ideas or reach the level of excitement expected for such a final showdown.Those pesky humans have come up with a cure for mutantism. Not just some dormant shot they have to take every day, but a one-shot deal which phases out the mutant gene and eliminates it completely, thanks to the typecasted Cameron Bright who has already played “creepy-kid-who-sucks-out-life” in Birth, Godsend and Ultraviolet. Some on both sides see this as a blessing and others view it as another chapter of the government trying to depose their will on a non-conforming minority. This is the last straw for Eric “Magneto” Lensherr (Ian McKellen) who is readying an army to oppose this latest development. The teachers at the Xavier School for Mutants are a bit more level-headed, albeit concerned that their extraordinary powers can actually be considered a form of disease.
Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Storm (Halle Berry) become the dominating good guys alongside Professor X (Patrick Stewart), primarily since Cyclops (James Marsden) is still overwhelmed with grief over the death of his love, Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), in the second film and so egotistic Berry can have more screen time. Ah, but development number two mysteriously brings Miss Grey back to life, much to the delight-and-chagrin of Cyclops who realizes too late that a kiss is not still a kiss. Fans of the comic have been waiting since the overrated X-Men United for Jean to take on the form of the Phoenix, but will no doubt be buggered by Xavier’s explanation of a dual personality that she possessed and he repressed in order to keep her “class five” powers in check.
This flies in the face of the lengthier storyline involving Jean’s entrapment by the “Phoenix force” but works within the context of Penn & Kinberg’s script. Xavier’s interference with her power supports Magneto’s assertion that even his former best friend’s intentions are not completely for the well-being of the mutant individual. The two fathers who discovered her and their conflicting personalities provide depth to the age-old assertion of only the child being able to destroy the father. Right up to an intense and well-staged confrontation in Jean’s childhood home, The Last Stand successfully merges thought with action and then somehow forgot how it got there in the first place.
Watching a character like Hank “Beast” McCoy (Kelsey Grammer) walk into a room full of military officials without so much as a blink by anyone is the kind of thing we’ve come to expect in the world of X-Men. Seeing something as silly as a CNN report labeled “Magneto makes threat” or R. Lee Ermey doing a Full Metal Jacket voiceover preparing the troops and their plastic guns for battle – not so much. Ratner (or whoever was responsible) getting cute like that is not where we needed to be as the series heads for the inevitable resolution we’ve been made to believe is coming. For the spin being put forth of this cash cow always being a “proposed trilogy”, the news must have got to the filmmakers late as they desperately try to wrap-up storylines, kill off characters and unsuccessfully fight off the urge to introduce new mutants in the final act.
In the moment of the final face-off between the warring mutants (where the good guys with a whole school of candidates only bring six people, including two teenagers), I couldn’t fathom why I wasn’t more excited. It was fast-paced, a body count was piling up and it had lots of BOOMs. It finally dawned on me that each showdown was completely lackluster. Magneto, reminding us of his fondness for chess, sends out the “pawns” first who are so random, aside from one or two quick shots, that they seem to possess no powers whatsoever and are taken out without a shed of remorse. Isn’t Magneto the guy fighting for every mutant’s right to survive?
The Iceman vs. Pyro (or Shawn Ashmore vs. Aaron Stanford) battle is little more than the Egg Shen/Lo-Pan lightpower standoff in Big Trouble in Little China. Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) who can run through walls being chased by Juggernaut (Vinnie Jones) who can break through walls on brute strength (and whose connection to Professor X or any backstory whatsoever is never explored) is a no-brainer and is filmed as such. And what good does it do to introduce a new X-Man to do battle with Wolverine? The fight begins, limbs are being severed and regrown and instead of being exhilarated we’re playing catch-up. Wouldn’t it have been nice to see some display of Beast’s power before unleashing his superhuman potency? Why is one of the lamest X-Men, Angel (Ben Foster) given time in the film’s prologue if you’re not going to devote significant time to his relevance, the potentially interesting religious connotations or his father (Michael Murphy) who helps mastermind the development of the cure? Are his intentions honorable as a concerned dad or just another rich guy trying to protect his stature? And why bother showing Professor X walking twenty years earlier if you have no plans to deal with how he got crippled? This isn’t Lost with multiple seasons to answer such questions. This is supposed to be the friggin’ LAST STAND!Chapter three boasts the virtues of team over the individual, which hardly seems the most revolutionary of concepts considering the first two already wore that on its shoulders and here it’s a throwaway that’s introduced in an opening Terminator-inspired training sequence and paid off by only three of the six good guys working together ONCE to help bring down Magneto. Whether the production was rushed with all its delays and exits or Ratner was just going through his usual motions as a “yes man” with idea zero in his head, The Last Stand gets choppier as it progresses and loses whatever cache it builds with a cadre of interesting characters who like Rebecca Romijn’s Mystique is eventually stripped bare and left alone on the floor to fend for themselves.
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=14574&reviewer=198
originally posted: 05/26/06 14:29:08
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USA
26-May-2006 (PG-13)
DVD: 03-Oct-2006
UK
26-May-2006
Australia
25-May-2006
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