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 William Goss
"Generic Mutation"
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I suppose it could have been worse.I’m still not quite sure how, but then again, I was under the impression that it was Brett Ratner’s job to find out. After taking over Bryan Singer’s directorial reins for the X-Men series, Ratner (Rush Hour 1 & 2, After the Sunset) actually manages to crank out a middling contribution to the franchise with X-Men: The Last Stand, the watchable result of a genre film made by checklist that bothers to resemble its predecessors without daring to match their quality in terms of storytelling, a la Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. It’s not a complete waste, yet while it’s unreasonable to expect a product of likewise caliber to 2003’s X2: X-Men United, it is still very much a product in the end.
The main plot this time around concerns the development of a mutant cure, a prospect which both the benevolent Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and the belligerent Magneto (Ian McKellen) find to be disconcerting. Magneto takes the news as an opportunity to rally up mutants, including the recently resurrected and turbulently powerful Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), and encourage a preemptive strike on the pharmaceutical headquarters located on Alcatraz. That’s the nutshell version, and although there isn’t much more to it, save for a subplot between Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) and Rogue (Anna Paquin), there always seems to be a lot going on. Replacing Alan Cumming’s teleporting Nightcrawler as the token blue guy is Kelsey Grammer’s diplomatic Secretary of Mutant Affairs, Dr. Hank McCoy a.k.a. Beast, while Rebecca Romijn still sports the blue scales as shape-shifting Mystique. Cyclops (James Marsden) falls by the wayside, leaving Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Storm (Halle Berry) to primarily oppose Magneto and friends.
Ratner seems overwhelmed with compressing even more characters into an entry that runs a good half-hour shorter than its forerunner, and he doesn’t direct the film so much as run a for-profit organization of characters and effects. The long-awaited Danger Room sequence feels underwhelming, as is the decision of Ratner and writers Simon Kinberg (Mr. and Mrs. Smith) and Zak Penn (X2) to either kill off or incapacitate roughly one principal character each reel with rather diluted resonance. The occasional skirmishes are more compulsory than anything, hectic brawls to keep the narrative progressing until the climactic battle at Alcatraz. If you thought the prior allegories for discrimination and persecution were just a bit too subtle, there’s nothing quite like Magneto’s monologues and a mutant pride parade with a San Francisco backdrop to make it apparent. (Oh, and if someone can explain to me how darkness falls within the few minutes it takes for Magneto to manipulate the Golden Gate Bridge outside of sheer dramatic convenience, have at it.)
Fortunately, all of Magneto’s minions happen to be decked out in tattoos, piercings, and skimpy leather, so we know they’re outright villains, while the good guys need no such designation. Magneto is primarily flanked by Jean, Callisto (Dania Ramirez), Pyro (Aaron Stanford), something that looks like Prince’s stunt double, and Juggernaut (Vinnie Jones), a plowing behemoth whose fundamental lineage is dismissed entirely and whose dialogue first concerns urination and is capped off by, ahem, “I’m the Juggernaut, bitch!” That line is an example of the occasional populist touch that infiltrates the film and sticks out like a Hollywood touch that would plague a lesser film. However, that is all Ratner sets out to make, a typical summer superhero blockbuster, and although it is ultimately tolerable, considering that someone had demonstrated twice before how to make a greater film out of the material and the next step is about as painstakingly average as last year’s Fantastic Four only proves that X3 is the rushed production it was rumored to be and the lesser product it was resigned to become.
Stewart and McKellen remain the most consistent with their performances, going through the paces as only veterans such as themselves could. (By the way, whatever process was applied to make each actor appear twenty years younger in the prologue is remarkably effective.) Jackman appears to have grown slightly weary of his role, although he is more of a generic lead here than Wolverine himself. On the other end, Berry seems strived for attention after her apparent off-camera fits finally landed her an expanded role, and Marsden spoils his supporting status by going emo in his few scenes over the loss of Jean Grey. Speaking of which, Janssen contributes a solid effort with her Phoenix arc, even if it appeared to be undercut in its cinematic adaptation.
Grammer does relatively well by making his Beast a sympathetic and respectable character, even if not quite as much as Nightcrawler, and while Grammer is one of few members in the ensemble to properly acknowledge the nature of his role, Ellen Page (Hard Candy) seems to be the sole person who tries to surpass the mutant melodrama. As Kitty Pryde, who can walk through walls, she completes the disposable love triangle between herself, Ashmore, and Paquin, but still suggests a greater performing potential than perhaps this movie deserves. Romijn doesn’t do any more posing than needed, and Jones makes the Juggernaut into more of a blockhead than a serious foe. Cameron Bright once again plays ‘that creepy kid’ as Leech, the source of the cure, and Ben Foster gets seriously shafted as the winged Angel, whose father created the cure to begin with. Several acclaimed actors fill out the bit parts, including Shohreh Aghdashloo (House of Sand and Fog), Anthony Heald (The Silence of the Lambs, Ratner’s Red Dragon), Olivia Williams (Rushmore, The Sixth Sense), plus a voice cameo by R. Lee Ermey and the requisite appearance of Stan Lee.The last scene, paired with a post-credits epilogue, further demonstrates how eager one studio can be to leave the door open if wallets follow suit. New characters are primed for sequels, while the surviving elders are prepared for spin-offs, but maybe it would be best to quit while they’re merely adequate. Unless Singer makes an unlikely and merciful return, there’s no need to risk the bar being lowered for the sake of a buck, and although I won’t be the least bit surprised if it does happen, I can still hope for the good of mankind. A certain professor would have wanted it that way.
link directly to this review at https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=14574&reviewer=409
originally posted: 05/26/06 18:42:34
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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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