My Take on “X-Men: The Last Stand”

(Avast, Thar’ be Spoilers Ahead)

OK, right off the bat, “X-Men: The Last Stand” has two strikes against it, just from the title. Film titles that have subtitles are sucky. And a film title’s subtitle that includes the word “Last” in it is “Sucky Plus”.

I was skeptical going into “X-Men 3”, due to a less than stellar director that was attached to the film. Brett Ratner. The name alone makes me want to take a shower. Blech! Thanks to Ratner, I was not interested enough to see this movie in the theatres. I’ve never been a big Ratner fan, and most likely never will be. His weekday, afternoon, soap-opera style of directing has never been a draw for me. Brett Ratner has no sense of artistry or storytelling. He’s the kind of director that laughs at his own jokes and lauds himself when he “makes a clever”.

Another unforgivable gaffe was in the opening sequence. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan were CGI’d to make them appear twenty years younger. The special effect did not accomplish this. Instead, the computer effect made them look like a cross between alien imposters and burn victims. The effect was highly distracting and served little purpose. We’ve seen Patrick Stewart “younged-up” before in “Star Trek: Insurrection” and the effect was subtle, believable and extremely effective.

OK, now I’m going to geek out for a little bit, so please forgive me. Where the hell were all of their accents?! Most of the X-Men all have very distinct accents. Brian Singer was not an X-Men fan, but he gave the longtime fans many little nods to the comic books. Another no-show was Nightcrawler, which is unfortunate for obvious reasons.

Also, Archangel was a non-entity in the film. He’s there as scenery and not at all relevant to the plot. He should have been more central to the plot as his introductory scenes suggest he should. Instead, he’s limited to a lot of flash scenes, but no thunder.

On the whole, “X-Men 3” felt phoned in. Ratner got tired and started giving the only direction he knew. That being, “I dunno, what do eleven-year olds want to see? Do that.”

OK, so “X-Men 3” wasn’t all that bad.
- We actually get to see Wolverine tear through a grip of mutants; granted they are cheesecloth, Logan-fodder mutants.
- The Phoenix scenes were great and all together creepy. She was freakin’ scary.
- Rebecca Romijn is smokin’ as a brunette!
- We discover that Storm is pretty powerful, here to fore not displayed in the films. Also, Magneto began to display uses of his power that made him more like the Magneto we are familiar with from the comic books.
- The Beast was brilliantly portrayed by Kelsey Grammer. He was just as witty and cheeky as in the books.
- The inclusion of Moira MacTaggert in a role that was similar to her role in the comics was a great addition.
- The head of a sentinel, in the Danger Room. That’s it. This movie goes up a whole point just for this.
- Iceman actually gets “Iceman-ish” for a few seconds.
- Rogue uses her powers like Rogue ought to be using her powers.

In conclusion, “X-Men: The Last Stand”, seemed like a thirteen-year old boy losing his virginity; all action, no finesse, fumbling for meaning, awkward and a somewhat selfish delivery. “X-Men 3” was an exercise in asking the fans what they would like to see, delivering it to them by putting all of the suggestions in a hat, pulling them out one at a time and filming the results in no particular order. As the sequel to “Jurassic Park”, “The Lost World”, proved fans thought they knew what they wanted to see in a film. I, for one, want to see the vision of an expert director/screenwriter. They know best. Usually. I don’t want to see what I think I want to see. I want to see something else. I can imagine a third X-Men film that would be pretty dang cool, but I don’t want to see that. I want to see something else. Something I am incapable of imagining on my own. “X-Men: The Last Stand” was not that film.