Non-Spoiler Review
Last Saturday evening a group of eight of us did our part to push the third X-Men film, X-Men: The Last Stand, to its record-breaking opening weekend. I will forgo the temptation to include an overabundance of “X-citing, X-plosive” and other “X” comments. Suffice it to say that I enjoyed the X-perience (I had to do one!) and was glad to have seen it early while it was still on one of the bigger screens.
X-Men: The Last Stand is reportedly the last in the franchise and in many ways it feels like the closing act of a movie trilogy. If a person has not seen the first two films I cannot imagine them enjoying, or understanding, this film. There is almost nothing by way of introduction for most of the characters, which is a good thing. You are meant to have seen the previous movies. The plot revealed in the trailers indicates that a “cure” for the mutant-x gene has been discovered and now all the poor people afflicted with mutant abilities can become normal and boring like the rest of us. Our stalwart heroes and villians react in a predictably horrified manner and each go about their attempts to address this new threat in their own ways. The villians decide to go to war and the X-Men have to of course step in to stop them. Added to the conflict is the return of Jean Grey who “died” at the end of X-2, whose newly released potential and unsure loyalties make her a bigger threat than the governments’ “cure”. There are other small subplots including the idea that some mutants may actually prefer to be cured that give some heft to the main story.
The biggest worry of comic book geeks everywhere was whether or not director Brett Ratner would be able to deliver the same quality of story and visual excitement that Bryan Singer had in the first 2 films. Singer dumped the X-Men in favor of the man in blue tights, leading many X-Men movie fans, myself included, worried about the future of the series. For the most part I think their fears were unrealized. Ratner put forth a fine story that had a few weak moments but was mostly satisfying as the closing act of the trilogy. There were a few cheesy, lame lines of dialogue…”the best defense is a good offense”…and the movie started out a bit slow for me but those are my only real complaints. As with all three X-Men films there are far too many characters to do any real justice to their storylines. Part of the thrill for fans of the comics is just to catch glimpses of heroes and villians that they know from the series. While those characters provide interesting visual background for those of us who don’t know them it is the true “fans” who get the most out of their inclusion. The main characters from the first films get a fair amount of screen time and I was happy with all the performances of the regulars.
In addition to the main crew I enjoyed seeing Angel (Ben Foster). The wing special effects were amazing and because of that I was disappointed that he had so little screen time. I had my intial doubts about Kelsey Grammer playing the Beast but I thought he did a fine job and the costume was actually not bad…a far cry from the awful body suit Michael Chiklis wore as Thing in The Fantastic Four. I thought Ellen Page did a great job in the Kitty Pride role, very good casting there. One of the characters that I know little about but always thought looked a bit silly in the comics was Juggernaut so I was surprised at how well I thought the character looked brought to life on the big screen. Vinnie Jones is a favorite from Snatch and I really liked him as Juggernaut. I think it was a really good decision to include that character despite his minimal screen time.
The special effects are outstanding in this film as well. Some of the best scenes were during a pivitol point in the movie after Jean Grey leaves the mansion to revisit her childhood home. Tremendous effects shots there as well as a really dramatic turning point in the film. I have been impressed that all the special, mutant abilities and powers in each film have been very well done from an effects standpoint and this one was no different. By the end there is enough effects and explosions to satisfy those looking for a true summer blockbuster.
Overall I was highly entertained by this third outing and feel that, small problems aside, it is the first true summer blockbuster of 2006 and should definitely be experienced on the big screen.
That is really all I can say without spoiling the film. I am going to encourage people to talk about the film in the comments section and that may contain spoilers so I would recommend that you not read the comments unless you want to spoil the movie experience.
And if you do see it, please remember to stay until the end of the credits as there is a really important, albiet brief, scene there.
