Day 54: June 23rd, 2010

X-Men 3: The Last Stand



The weakest in the series, this includes X-men Origins.

A so called cure is found in the blood of a young mutant, which divides the world into two sections. Those who want it and those who don't. Magneto and his brotherhood seek to find this boy and capture him, while the X-men must stand together and stop him, once and for all.

With this film being the third in the series, the filmmakers decided to go big...really big. Let's go heavy on the eye popping action and forget to bring a decent script and competent director with it. X-Men: The Last Stand is a hot mess and seems to have destroyed the series. Seeing as they are already re-booting it.

Singer left to go to Superman Returns, say what you will about that film, but the true losers here were the fans of x-men. The Last Stand is what I originally feared the first film would be, a thrown together film with too many mutants to handle. Brett Ratner was in my opinion, the wrong man for the job. It seemed like the studio needed the film to be pumped out quickly and they got this man to do the job. Easy money, fans will still pay to see it right? After all, we got Beast in it now.

The fact that this film has too many characters is a big problem, they have no idea what to do with them. Look at the poster I chose to post here, it has Angel on the cover, yet he has two scenes in the film, at the beginning and at the end. If this isn't a desperate attempt to grab at whatever lucrative moments they have, I don't know what is. X2 was juggling enough characters to start, there was no need to add this many more, especially when they do nothing.

It seems they disregarded the source material and went with whatever story they cooked up. Characters are different (Leech) and we are given a so called climax that barely makes me want to root for either side. The film is called The Last Stand, yet we get Wolverine, Storm, Colossus, Beast and some kids. This is not The Last Stand fans want, nor is it good writing. Having Cyclops and Professor X out of the picture doesn't make things harder for us or make us think the x-men are in more danger. Instead it angers us at the pathetic attempt at trying to shake things up in the comic book world.

Out of all the X-men story lines, the Dark Phoenix is probably the most recognizable. There is so much story, emotion and depth to the character and story line that it took around 4 episodes of the animated series to do it some sort of justice. This film makes it seem like an after thought. They already had a story line, The Dark Phoenix Saga was too big for one film, especially when you already had a plot for the film by itself.

The film might please the average movie goer, but it failed to hold up any kind of momentum the second sequel gave us. Sure Grammar is great as Beast and the special effects are great, but when the film is so confused by it's own direction and you end of feeling nothing for one of the greatest comic book story lines ever written, you know you have a problem. Magneto is no longer scary in this film and it desperately needed a new villain...and not Phoenix. The Last Stand is all style and no heart, but it's style is still very little.

5/10