X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

You know, the first 30 minutes or so actually aren't so bad, despite Ratner's obvious downgrade in direction ability and Scott's unneeded death. But sadly, it's all downhill from there. With Ratner as director, everything here is just slightly worse. The writing is worse, the direction is less creative, and the social commentary aspect is even more watered down than before. I actually don't mind that Charles dies, nor do I mind how he dies. It makes sense that the Phoenix would kill him. But what I don't like is that nothing really comes of it other than motivating the X-Men to do something they were going to do anyway. This isn't the only seemingly important moment that ends up not becoming much. Pyro seems like he'll turn on Magneto after seeing what he did to Mystique, but he doesn't. Rogue leaves the story to be cured and nothing really comes of it other than her appearing at the end. It doesn't disrupt the plot or even any character relationships. She just leaves, comes back, and everything is fine. I think the main problem with the original X-Men trilogy as a whole is their boner for Wolverine and their hate-boner for Cyclops. He does barely anything important for the first two movies and then dies in this one, which makes his death hard to care about. X2 already heavily focused on Logan, so I think his arc should've been given to Scott. Wouldn't it be more effective if Scott had lots of development in this one, and then had to be the one to kill Jean? Logan and Jean's relationship was never believable for this film's finale to work. Jean Grey is the crux of the entire story, and despite this, she is sidelined and treated like a prop for the entire story until she dies.

After a brief respite in "X2" (2003) we have reverted to the rather procedural and unexciting format for this third instalment of malevolent mutant-mayhem. This time "Magneto" (Sir Ian McKellen) is outraged when the human government develops a top secret cure for mutants. On the face of it, this is going to lead to another simple battle royal between the forces of our man-metal and his eternal nemesis "Xavier" (Patrick Stewart) and his army of fair-minded supporters led by "Wolverine" (Hugh Jackman). Thing is, though, "Magneto" has an ace up his sleeve in the form of the "Dark Phoenix" that has turned "Jean Gray" (Famke Janssen) into something more lethal than anyone can imagine. Can she be stopped, persuaded, destroyed? It's really a bit of same old, same old, this - great visual effects, loads of pyrotechnics and a good old dose of good versus evil, but the story is actually pretty weak and the dialogue seems to regurgitate much of that from the first film. Jackman really tries to inject a sense of thrill into this, and there's no denying that Ben Foster looks particularly hot with his angelic wings, but otherwise it might as well be another episode in a Marvel mini-series that you just know will deliver nothing more at the end than an opportunity for a sequel. It is a good looking film, but the two leads are overly hammy, and Kelsey Grammer isn't the only one to feel a bit blue at the seriously over-orchestrated denouement.

I'm surprised to see a big drop in average rating for this. I enjoyed 'X-Men: The Last Stand' to be honest. Taking a quick look at some other reviews and it seems to main gripe is how it treats certain characters from the comics, which is fair enough for sure but that doesn't come into play for me as I'm not a comic reader. I can only judge it as a film and as one I found it suitably entertaining. Hugh Jackman remains the top dog, though at the beginning the way Wolverine acts felt off to me - though that quickly went away. I would've liked if they found a spot for Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming), though one of his replacements in Beast (Kelsey Grammer) went down well with me. From what I read I can understand other people's complaints with this, especially with the aforementioned iffy character treatment, but I gotta be honest and say that I found it to be a good enough watch - even if it is comparatively the weakest entry of the original trilogy. /copied directly from my Letterboxd review\

***A good finale to the original trilogy*** I think the X-Men films have been so popular because the X-Men dare to be different. The concept of the X-Men strays far from superhero conventions. If you approach the X-Men films thinking you're getting something akin to Superman, Spider-Man or Batman, forget it. The unique concept of the X-Men is that humanity is starting to evolve to the next level and humans all over the globe are starting to manifest superhuman powers from the mutant "X" gene. Two mutant leaders, who are also old friends, take highly contrasting positions. Charles Xavier starts a school for mutant youths in upstate New York. His attitude is positive and his goal benign. Eric Lensherr or Magneto, on the other hand, is fed up with the paranoia of non-mutants. He starts a "Brotherhood of Mutants" with a clear attitude of superiority. And, as they say, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. You could say that Xavier takes the approach of Martin Luther King Jr. while Magneto goes the route of Malcolm X, an interesting comparison. Although everybody has their favorite, I feel all three films in the original trilogy are of the same general quality - "X-Men" (2000), "X2: X-Men United" (2003) and "X-Men: The Last Stand" (2006). "X-Men: The Last Stand" is generally well-regarded but has a very vocal segment of fans who revile it. This makes little sense since, despite having a new director, the film has the same tone and principle actors as the previous two and brings to culmination the ideas presented therein. Aside from the final fight between Magneto's Brotherhood and Xavier's X-Men we get the resurrection of Jean Grey and her struggle with the dark side of her psyche. Some complain of the deaths of two prominent characters, but how often are characters resurrected in comics? Isn't one significant character resurrected in this very film? Others complain about the supposed short runtime and lack of depth but X3 has the exact same runtime as the first film (104 minutes) and there's plenty of depth to mine, take Rogue's dilemma over taking a cure in order to have human intimacy, Phoenix's incredible inner conflict symbolizing the universal clash of flesh and spirit (id and super-ego), Cyclop's grief and astonishing discovery, Pyro's moral degeneration, Mystique's plight after getting kicked out of the Brotherhood and Wolverine's struggle to do the right thing despite his deep love, to name just six. On the downside, the big clash on Alcatraz Island feels routine and dull. They should’ve kept the focus on the Dark Phoenix, but the producers probably felt this would take away from the other characters, plus they wanted the clichéd big battle sequence. Nevertheless, there’s enough good here to appreciate. GRADE: B+

X3 is a complete disaster. Worst X-Men movie ever. See rant below: Not only is the Phoenix storyline butchered, but the script rewrites the personalities of its key characters. Since when were Cyclops, Xavier, and Magneto such assholes? Halle Berry's demand for more screentime basically means she shows up in more scenes. Her character has no arc and often says lines that contradict what she said in previous scenes. Rogue has also turned into a whiny sidenote, part of a shoehorned in love triangle, which is disappointing given that the trilogy started from her perspective. Throwing in as many mutants as you can on the screen, some with powers that would be good if this were an X-Men spoof, but here it's played for absolute seriousness. It also means every character is essentially one note because there's no time to develop anyone. It certainly doesn't help that the movie carelessly removes or kills off half the team from the previous two films. Instead of shocking me, I'm sitting there never sure who I should be rooting for (except for Wolverine). X3 hurtles through scene after scene to get from one action set piece to another, and at just 93 minutes, there's never any time to process the plot. Of course the movie has to sequel bait with a final scene that suggests everyone will eventually get their powers back. What a way to render the entire movie pointless. Lastly, this movie cost $215 million to make. Only about a quarter of that money shows up on the screen. The CGI, green screen, and makeup effects are obvious and look horrible. So the movie looks like crap, tells it's story like crap, and treats it's characters like crap. X3 is crap.