X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

Director: Brett Ratner

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Famke Janssen, Anna Paquin, Kelsey Grammer, James Marsden, Rebecca Romijn, Vinnie Jones

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Take a Stand

Plot: When a cure is found to treat mutations, lines are drawn amongst the X-Men, led by Professor Charles Xavier, and the Brotherhood, a band of powerful mutants organized under Xavier's former ally, Magneto.

My Rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again? Yes. Maybe I'll hate it less each time. So far so good.

My only previous viewing of this was opening weekend at the theater and I hated it. I didn't much care for any of it except how neat it was seeing Stewart and McKellen CGI-younger at the start and how quickly Magneto turned on Mystique (which remains my favorite scene). After two home runs with the previous films I guess I was hoping for a grand slam with this third and final film in the franchise with this cast. Not much has changed except that I no longer hate it. Mystique's fate is still my favorite scene and by a long shot. I still don't like Halle Berry in this picture. I just don't think she's that good of an actress.


Enough can't be said about how much acting weight Stewart and McKellen bring to this franchise. It's pitch-perfect casting and those two go a long way in keeping this flick from being leagues worse than it already is. My biggest issue I guess is the lack of any emotional weight when certain characters snuff it, particularly the first major death. I was stunned at how little I cared and the way they build this person up suggest we're not supposed to care but I doubt that. That's a film maker's problem for neglecting it. X-MEN 3 should have been longer. I realize it's not too far from being two hours long but it needed another half hour and some tweaking with the character development. You can tell they were trying but the whole thing feels rushed and that's a damn shame because so many hundreds (probably thousands) of people worked to make the first two films the best they could and this is how the story ends.