X-Men: the Last Stand (Brett Ratner, 2006)

[che-etienne]

Once, Singer pulled out for "Superman Returns", I had serious doubts, but this film based on the most recent trailer looks to be a can't miss on the level of "Batman Begins". I guess it depends on how you felt about the last two films, and how you feel about the X-Men and comic books in general, but I am psyched. One thing is for sure the comic book film is having a good ole' time whilst all this social and political posturing is going on. That doesn't mean that these comic book films aren't reflecting a certain social outlook. I actually think that "Spiderman" is a movie that wouldn't have been the same had it not been released after 9/11, and that "X-Men" wouldn't have evolved as it has without the recent changes in the weather politically and socially, and that "Batman" wouldn't be as dark either. Still, it's all in good fun at the same time.

[rs98762001]

I must admit I find this era's comic book adaptations pretty lifeless and dull. For all the posturing about social and political parallels, they all quickly dissolve into routine action fare and predictable characterization. The X-MEN films, both SPIDERMEN, even BATMAN BEGINS (the best of a mediocre bunch) -- a few interesting elements here and there, but ultimately much ado about nothing. There hasn't been a single comic book film that has come close to matching the depth, complexity and artistry of WATCHMEN or DARK KNIGHT RETURNS in novel form.

But then again I was the only person in the world who enjoyed HULK, so what do I know?

[Fletch F. Fletch]

I must admit I find this era's comic book adaptations pretty lifeless and dull. For all the posturing about social and political parallels, they all quickly dissolve into routine action fare and predictable characterization. The X-MEN films, both SPIDERMEN, even BATMAN BEGINS (the best of a mediocre bunch) -- a few interesting elements here and there, but ultimately much ado about nothing. There hasn't been a single comic book film that has come close to matching the depth, complexity and artistry of WATCHMEN or DARK KNIGHT RETURNS in novel form.

I know how you feel and interestingly enough that's exactly how Alan Moore feels about the current state of things. He has completely disowned all comic book adaptations put to film.

I think that the only filmmaker who has shown a real aptitute towards adapting comic books to the big screen in recent years is Guillermo Del Toro. Both Blade 2 and Hellboy were fine adaptations and I felt that his camerawork, at times, successfully ape some of the movements you see in comic books.

And I also thought both Ghost World and Sin City were right on the money but I fear for this new X-Men movie. With hack director Brett Ratner behind the camera? *shudder*

[che-etienne]

but I fear for this new X-Men movie. With hack director Brett Ratner behind the camera? *shudder*

I was afraid as well, but I guess since I just don't expect comic book films to be all that complex in the first place I don't really take that into consideration as much. "Batman Begins" was exceptional, because though in the end it had a rather simple character arch and story, the amount of story information that was fed to you was amazing in that it was done in such a polished manner. Also, the acting was terrific and that gave the characters much more dimension. I actually think that of all the comic book films I've seen that "X-Men 2" was the best. It seemed to me the most complex and interesting. Spiderman and Spiderman 2 were like the same movie all over again. The themes were recycled and only developed a little more. Still, we're dealing with directors like Sam Raimi and Bryan Singer, who are talented and intelligent directors, but I'm not sure they claim to be taking aim at profound ideas here. Generally, if you go in not expecting much, I think you usually come out surprised. The films are at least Hollywood's best action films right now, and in terms of production values, script and acting quality far more time and care is put into their making.

[rs98762001]

Still, we're dealing with directors like Sam Raimi and Bryan Singer, who are talented and intelligent directors, but I'm not sure they claim to be taking aim at profound ideas here. Generally, if you go in not expecting much, I think you usually come out surprised. The films are at least Hollywood's best action films right now, and in terms of production values, script and acting quality far more time and care is put into their making.

I'd agree with that, but it seems to me a little sad that Raimi spends all his time making SPIDERMAN films. Ironically, the best film he's made to date is A SIMPLE PLAN, which was about as far from a comic book film as it's possible to be.

[Fletch F. Fletch]

"Batman Begins" was exceptional, because though in the end it had a rather simple character arch and story, the amount of story information that was fed to you was amazing in that it was done in such a polished manner. Also, the acting was terrific and that gave the characters much more dimension.

Agreed. Batman Begins was very well done and took the franchise back to the glory days when Tim Burton was behind the camera. Altho, I like that Christopher Nolan didn't try to just recycle want Burton had done and tried some new things.

I actually think that of all the comic book films I've seen that "X-Men 2" was the best. It seemed to me the most complex and interesting.

Yeah, I'd go with that. I really enjoyed the first film but it felt like it was a feature-length prologue to the next movie where Singer and co. really hit their stride and they didn't have to spend all that time setting up characters, etc.

Spiderman and Spiderman 2 were like the same movie all over again. The themes were recycled and only developed a little more.

Yeah, altho, they were both very faithful to the source material which I really liked.

Generally, if you go in not expecting much, I think you usually come out surprised.

Agreed. I'm surprised when one of these films comes out and isn't a complete waste of time. I think the key to making a good, faithful comic book adaptation is getting the creator of said comic involved -- where possible, of course. The best adaptations, IMO, have been when the creator was involved in some direct way.

[Antoine Doinel]

Of all the comic movies I think Sin City, Batman Begins and X2 are all pretty much perfect. I thought Spiderman 2, however, was not very good at all. I found it hard to root for such a pathetic, emotionally immature superhero.

The X3 trailer, despite practically giving away the entire movie, looks promising but I still have an uneasy feeling Brett Ratner can still mess it up. What made Sin City, Batman Begins and X2 so great, was outside the actual action sequences were characters that felt real and you cared about. Given Ratner's track record, I don't believe he knows how to get meaningful performances out of his actors that don't just simply advance the plot to the next explosion or action sequence.

[Antoine Doinel]

Dave Poland has an early review -- and so begin the "it's not as bad as we thought it was going to be" avalanche of reviews:

[quote]
X-Men: The Last Stand is a real Brett Ratner movie.

And by that, I mean that it is endlessly flawed, hamfisted in many ways, but still has enough flourishes to get away with it. Not every Brett Ratner film is as successful a film as this one. There were moments when I considered whether this is his best film. It may be. But it is really too flawed to allow the word “bestâ€

[hearthesilence]

With big Hollywood pictures, that's probably the most common assessment I hear: "it's not as bad as I thought it would be." Of course, the movie's still mediocre, but the fact it didn't outright suck somehow makes it worth seeing. Man, how standards have fallen.

[che-etienne]

You sure they haven't always been this low?

[hearthesilence]

I didn't see many movies in the 80's, but yeah, I bet it was worse then. Of course, it's possible you had more people LIKING that shit. I mean, "Police Academy," "Ernest"...they actually had fans, didn't they?

[che-etienne]

Hey when I was six "Police Academy" was a damn fascinating movie... and all its sequels...

...yeah that's kind of embarassing to admit but...

I remember I was compiling a list of all the movies I had seen and when I remembered those I kind of turned to me dad who was in the room and asked him why he'd ever let me...

*sigh*

[Anonymous]

I saw X-Men: The Last Stand tonight and as someone who probably over-rates X2 and under-rates X1, I was disappointed with X3.

Way too much Wolverine - everyone else with the exception of Magneto is underused. The pre-title sequence features Jean Grey and Angel and as the review above mentioned Famke Janssen does a great job even when given very little dialogue. Angel gets pretty much 2 more scenes.

I don't know if I should blame Ratner too much because most of the problem may be the screenplay. Flat dialogue and so much setup to get through in the first act. Remember X2 which started with a bang? (or should that be bamf?) Well, this is no X2. Speaking of which - where is Nightcrawler?

At least the door is left wide open for another film - though with all the characters summarily dispatched and the high profile actors sure to defect we will be hard pressed to recognize anyone in the next film.

[Mr Sausage]

There will be spoilers, but what else could be expected?

The movie was diverting while it played, despite the stale, flat dialogue, and predictable plot arc. However, every moment afterwards spent thinking about it and rerunning the scenes demonstrates how poorly constructed and mediocre it is. The sheer amount of unnecessary or useless scenes was boggling: we have a long and, yes, fairly well crafted action scene of Logan running through the forest killing mutants (how he managed to find Magneto's forest camp is left unexplained) that seemed to be building to a relevant encounter with Jean, which Logan believes will help. However, this meeting is stopped on the cusp of its occurance by Magneto who, after a few meaningless words, tosses Logan through the woods. So ends the scene. What was its point? As far as I can discern, the plot needed him to discover Magneto's plans and warn the other X-men, leading them to the perfunctory a showdown, which Logan indeed does. Yet none of this information is uncovered during the scene itself; Logan merely (and magically) shows up with it a few cuts later, with no answer as to where he came about it, nor why we needed Logan's run through the forest. This was by all logic a truly useless scene which should have been excised in favour of developing something, anything. This is but one instance.

Concerning the characters, they took what were fairly interesting people, who had in the previous films major roles and continuing arcs, and either underused them, lost track of them, or otherwise left them undeveloped with randomly occurring, easy motivations (Logan gains a sudden, metaphysical, almost Platonic in the true sense love for Jean Grey from a minor sexual attraction in the previous films).

One of the best examples of the movie being unable to properly follow its own threads was the pathetic death of Cyclops. The movie introduces him with what seems a proper character arc: the move from goody-boy to emotional wreck with no sense of responsibility outside of his selfish emotions. This seems fair enough dramatically, even an improvement, taking a previously dull character and suggesting interesting if somewhat predictable developments--that is, until he goes off to find Jean Grey (why did they need him for this?). Indeed, he does find her, they embrace, strange things start to happen and then...we cut. What happened? One would rightly expect this to be explained in the very next scene where Logan and Storm (in one of many scenes wherein characters are able to conveniently divine crucial information out of nothing and run to the exact location of the next plot happening) happen upon the beach of floating stones. Once Jean is found, Cyclops' fate is dropped and left completely unmentioned. We don't even discover he is dead--something you would think the movie would find important to reveal--until Logan happens to mention this crucial fact in passing before it is quickly dropped again. A useless death for a useless character; his demise is left offscreen, we are only marginally informed of it, and its impact is so minimal that the movie never stops to consider it.

Mystique, always good fun when given something to do, is, sadly, given nothing to do except serve as a bit of bait, after which she is taken out of the movie. Her only purpose was to give Magneto a reason to attack the mutant cure facility with the discovery of the weapon--even though he has enough reasons and motivations not to need any more--and set up two incidental characters who are really only convenient to the mechanics of the plot (like an unnecessary and illogical diversion scene).

As for Magneto, aside from the brief rescue scene, and a bit of bridge remodeling, he is nothing more than a spectator, which is a shame. Jean Grey as Phoenix wanders about like a zombie for most of the film, stopping once to kill Professor Xavier in an interminably long scene ending in anti-climax (McKellan's reaction was top notch, however). When she did decide to do something, she became a little child, and a not very interesting one at that. Janssen played both parts well, but there was not much to do with them. Xavier's death was unfortunate since the character is interesting enough to deserve a wider play in the plot. Except for some clunky exposition, Xavier was given nothing to do beyond fly apart into space.

Indeed, none of the characters really had much to do. Of those that were introduced, Beast, the one with the longest screen time, spent most of his time as a dull bureaucrat in a suit. The giant stork or whomever was given a few useless scenes, having no character and nothing interesting to recommend him. Logan's arc, the slow revelation of his past and his previous personality set up so well in the second movie was dropped as though non-existent, leaving us instead with Logan in Love.

Finally, I cannot stand it when two characters with opposing view points and a catch phrase which summarizes these stances turn at the end and adopt, in mutual respect, each other's viewpoints, and demonstrate this fact by repeating each other's catch phrases with a half smirk. Makes me feel like I'm in a kids movie.

This was mostly all negative, and indeed I cannot find much good to say about the film except that while watching it I was entertained, and the action scenes were never dull. Yet there was so much missed potential, so much that was lost from the other two films. It did not fulfill any arc introduced in the previous films concerning plot or character. Nor did it have any of their style or energy, and that certain spry playfulness amid the suggested heaviness. It plays its part dutifully, and that is why it suffers: we can only be aware of how much is lost. If it were to somehow stand alone than its flaws might not stand out so heavily–something naturally impossible.

[porquenegar]

I agree with most of the criticism already posted. The movie didn't make a whole lot of sense and besides some nice eye candy there's not much for me to recommend. I'm hardly an expert on this, but I found the score to be dreadful. It really clunked along, bringing no emotions to the movie. In fact it did the opposite, bringing me out of the movie noticing how bad it was.

[Dear Catastrophe Totoro]

Pure crap. It actually ruins the other two films for me.

(McKellan's reaction was top notch, however)

Agreed. I found it frustrating that Magneto showed more genuine emotion over Xavier's death than the X-Men. Or maybe he's just that much better of an actor.

I found the score to be dreadful.

It almost reminded me of a poor man's version of Radiohead's Pyramid Song. Great song, but it makes a really boring score.

[BrightEyes23]

was i entertained? sure...
i think it was mostly the fact that these comic book characters that i grew up reading and loving were being brought to life more than anything...had i not had that previous connection with them and were it any other characters, i would've been bored to death...

i think the one word that can sum up the entire film for me is: disjointed.
it just felt like Rattner and the writers came up with a buncha "cool" scenes, and then in the course of putting it all together, realized that they didnt have any real legitimate segways to connect them so they didn't even try.

With the huge take this weekend, FOX is sure to realize that there's plenty of more cash to be made in this franchise. Let's just hope that some true talent is given the reigns next time around. The Apocaylpse story arch is what I'm looking forward to seeing!

[hearthesilence]

Heh heh...anyone get this reference in the movie?

http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=15862

[Cinesimilitude]

everyone in my theater did. there were cheers at that line, and the last shot.

[oldsheperd]

So is this the last film or what. I've always hoped for a Days of Future's Past storyline. I'd actually appreciate seeing some main superhero characters get wiped out.

[hearthesilence]

Yeah, that would've be cool....too bad it didn't happen.

[Barmy]

I was really surprised that the media reviews weren't more negative. Normally in a popcorn (no butter, please) flick, I don't worry too much about plot holes, but this was ridiculous.

Fundamentally the movie drove toward Magneto's need to get the source of the cure. But why did he have to go through all that hoo-hah once he knew where it was? Just send in a small covert ops group or whatever. They certainly had enough mutants who could do "sneaky" things.

After bitching about being sidelined, Halle Berry gets a big role and is a total bore. She still looks like she is just going through the motions. I thought Jean was OK even though she does nothing but glower. Magneto needs better headgear. Rogue does NOTHING. I'm too bored to type anymore.

Mi:iii was a MUCH better, and, yes, more plausible, action flick. I didn't feel like I wasted my money on X-3, but it was a big disappointment.

[Jeff]

I didn't feel like I wasted my money on X-3, but it was a big disappointment.

If only Fox had been wise enough to hire Bruno Dumont to direct it.

[Barmy]

No, I think Bruno should stick with science fiction.

[hearthesilence]

Halle Berry gets a big role and is a total bore. She still looks like she is just going through the motions...Rogue does NOTHING.

Here's an excerpt from a Cannes interview (most of the responses are inane, so I won't bother posting the whole thing)

HALLE BERRY: I envied that I never really got to do my powers until the third movie. Fly and do electricity and spin and make a tornado like I got to do now. I envied that I never got to do what I do.

ANNA PAQUIN: I still never get to do anything. Three movies, absolutely no action. It's kind of amazing.

REBECCA ROMIJN: Somebody's always got it worse than you.

PAQUIN: I managed to survive three action comic-book movies and pretty much almost not to see one single bit of real violence or, you know, action sequences.

BERRY: You'll have to do a Rogue spinoff, just so you can do something.

PAQUIN: Dude, I don't know if anybody wants to see that, actually.

BERRY: Well, you got a great love story. I didn't have that. I got no action and no story. I had nothing.

PAQUIN: I had some gloves.