X-Men III: The Last Stand
Movie Reviews | Feb 14th, 2006
Starring Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Famke Janssen, Kelsey Grammer, Shawn Ashmore, Vinnie Jones, Ben Foster, Dania Ramirez, Ellen Page
Written By: Simon Kinberg, Zak Penn
Directed By: Brett Ratner
Sigh…I just knew this was gonna be a bad movie ever since Bryan Singer left the series for stupid Superman. I was trying to have some hope when Brett Ratner came aboard and Matt Vaughn left the picture. I was just hoping this wasn’t going to be a bad movie with no good direction or story. Well I don’t think it’s Ratner’s fault for what he did, but it’s the producers and higher-ups at FOX for rushing this piece of shit and trying to beat Bryan Singer’s Superman on the release date contest. The movie is entertaining for a little bit but I just shook my head throughout the whole movie with shame.
Xmen 3 is all over the place in terms of story. The film starts out with a cool flashback of Xavier and Magneto going to Jean Grey’s house for the first time to meet her. Then we are shown in the present with the X-men battling some thing and you can see who’s the main members of the team this season. You got awesome Colossus, who’s underused YET again. You have a new young chickie named Kitty Pryde, who can walk through walls and all that fun stuff. Meanwhile, in the hall of justice…Oops I mean in Washington DC, you have Beast (or Hank McCoy) who’s in a business suit and pretty much a politician for mutants. I guess he was Xavier’s earlier students and still friends with the group. He’s played pretty much to perfection by Grammer. Hank comes back to the mansion to tell everyone that some rich pharmaceutical company has made a cure for mutants. This causes an uproar in both the mutant and human worlds. YET another subplot is the return of the Jean Grey, who came back from the dead and is totally messed up and gonna wreck everything in her path. This is the Phoenix saga plot and it’s super weak in this movie. Eventually Magneto gets to her and she stands by his side for the time being as Magneto and his brotherhood attack everyone responsible for “the cure.” Hey Robert Smith isn’t that bad ok! Har har. It’s up to the X-men to take sides on the matter, along with stopping Jean Grey causing more trouble than she already has.
I went into the movie with an open mind even though I read nothing but bad reviews about this film. I think even if I didn’t read any reviews or spoilers I would have been pretty pissed off and disappointed like I am now. This story had SO MUCH potential in so many areas but fell flat. That’s pretty bad when even I can’t find something to really like about this movie. Usually I find at least one redeeming quality in a movie and makes me from hating it. Here, I can’t really find something to save myself from saving this is worse than Daredevil. Where to begin, oh where to begin?
Let’s start with the new characters. Angel, is a fucking waste in this movie. Besides having his dad’s company making the cure for Angel, and then he runs away from it…the guy’s barely in it the rest of the movie. What’s the fucking point of having a new character if you’re barely going to have him in here and not have him important to the plot. Juggernaut, who’s not a mutant BUT it’s implied here in the movie he is. He also happens to be the step brother of Charles Xavier, but turns out to be a stupid henchman to Magneto. They don’t even make any mention of what his power is besides smashing shit up, and no mention he’s related to Charles Xavier. They could have made him the main villain for this movie but no, they make him some stereotypical cockney bloke with a giant size helmet. The brotherhood of Magneto is a bunch of minor and insignificant bunch of characters who shouldn’t have even been in the movie and they should have introduced a few good villains. They really should have used the sentinels for this story but i’m hoping some good director & writing team comes in and saves this franchise from turning to more putrid shit. I never read the comics so I don’t know specifics on certain stories they could have went with but I think they made the wrong choices with this one. The Phoenix story should have been saved for at least 2 movies and not just a small subplot of the film. I know that much at least that the story is bigger than what was shown on screen.
Kitty Pryde was an okay addition and was a nice revival to Rogue since she was moving in on Iceman, but they don’t really explore her character that much. They don’t explore anyone’s character in depth and that just bugs me. Bryan Singer did a good job of this for both movies, granted the first movie wasn’t the greatest but it certainly had a plot and had some depth. This is all action and it’s pointless. I consider X2 to be the best in the series and one of the best comic book movies in my mind. It had everything, and it was a well balanced movie that didn’t disappoint. There are some deaths of major characters here but I honestly didn’t give a damn because they were barely on the screen. I love Colossus as a character in the comics and cartoons, but again he’s not used that much. It’s nice to see he’s part of the main group now but he doesn’t do much besides throw Wolverine around. Whoopie. I thought the CGI for Colossus sucked monkey balls because it didn’t even look like he was metal. It looked like a cartoon gloss over him. Now in X2, he really looked like he was metal and hey, actually had brown hair. It’s like the graphics weren’t completely done for him. I wish Nightcrawler was in this movie because he’s one of my favorite characters and from what I remember from the cartoons & comics, they are good friends? I never really read the comics for Xmen but collected them. I watched the 1990s’ cartoon for it though and wish they release that on DVD already! But anyway, it was nice to finally see Iceman get some action scenes and fighting against Pyro. That scene wasn’t that long but I actually thought that was my favorite scene in the movie when Bobby ices himself all the way up. Why can’t he just do that the whole damn movie!!! I like Wolverine but i’m starting to get sick of him being the main character. I’m also stick of Halle Berry and glad she won’t be returning for any more sequels. She just sucks as Storm and can’t act. She’s attractive and has nice tits, but that’s about it with her. Xavier and Magneto were awesome like usual, not much else to be said there. Well there is, but don’t want to spoil anything else.
The action scenes also seem shitty and closeup. You couldn’t tell what the hell was going on because it was going so fast, and that’s a sign of shitty director. I did like the chase scene between Juggernaut & Kitty and there are a few good funny quotes from that sequence. I’ve heard one is taken from the comics or cartoon, one of those. I don’t necessarily think all of these problems are Brett Ratner’s fault. I think he was destined to fail from the Internet from the beginning, but I think if Matthew Vaughn had complete control over the film and didn’t leave the movie, this would have been a different and more interesting comic book movie. I also think Bryan Singer should take some of the blame for pulling out of this and working on Superman instead. Ever since that happen, it seemed FOX & co have made it a point to release their movie before Superman Returns. You can tell that this movie felt rushed, cuts corners. You can tell the creators don’t care about character depth or story too much and just trying to fool the joe schmo public into thinking this is a good movie. Well it’s not, it’s a very flawed movie that should have been delayed and gotten the proper treatment for it. Instead, the story and the franchise have been shat on from everyone involved. Good going Fox, for ruining yet another good thing! So um, when does Superman premiere?
Favorite Scenes: Juggernaut vs Kitty Pryde, Iceman vs Pyro, Wolverine vs people in the woods, Danger room scene.
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 104 minutes
Overall Rating:
