X-MEN 3: THE LAST STAND

By: Abbie Bernstein
Review Date: Friday, May 26, 2006

There was some concern about the X-MEN franchise changing directorial hands on its third installment, with Brett Ratner taking over after Bryan Singer had succeeded in making most people very happy with installments one and two. Ratner demonstrates immediately that he knows how X-MEN movies are supposed to look and move, and writers Simon Kinberg & Zak Penn (the latter a veteran of X-MEN 2) tap into some of the more popular and dramatic parts of the source material to give X-MEN 3: THE LAST STAND some crowd-pleasing punch. What's missing here is a subtle element that gave the first two movies an added dimension grace notes of character development and humor. In fairness to the filmmakers, it may have been felt that, as this is the third installment in a three-act structure, the characters had been introduced and fleshed out and it's now time to put pedal to the metal. However, paradoxically, the efforts to keep this outing streamlined cause it to drag just a touch we understand why the characters are iconic, but a few more reminders of why we care about them as individuals would have given it more resonance.

In X-MEN 3, the mutant world and therefore the rest of the world as well, because both are interconnected is rocked by two unrelated events. One is the invention of a "cure" for mutation that will strip mutants of their powers and leave them as ordinary human beings. Some mutants embrace the notion, while others view it with alarm and the anti-human mutant leader Magneto (Ian McKellen) uses it as a rallying cry for his fellows to violently resist this "genocide." The government, which insists that the cure is voluntary, nevertheless doesn't help matters by using doses of the cure as a weapon against mutants who are violent. At the same time, Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) presumed dead after sacrificing herself to save the other X-MEN at the climax of the previous film returns to her friends, but she's very changed. Or is she actually more herself? Peaceable mutant leader Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) has some answers that are almost as unsettling to his disciples as the reality of Jean's new persona.


The "cure" for mutation storyline is a metaphor for so many real-world issues that it's a virtual hall of mirrors feed in whatever analogy you care about and it will probably work. X-MEN 3 has a great time and does a bang-up job of playing out the political parallels, except instead of the usual worried statesmen figures, we've got furry blue Dr. Hank McCoy, aka Beast (a truly well-cast Kelsey Grammer), trying to balance his own desire to fit in with concepts of right and wrong. It helps, of course, that the arguments lend themselves to all sorts of wild setpieces.

Although the Jean Grey plot is eventually integrated with the other element, it is more amorphous, again primarily because the movie is so eager to hit emotional high points here that it doesn't let them build naturally. We known that Scott aka Cyclops (James Marsden) and steel-taloned Logan aka Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) both love her, we can see Jean is conflicted and we learn that Professor X has his own ambivalence but this is all raced through so quickly and broadly that we aren't really given a chance to connect with it. Likewise, Halle Berry's Storm emerges here as a leader and probably has a more pivotal role in the action than previously, yet it feels like she's got less to do, because instead of getting to see how she feels about being in charge, we just hear her tell various characters that they're either with her or not.

The action, however, is terrific and there are some narrative shockers, with changes and losses we don't expect. Viewers who have any investment in the storyline should definitely sit through the closing credits for a short but pivotal tag scene.

X-MEN 3: THE LAST STAND is a lot of fun and occasionally thrilling. If it had given itself just a few more minutes to explore its unique characters, it could have been even better.