And so we have come to the third entry to the Franchise and possibly one of the more infamous ones. X-men: The Last Stand was released in 2006 and it had a hell of a production history. Bryan Singer, who had directed the first two movies left to direct Superman returns instead… You’d think that’d be the obvious way to go but Superman returns received a mixed reception and made less money than this movie.
Beyond that,
the main actors were only contracted for 2 films, so their contracts had to be
renewed, for Hugh Jackman that meant getting director approval. Matthew Vaughn
was assigned to direct when they entered pre-production but family issues meant
he departed before filming started. In the end they hired Brett Ratner, who
really didn’t know a lot about the X-men.
In the
writing department we have Simon Kinberg, who at that point had written
Fantastic 4 and Elektra… Be afraid…
And of
course we have studio interference as well, with a lot of the original elements
for Jean Grey’s role ordered to be cut down because it was considered too dark
for a summer blockbuster. They also killed for major character deaths and I’ll
get to that in the story section.
Which is
right now, so take a look at X-men 3
So the plot
is like this. We open with something that is ultimately going to create
headaches 2 movies from now as Magneto and Charles visit Jean Grey for the
first time, we then cut to a completely pointless character in Angel. Then we
have a scene featuring one of the X-men’s most iconic enemies, the sentinels,
which turn out to be a simulation (that’s a pity)
But moving
on, Scott’s still down about Jean’s death until he gets some telepathic message
and discovers she’s still alive, she then kills him because his actor’s needed
in Superman Returns. Turns out Jean has an alternate personality called the
Phoenix who’s very powerful and evil for ill-explained reasons.
We also have
the fact that Worthington labs (on Alcatraz Island – because bullsh*t) has
found a mutant ‘cure’ thanks to the help of a mutant named Leech, who is able to block mutant powers within a certain range (he’s being held in a white box,
sure it’s more humane but I think I’d go mad from the boredom) also, they have
Mystique captured until Magneto catches up with them.
With the
cure now in the public eye, Magneto is raising an army of mutants to storm the
labs. One of them can sense power levels of mutants and eyes Jean. We get a
redo of the opening scene except now Charles is killed and ultimately war
results in a large portion of the mutant community dead, Wolverine stabbing
Jean and an overly optimistic happy ending.
Where do I
begin with this one? OK, let’s start with the fact that the mutant cure arc and
the dark phoenix saga, both adapted from comic books, could’ve easily made
movies on their own. And as a result of them being bashed together like this,
it feels cobbled together in places and does not allow for much in terms of
character development.
Wolverine is
very much the front and centre of this story, again, the problem though is by removing
Scott from the equation, you also lose a lot of potential conflict. Wolverine
taking up a kinda leadership role in the X-men is nothing new to me so don’t
expect me to give points for that, I’ll be reviewing a much better version of
that later down the line.
The
additions of Colossus and Shadowcat to the team did nothing, in fact I’d argue
Colossus was more interesting in Deadpool, in fact I’d win that argument
because who would think he was interesting in this? He gets barely any screen
time and does nothing of consequence except the fastball special.
Kitty Pryde
gets a bit more, but unfortunately she’s just a cog in the development of
Rogue, who is also painfully underused in this movie. She’s one of those
characters that from what we know about her, we know she would want a cure but
her interactions over the subject amount to 2 very short conversations and
ultimately she doesn’t really serve a lot of purpose to the plot. The fact that
she’s jealous of Kitty really, really doesn’t help.
Storm is…
well she has a role in this but she hasn’t really had much of an arc in either
of the first 2 movies so I really didn’t expect one here. Nightcrawler is… he’s
gone and the reasons are explained in a tie-in game. *sigh* In reality, he had
a minor role but it was cut due to how expensive putting the makeup on would
be.
Professor X
gets a bit of an arc for half the movie as he’s called out for attempting to
suppress Jean’s powers. Erm… Yeah, he absolutely did the right thing. There’s no
question and honestly, it’s in the background because he dies pointlessly
halfway through the movie.
The act of
killing Charles is only significant for Jean Grey because she does so little in
this story. In fact she does not demonstrate her true powers often enough for
her to even be established as a threat, and the fact that she fell under Magneto’s
sway is kinda insulting, and I’m not even a X-men comic reader.
Oh and Beast
is in this movie too. He’s one of the better things about this movie. I can’t
bring myself to hate the movie, I don’t think it’s unsalvageable, focus on one
of the two plotlines, fewer extraneous characters and close in a bit on those
introduced. This movie could’ve worked. Instead, it’s the movie that gave us
this
Congratulations,
we have an internet meme!
Rating
40/100
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