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After the director of the first two X-Men films, Bryan Singer left the X-Men franchise (along with his two writers) to work on Superman Returns, Brett Ratner stepped in to direct the third and final installment of the (initial) X-Men trilogy. X-Men was already a very delicate film series, balancing camp with thrills, resulting in a very silly, but very entertaining film franchise. Alas, Ratner (and notably writers Simon Kinberg and Zak Penn) clearly lack the expertise Singer had in this field. Thus resulting in X-Men: The Last Stand - a film that has plenty of camp and silliness, but not much entertainment or thrills.
Well, it's a third installment, and as is usually the case with any franchise reaching this mark, The Last Stand is darker, more complicated, and features many more characters. The plot is extremely muddled, but you can still find it if you squint. A "cure" for mutants have been discovered which will relieve them of their supernatural abilities, but the cure has been met with controversy. Also, X-Men and Magneto square off. And there's a new villain. And a lot of new henchmen. And a new character with wings that's in this movie for some reason.
The first 45ish minutes of this film are actually fairly enjoyable. While it's immediately clear that both the directing and the writing are not up to par with the last two entries, The Last Stand's first 45 minutes provide the goofy fun and fine performances that one would expect. Alas, over the course of the film's 104 minute run time (which feels significantly longer than it really is), the entertainment value and plot coherence gradually deteriorates. All this boils down to a chaotic, explosion-filled finale that makes little sense and isn't engaging in the slightest.
There are so many unnecessary characters and sub-plots in this movie! My personal theory is that the film initially clocked in at about 70 minutes, and because that is far too short for a final installment in any franchise, these un-needed "first-draft-excrements" were forced to be used in the final movie.
The film delves into unintentional comedy on numerous instances. The best example of this is when a character named Angel (a winged X-Men) escapes from a lab and unexpectedly unleashes his colossal wings, breaks out a window, and soars into the sky. The whole scene is so silly and pseudo-triumphant that it's genetic makeup insures that it can only elicit chuckles and belly-laughs (I accepted the latter condition). There are other unintentionally funny scenes in both this film, and the franchise, but this particular one is the absolute highlight.
At least the acting hasn't slipped much. Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart are still positively wonderful, and share excellent chemistry whenever they're onscreen. Unfortunate, Stewart's screen time is even smaller than it was in the last film. The same is true for Rebecca Romijn as Mystique; such a shame considering what a vibrant screen presence she has had in all three films. Unfortunately, Wolverine is a bit more sarcastic (and a bit less likable) in this installment, but that hasn't affected Hugh Jackman's performance. Of all the characters suffering from diminished screen time in this film, it is Anna Paquin's as Rogue for which I am most grateful.
John Powell's score seems - in the context of the film - undistinctive. There is something odd about this X-Men franchise in which their scores don't do a thing for me in film, but garner massive praise on album. It is at times like this when one may question the importance of mentioning a movie's score in a film review when one's opinion of it can completely change when one hears it apart from the film. So, for what it's worth, it doesn't hurt the film one bit. But I struggle to recall a single scene in which it assisted it either.
The Last Stand came before Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End and Spider-Man 3, so at this point, audiences weren't used to being so disappointed with third (and supposedly final) entries. Now, it is commonplace - and even expected. The Last Stand suffers from silliness, undefined powers, and a multitude of other problems. But many of these problems also plagued the preceding films. The difference here, though, is that The Last Stand does not have the entertainment value to compensate for this. What's more, it's sloppy, and extremely unsatisfying. Tom Rothman, president of Fox, said the following about the marketing of The Last Stand: "[I] wanted people to stop and not have it be so immediately apparent that we’re selling a movie. We’re interested in selling an emotion and an idea." So sad it is, then, that The Last Stand possesses little emotion or original ideas worth mentioning.
5/10
