X-Men: The Last Stand

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Summary:
Jean Grey has seemingly come back from the grave, but her deepest, darkest inner psyche - called "The Phoenix" - has been unleashed from within. She poses a significant danger to the entire planet, unleasing a power that cannot be stopped. Meanwhile, once again, Magneto tries to destroy humans to take over the mutant world. Plus, there's a drug that can "cure" mutants of their condition, which is not a good thing, of course, for MOST mutants.

Review:
The best thing for me about this movie is presenting one of the major faults of comic book storytelling: anyone can come back. First, we think Jean Grey is dead in part two, but anyone who knows anything about the Phoenix saga will understand this isn't the case. Sadly, MORE people die this time around, but since they've already brought one of them back, we know that any of the others can be brought back as well. This is one of the major issues I have always had with comic book stories. No one's REALLY dead.

My first major complaint that I'll TACKLE (since most complaints are so major that one can't take precedence over another) is the damned CGI/so-called "special" effects. Why the hell did they have major sequences take place in San Francisco if they aren't even GOING to San Francisco to shoot the scenes? I'd understand if it was in Europe or the Middle East or something, but it's SAN FRAN - a MAJOR location for movies! Instead, we're stuck with green/bluescreens as low budget and shitty looking as those used in the over-budgeted Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe! I mean seriously, they're throwing TONS of cash into this movie... why can't they make me BELIEVE that they are really on Alcatraz, and IN San Francisco? It wouldn't be too bad if it was only for a couple of minutes, but instead we're stuck watching an entire ACT of the movie (the finale, nonetheless) OFF location to this easily shootable location! FUCK YOU! Thanks a LOT for destroying any chance of excitement for anything that happens during these scenes!

Let's get past the bad CGI, which fucked up a lot of the fun for me. Let's go to the new mutants. The whole entire handful and a half of them. It's a damn shame that Magneto has to be stuck with a small handful of useless second-hand mutants. Luckily for us, they can be exterminated without too much anger over their worthiness. The funniest part of it all is that ALL of them look like Emo/Goth rejects! They have Emo hairstyles, dress like attention-seeking Goth rockers, and exhude absolute faggotry. The funniest part of ALL of this is that Bryan Singer directed the first two movies and is openly gay, yet Brett Ratner - Singer's remarkable directorial replacement - as far as I know isn't gay! Add to that the obvious use of 'coming out of the closet' with Angel and his father in the movie's opening, and you wonder if Ratner isn't hiding something himself... ?
Enough with the set design, special effects and costume design. The major importance must lie in the acting itself; which SUCKS! The only time I felt I was actually involved in the storyline was when Wolverine was onscreen. This is pretty strange, that Jackman could look decent amidst all this mess. Most scenes with him were also with Janssen, so I give them both a LOT of credit for doing well with what they were given. I can't say the same for Juggernaut, who was absolutely unimportant and RETARDED through the whole movie. "I'm Juggernaut, BITCH!" OMG, that's one of the dozen SHITTY SHITTY SHITTY one-liners in this shitfest! Even more mysterious was the unending mumblings of Kitty Pryde. She's cool in the COMICS. For the movie, I couldn't understand half of what she was saying. She mumbled so much, that even though I am a native English speaker, I didn't get half of what she said! Get a new actress, already! Or tell her to speak up - and CLEARLY!!

Throwing the endless slew of worthless mutants and incompetent actors aside, I'll go to the storyline itself; once again, I am helplessly confused. I know the Dark Phoenix saga as it was originally written (well, there are a few versions, but this movie took bits from each and confused EVERYTHING), and I understand that it needs to be changed for film. What I DON'T get is a lot of the wierd mumbo-jumbo that happens onscreen. Like, what is Xavier doing in the house against Jean? Why is he smiling? What the FUCK is going on here? Where's any semblence of logic and understandable storytelling? Oh, fuck it. Who gives a fuck? This movie pretty much sucks. I'm not even going to TRY to explain everything that didn't work with this mess of a movie.

I can't really recommend this to anyone, except those who haven't seen the first two, and who have never read one single comic. This might not disappoint them with it's extreme suckiness. I give props to Jackman and Janssen for helping make this movie watchable with their fairly solid performances, but sadly, no one else does a great job. I think this has mostly to do with bad writing and directing all around. So I don't blame the ACTORS as much as I do everyone else around them. I say skip this movie. It's embarassing to the first two flicks.

... Oh, and Angel is WORTHLESS, STUPID, and had NO REASON to be in this movie! That dude should just stick to being a dumbass, like he was in SIX FEET UNDER and THE PUNISHER!! Oh, and the 'showdown' between Pyro and Iceman... FUCK YOU! That was even MORE gay than the not-so-subtle GAY UNDERTONES!

GRADE: D

TRIVIA: Ratner took the place of Singer after he decided to do SUPERMAN RETURNS. Ratner turned down the SUPERMAN project originally, which is funny that he ended up doing X3. Singer said he'd love to do a part 3 after SUPERMAN, but Fox wasn't going to wait for him. Even funnier is that Ratner was a contender for the first X-MEN movie as well.

Reviewed 6/24/06