A once great franchise takes a serious nosedive.

Rating: 7/10 (30 April 2018)

Following the financial and critical success of X-men 2, Bryan Singer was keen on doing a third film that would conclude Jean Gray's transformation into the Dark Phoenix, unfortunately Fox CEO Tom Rothman would have none of it, given his hatred for comic book movies, Rothman sought to take over a year to hammer out a deal for Singer to direct the third movie while trying to micromanage the film as much as he could leading to a lot of stalling at Fox. Meanwhile, WB president Alan Horn was tempting Singer with the opportunity to work on Superman Returns for them which Singer agreed to and jumped ship on X-men 3 to go direct that movie instead which left Rothman shambling to find another director and eventually settling on Brett Ratner to direct and all the while rushing the production of the movie to meet its May 2006 release date.
Now, I never saw X-men 3 in theaters in the summer of '06 given my disinterest in comic book movies at that time and given the backlash it revived upon its release from the fans, I stayed well away from it. However, in preparation for seeing Logan last year, I sat down to watch The Last Stand and after finishing the movie, I certainly didn't think it was as bad as some of the fans had made it out to because I definitely enjoyed aspects of it like the acting and the visual effects. However, I thought the story and characters left a lot to be desired.
The movie opens with Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr meeting a young Jean Gray and invite her to join Xavier's school after being impressed with her powers. We then cut to 10 years later where a young boy named Warren Worthington is discovered to be a mutant and attempts to cut his wings off. We then cut to the present day where Worthington Labs has developed a vaccination that kills the X-gene and offers it to any mutant that wants it. While the cure appeals to some like Rouge, other mutants are alarmed by it which gives Magneto a reason to reform his Brotherhood of Mutants and oppose the cure. At the same time, Scott Summers is morning the loss of his fiancé, Jean Gray and travels to Alkali Lake where he sees Gray alive, but as they embrace, she kills him. Detecting trouble, Professor X spends Strom and Wolverine to investigate. Once they arrive, they find a lifeless Jean but no Scott. When the three return to the X-Mansion, Xavier explains that when gave her life to save the team, she unintentionally freed an alternative personality known as the Dark Phoenix which Professor X had helped her suppressed but, once the personality reasserts itself, Jean goes psychotic. Now, The X-men must stop Magneto and his Brotherhood from waging their war all while confronting and stopping The Dark Phoenix from unleashing her true power upon the world.
Given that Bryan Singer was off making Superman Returns, the directing duties fall on Brett Ratner and while he is a decent director, the tone feels off-putting as the movie feels more like a generic summer action movie with superheroes in it rather than a smart, thought-provoking comic book movie that the first two were not to mention Ratner comes off as incompetent and uninspired, feeling more like a hired gun Rothman used just to make the movie as opposed to someone like Singer who actually cared about the story and characters. Meanwhile, screenwriters Zak Penn and Simon Kinberg, as well as Ratner, easily ignore or fail to address the many irritating plot threads in their own movie with one of the most blatant flaws being Xavier's death and while he certainly didn't deserve to get killed off, he absolutely brought it on himself. In spite of an incredibly weak dispute with Wolverine and hard-hitting yet flimsy allegations from Magneto, Charles never accepts any responsibility for his mistakes with Jean nor does he ever deal with any challenges and thus still imploring his pitiful protectiveness to a Jean Gray who is beyond saving at this point in the movie, he passes away with helpless determination and with no honor simply because he can't avoid his own arrogance and while his passing is heartbreaking, it would been so much better if Kinberg and Penn had made Professor X see the error of his ways. If Xavier's death wasn't stupid enough, his memorial and the following scenes are even worse. The memorial scene is short and mediocre while the very next scene has Hank McCoy suggesting that they close the school, an alternative Strom quickly dismisses. In the context of the moment, the viewer is supposed to feel enriched by this scene but instead feels deprived of what could be a powerful scene of the X-men mourning their fallen mentor and we are never able to truly feel the impact of Xavier's passing or to revel in his death but instead are just told that life will go on.
Of course, if that wasn't moronic enough, even after watching Dark Phoenix kill his friend right in front of him, Magneto still carries out his plan even though Charles's death should have provoked him to at least rethink his whole agenda and while he doesn't take Charles's passing lightly, it still doesn't make any sense why he just decides to carry on with destroying the mutant cure nor does it make any sense why Juggernaut and Multiple Man just join Magneto's cause without even brothering to ask who he is or what his motivations are. Not to mention X-men 3 has some of the most incompetent writing I've ever seen in a superhero movie since Batman and Robin and it just makes me wonder how infinitely better the script could have been had Chris Claremont written it.
As for the whole Dark Phoenix story arc, it's a complete and utter joke. Rather than have an alien consciousness process Jean, the writers, Ratner, and possibly Rothman decided to have it be a split personality in order to keep the tone of the movie more realistic which doesn't work at all as Gray returns with the powers of an insane demon rather than an invincible deity as well as it coming across as a severe misunderstanding of who Jean Gray is as a character. While her return is welcome, Jean is completely underused here and has absolutely no character and does nothing but stand around and to add insult to injury, she kills Cyclops approximately 10 minutes into the damn movie without any build-up. Now, I get that the movie isn't going to follow the comics note for note, but something that shouldn't have changed here is Jean's love for Scott and how it is though that that she is able to overpower the Phoenix Force and take her own life while in the movie, Jean just flat out kills Scott without giving it a second thought while when Wolverine tries to kill Jean in the comics, his love for her is what stops him from doing it yet in the film, the viewer is expected to be emotionally invested in the scene but given how Jean and Logan shared so little time together during all three X-men films and had no chemistry, it's impossible to feel anything for these two and even less then Wolverine does kill Jean which makes for a weak finale that lacks any strong emotional punches or moments. Thanks for that, Kinberg, Penn, and Ratner.
Not only does the film feel the need to butcher one of the best X-men stories ever written but it also feels the need to throw so much into its 2 hour running time in order to try and please the fans but in doing that, the story and characters suffer as a vast majority of them aren't on screen long enough for the viewer to get to know or care about them. Much like what happened with Batman V Superman, Spiderman 3 and Amazing Spiderman 2, X-Men 3 becomes an overstuffed movie with too many subplots going on and not enough focus on the story at hand.
Rather than provide each hero and villain with at least some development or motivation, something Singer paid a lot of attention to on the first two films as did The Russo Brothers on Captain American: Civil War, Ratner and the writers feel the need to add in as many new mutants as possible without even trying to develop them as characters or their motivations as many of them are just in the movie for fan service rather than have any kind of importance to the overall story. Nightcrawler, one of the most intriguing characters in the film series, is absent from the movie with absolutely no explanation as to why he isn't there. Really, Kinberg and Penn, was an explanation for why Nightcrawler not being on the team anymore too much to provide?! Callisto is your stereotypical ghetto black woman with no personality, Multiple Man is completely useless as a character, Angel was focused on heavily in the marketing for the movie and was made out to be a big player but when he's in the actual movie, he does nothing, has no character and comes off as yet another pointless cameo for X-men fans to drool over. Rouge and Iceman have no development whatsoever here either as Rouge comes across as a wasted character who just wants to take the mutant cure so that Iceman will love her again which makes her out to be a self-pitying and selfish person rather than a fully fleshed out character. Iceman isn't really given much do ether, even if all the development that X-men 2 give him is still there as the writing makes him come across as a self-absorbed jerk who cheats on his girlfriend although he comes come into his own at the end of the move, it's sad to see such a great comic book hero like Iceman be given the treatment of not being able to really grow as a character due to incompetent directing and writing. As for Pyro, he's completely useless too and comes across as an arrogant know-it-all rather than a compelling villain and he doesn't even use his powers effectively, what a wasted opportunity. Mystique is completely wasted as well. Cyclops, who always seemed to get the short end of the stick in all three movies, is killed off ten minutes in with absolutely zero development or emotional impact which is made even more tragic because James Marsden was making Superman Returns at the same time so killing his character of