A very disappointed fan

Rating: 3/10 (26 May 2006)

First of all I just have to say that growing up and to this day I have always been a huge fan of Marvel comics and their expanded universes, specifically Spider-Man and X-Men. I'm still wondering what to think about this movie about an hour after seeing it. I waited so long for X-Men to be made into a movie series, and after seeing "The Last Stand" I was very disappointed. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy some of the film, for example the danger room sequence at the beginning, that was exactly what I thought the X-Men fighting the Sentinels should look like. However, the story, or lack thereof for that matter, literally angered me. How do you kill Professor X, Jean Grey, and Cyclops in the X-Men movies?! These people weren't supposed to die, what connected me to them throughout my years as a fan was how strong these characters were and how they were able to overcome the problems their world put into their way. "The Cure" as they called was hardly developed, the characters introduced in this movie lacked an introduction, and although it was nice to see Angel, Kitty Pryde, Colossus, and Juggernaut, among others, they may as well not even been in the movie. It was as though the entire thing was one giant spectacle, and disappointed me to the levels of the final installment of Star Wars. X2 left me hungry for more, and the original X-Men film had its problems, but at least stayed true to the foundations on which the story was based. This movie left a very bad taste in my mouth; Magneto and Rogue lose their powers (Rogue before she is even given any chance to shine), three major characters die, and the main character of the trilogy thus far, Wolverine, received the spotlight role among all of the other equally interesting X-Men, yet he gets his own film afterward and many characters we fans wanted to see, if for only a few minutes, never even made it to the screen. Like I said before, there were a few things I liked about the film. In my opinion, Beast was done justice. Seeing Iceman and Colossus reach their full mutant forms was also pleasing. Beyond these few things I have mentioned, I was not very impressed and thoroughly disappointed. The moment I heard Brett Ratner was taking over the project I began to worry, and this film proved me right. As a film student myself, long-time film lover, and X-Men fanatic, my hope for good art and good movies to be created from stories that had been around for so long just waited to be brought to the big screen was poisoned by this film. I know a lot of people will say that some changes had to be made to bring the comic to film, and I agree, but not to the drastic extents that this film took. The Spider-Man films weren't entirely true to the comics, but the changes were minute and fit well into the already famous and beloved storyline. Sam Raimi nailed those films and I remain thankful for his adaptations bringing my, and many others', beloved Spider-Man to the big screen. And as far as the first two X-Men films went, I was happy for the most part. But I have never been so disappointed in anything in my life as I was in this movie. To me, the X-Men took a creative and interesting spin on a problem that actually faces humankind, and all of that was lost here. There was really no resolution, no payoff, and no story. The film could have gone in a much better direction had the X-Men been forced to face one of their own, the Pheonix (Jean Grey), and brought her back with having her face the same attacks by the humans (Sentinels)that the X-Men faced. There would have been much more room to bring characters many wanted to see thoroughly into the picture (ie. Angel, Gambit, Beast, Psylocke, Colossus, Kitty, etc.) instead of bringing in many insignificant parties just to complicate things and provide for non-stop action. We could have easily got to know all of these new characters and then some if the story had been much better devised and the movie not been so rushed. This was also evident with the film's length; did they really expect to pull all of that off in less than two hours and have it work? The action in the film was well produced, but it seemed as thought that's all there was, action. They had enough to work with from the original story lines (ie. the rise of the Pheonix and the mutant-human war), they shouldn't have brought "The Cure" in to complicate things. Through all of my disappointment I still hold hope for a better X-Men 4 with the final scenes from this movie, and hope that the numerous X-Men fans finally get the pay off we so well deserve for buying all of those comics and keeping Marvel in business for so long.
*I hope that this all reads clearly and concisely and that those of you who read this can understand my disappointment, after all it is 3:30 in the morning, and I'm a little shaken up.