Above Average Summer Blockbuster Fare

Rating: 7/10 (24 May 2006)

In this installment of X-Men, a Mutant X gene suppressor has been devised by a pharmaceutical company, offering it to anyone who wishes to be "normal". This sparks Magneto to gather an army in order to destroy the labs and the mutant boy who provided the necessary components to this suppressor. Things are further complicated when Jean Grey returns after her death in X2, becoming something more powerful and far more sinister.
The biggest problem with this movie is that there are simply too many characters, thereby not giving enough screen time for each one and leaving too many subplots and individuals underdeveloped. Angel, who seemed to have a fairly sizable role in the trailers didn't do too much in the film. Others like Colossus and Multiple Man didn't really do too much either. However, the principal characters were developed well enough to make this an enjoyable experience. Beast in particular was quite well done, both in dialogue and action sequences (plus it's nice to see Kelsey Grammar away from his character of Frasier Crane). Some of the story lines from the comics had to be tinkered with to avoid too much confusion with the audience (i.e. in the film Juggernaut is an Englishman instead of Professor Xavier's step-brother like in the comics or Jean Grey's Dark Phoenix is supposed to be a result of a combination of her unconsciousness and a cosmic force, not a suppressed personality as explained in the movie). Nevertheless, Ratner and the screenwriters have done a decent enough job to make the movie as coherent as possible and while The Last Stand is not the same calibre as the previous two, it's far better than the blockbusters we've had so far this summer.