I hate Brett Ratner

Rating: 4/10 (29 May 2006)

X-Men: The Last Stand is the worst movie I have paid to see in a long time. It had bad pacing, bad production value (get a DP that didn't learn lighting from Michael Bay movies), and performances that simply left me confused. Apparently even some of the best actors in Hollywood couldn't save the last installment of an until now great movie series.
I had been waiting for X-Men 3 for 3 years, and after the spectacular X2, I was expecting one of the best superhero movies to ever grace the silver screen. Unfortunately it completely failed to deliver, in multiple ways. Like The Matrix Revolutions, it took a great franchise and completely destroyed it. Also, like The Matrix Revolutions, it made suspending one's disbelief far more difficult, and brought the end of the trilogy into a series of "are you freaking kidding me?" moments.
There was no logical pacing to X-Men 3 whatsoever. It was a sequence of event after event, with no feeling of a particular flow to what was happening. As such, no significant development was given to the characters or plot. That also made the overall experience of the film much different, and I never once felt emotionally involved with the characters or story, completely unlike the previous films. That was one of the most disappointing aspects.
Certain parts of X-Men 3 were simply cheesy, such as the scene where the decision is made to keep Xavier's school for mutants open. It is so cliché and poorly done that it's not worth describing. If you have seen the movie you know what I'm talking about. It also killed off characters for the sake of killing them off, with no drama or significance attached to it. And they brought in some pointless new characters as well.
What was up with Iceman and Kitty Pride? He could potentially bang his girlfriend Rogue (portrayed by the beautiful and talented Anna Paquin) after she gets the "cure", yet he is spending his time with a chick that's like 14. Also, Rogue was only in the movie for about 5 minutes total, which I think is a terrible waste of an Academy Award- winning actress. It also seemed odd considering that the first movie primarily centered around Rogue and Wolverine. Although she was in it very briefly, Rogue's storyline actually made the most sense for X-Men 3, as her drive and motivation was the most logical.
Beast should have been brought in in the second movie, he was underutilized and could have been a valuable part of the series. Although, he did fight in a pretty cool manner. You wouldn't see Kelsey Grammar's character doing that kind of stuff on Frasier. He would be too concerned with getting his dad's dog off his couch and being late for the wine club meeting with Niles.
The Juggernaut barely did anything except kicking the crap out of Wolverine, which was a decent fight scene (which ended in the very stupid-looking floating house). In a good version of this movie, the story of the Juggernaut being Charles Xavier's half brother would have been preserved. I simultaneously appreciated and was appalled by him saying "I'm the Juggernaut, b****!" I enjoyed that it went so far as to make a reference to an Internet joke, but in doing so it completely destroyed any idea that this was going to be a serious effort to continue the legacy of the previous X-Men movies. Or a serious effort at not being crappy.
The whole Dark Phoenix thing was total crap too. It simply didn't work, at least not nearly enough to build a chunk of the story around. Magneto knew she was unpredictable and dangerous, and even after she almost attacked him, he still kept her around. And after breaking and floating the Golden Gate Bridge to Alcatraz, he didn't sense the X-Jet arriving. And why, at the end, after they got the kid that can counteract mutation by proxy, did they simply not throw him at Jean Grey? It would have been a hell of a lot easier than banking on Wolverine to sacrifice the woman he had his contrived feelings for.
I loved the first two X-Men movies, and had very high hopes for the end of the trilogy, despite Bryan Singer's departure from it. This was a very disappointing end, and for a fan of the films, it would probably be better to make up your own conclusion to it than to consider this one as the finale.