Finally! Some Sex in the Series

Rating: 7/10 (27 May 2006)

X-Man: The Last Stand is not a disappointment after all. Many - myself included - were more than skeptical about the third, and supposedly final entry, when a new director was announced. It's not so much that we all loved Bryan Singer (although his first two entries were respectful, solid entertainments) as much as that we really don't like Brett Ratner (who made the immediately forgettable Rush Hour series, the unendurable Family Man, and the absolutely abominable Red Dragon). It's a wonder why any studio would enlist Ratner to head a popular franchise, as he aptly demonstrated how to ruin one with Red Dragon. Maybe my dislike is much more simple. Maybe I was skeptical because I can't imagine a serious film director whose name is BRETT RATNER, who hails from Miami Beach, Florida, and who looks like this (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0711840/).
I'm being terribly cruel. But the news is good! In fact, I wouldn't put up much of a fight to the statement that The Last Stand is the best X-Men thus far (please, for a series so grave in it's pleas for diversity and tolerance, let's change the title to X-People). The third entry is the tightest in the series  with a taut, intricate storyline, and a slew of new mutants. Once again, Ian Mckellen is here to make meager lines ring Shakespearean, and finally, the now 40 year-old, still absolutely ravishing, Famke Janssen is back from the dead. Well, in fact, she never died, as fans of the comic-book already knew.
And this I'll say for Ratner, when he does give Famke Janssen screen time (she's not on screen for more than 15 minutes), he uses her splendidly - better than Singer ever did, or ever could. In the first two X-Men, her beauty was distant and almost motherly (she was the mother, and Wolverine and Cyclops were her disobedient children desperately seeking her approval and love)  she had no sex appeal. Here she is all woman, and in the film's best scene, she gives us one of the better seductions in cinema this year. After a dangerously long kiss with Cyclops which results in the latter's death, she wakes up at home base, not completely herself. She's got split personality issues  she's both the sweet, tender Jean Grey and the destructive Phoenix. She wakes, wearing a skimpy black tank top and an even skimpier pair of black shorts. Wolverine is beside her, drooling over her. "You're making me blush." She says. "You're reading my mind?" He asks her. "I don't have to." Then she sits up and delicately straddles him with her thighs. She's hungry, and I had to wonder: isn't it strange that Phoenix's first two appearances are lust driven, and unfulfilled? Would Phoenix be such a threat if Wolverine had set aside his personal doubts and given in to the passion of the moment? Is Phoenix really blood-thirsty or just extremely horny?
There is another strong, female actress in the film that makes Phoenix/Grey's dilemma all the more transparent. This actress is the lovely Anna Paquin (terribly neglected here), who longs to be cured of her power so she can finally touch and kiss and screw her boyfriend (she can put people in a coma with a handshake, or worse). These mutant women are tired of being "special" and "powerful". They just want to be held, they just want to be loved.