Grade "A" superhero action but sacrifices too much for it

Rating: 6/10 (13 February 2009)

If an alarm didn't go off in many people's heads when "X-Men" and "X2" director Bryan Singer left the third X-Men project for "Superman Returns" and "Rush Hour" director Brett Ratner was hired in his place, it should have. While a lot of the fault for lauders of this movie can be put on writers Simon Kinberg and Zak Penn for letting the script get way too out of hand, Ratner lets this film become what Singer would have never let it: about the plot and the action and not the characters.
"X-Men: The Last Stand" takes place not long after "X2" at the announcement that Worthington Labs has developed what they call a "cure" for the Mutant X gene. Naturally, this upsets both schools of thought: Professor Xavier's (Patrick Stewart) human and mutant cooperation/coexistence and Magneto's (Ian McKellen) mutants are superior and should embrace their abilities to the fullest at the expense of humans. Magneto uses the cure as a symbolic way to rally mutants for his cause and to take immediate action while Xavier takes the cautious and civilized approach.
There's a lot more to the plot than this, but to describe all these subplots would require too much effort. That's the point: there's too much going on and while it makes sense, that doesn't mean it plays out well into a 100 minute movie. Take for instance Magneto's right- hand woman Mystique (Rebecca Romijn). She is imprisoned in a dangerous mutant transport vehicle and in the scene after Magneto discovers a way to get her back. Maybe 20 minutes and some major scenes later, we finally get back to the truck and Magneto's plot to get her back. If consecutive scenes like that have to be split up to make way for all this other material, it should be a red flag that this movie is overloaded. It might all make sense, but it inflicts serious damage on character development and themes.
Another serious misstep in this script is the addition of too many characters. Singer would never have brought so many new characters in. There's Beast (Kelsey Grammar) as U.S. Secretary of Mutant Affairs, Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page), Warren Worthington III (Ben Foster) and Colossus (Daniel Cudmore, who did make a brief appearance in X2) all on the good side alone. That's absurd. Plus, Halle Berry, who plays Storm, requested a bigger role in the film, so she gets more attention in addition to the other characters from the first two films that we're already familiar with. You simply can't expect your viewer to invest emotion let alone believe in the characters with all those names to follow. ***Slight SPOILERS*** With people dying like it's their job in this film, it's not all that helpful when we're not moved by it. One tip might be not killing so many characters before the climax of the film. There's a reason people usually die at the end of movies.
Sure, the characters all aid the plot in some way, but that's just plot. Characters need to exist to be developed or minute enough to move the plot but not generate interest. Some characters (a lot of the bad guys) do just exist to be cool, but too many exist in this limbo area of seeming important but really just moving the plot.
Another problem with the script is dialog. You know the fast-paced action movie cliché of ending scenes with one-liners? Yeah, "X3" does it a lot. The President says some really awful lines and even the great Sir Ian McKellen can't deliver all of his lines in believable and not cheesy fashion. Plus, many of the lines are squeezed in to service the plot or enlighten the audience to something they may not know. Another sign that you should stop writing a movie like this is when you have to force people to say lines just to create comprehension.
All that badmouthing aside, this is a visually stunning movie. The action is top-notch and the special effects are unlike anything you've seen in this decade. That alone makes this valiant attempt to pack all this into a movie worth price of admission and 100 minutes of time. While it might have been more appropriately done in 120+ minutes, it keeps your attention and moves quick, almost enough to overlook the flaws. For people who can step back and see what the writers tried to do as opposed to how they did it, you have to give them credit for a good idea. It's just the execution and Ratner's inability to keep humor out of things even when it's not necessary. Singer didn't care if you laughed but the writers and Ratner clearly believed it was part of the action movie experience. So there is a letdown factor for those that loved Singer's work with the franchise, but for everyone else, this is high in entertainment value.