The big disappointing comic-book movie for 2006!

Rating: 5/10 (19 February 2008)

(MASSIVE SPOILERS) Okay, it's taken me well over a year to finally write a comment on 'X-Men: The Last Stand', or 'X3', or 'X-Men 3', or whatever you want to call it. I call it crap! First bad sign that this film was going to suck was the change of director. Now, one could argue that 'Superman Returns' was equally bad but that film had a little poetry, and one could also argue that 'Spider-man 3' had the same director for all three, but...wellthey'd have a point.. Anywho, I was worried prior to 'X-Men 3' release because of the director change. I was thinking the Batman franchise for some reason. I believed in Ratner ever so slightly, and I was hoping for the best. And let's face it; the trailer was pretty good!
However, 'X-Men 3' was a massive disappointment, and excruciatingly bad in parts, particularly Vinnie Jones's utterance of "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!". By the time that line was uttered, the film had completely lost me. I'm not even going to bother explaining the plot, but the way they handled the death of Cyclops was atrocious. So, that really annoyed me! His character was treated with utter disdain, that it only seemed to serve the purpose of giving Wolverine an angle to hit on Jean Grey. The whole Dark Phoenix thing was really annoying, as well as the plot revolving around the cure. Magneto (Ian McKellen) and Professor X (Patrick Stewart) needed more screen time, but I found it particularly ridiculous that the X-Men's biggest villain has his base of operations in a forest. A forest? Not Asteroid M, a forest! Plus, add to the fact that all Magneto's henchmen and women were emos with mutant powers!
OK, moving on! Well, I guess I'll go with my main grievances with this film. Firstly, the promise of the Sentinels playing a part in this film was reduced to a danger room exercise. Secondly, Angel! By far one of my favourite characters had only one purpose in this movie, and that was to stop being an angry teen, and forgive his father by saving him. It's almost like he didn't even join the X-Men. He just rocked up in time to save his dad, and then left the other X-men to battle Magneto, while we all waited for Dark Phoenix to do something. Beast was okay, and he had a reasonably smooth transition. Iceman kind of worked, and it was good to see him actually become Iceman! My third main annoyance with this film was the fixation on Wolverine, but also on Hugh Jackman. He just walked through this movie without even getting his claws dirty. I think Hugh was far too busy thinking about his performance in 'The Prestige', cause he was really really good in that film, but in 'X-Men 3' he seemed bored and uninspired and had completely lost his edge that he had in the first two films. One of the things I remember saying after seeing the movie was how bad Hugh Jackman was in it! Comic book films seem to drop the ball with the third one, and unfortunately, 'X-Men: The Last Stand' is no exception to the rule. Sure, it's not as bad as 'Ghost Rider', 'FF: Rise of the Silver Surfer' or other comic book films. However, when the series kicks off so well under the guidance of Singer, the disappointment for this instalment is quite massive, and I won't be rushing to see a fourth one.
**½ out of *****!