All that icing and no cake

Rating: 5/10 (26 May 2006)

I am a huge fan of the X-MEN franchise, but this is ridiculous. This movie is too fast paced and it had a crappy storyline! Brett Ratner must hate details, because there are literally none. It is basically one battle scene after another (most of those were pretty cool). The screenwriter used random characters or pointless transitions just to showcase powers for the heck of it- at times it was fun, but most of the time, it was just incredibly misleading- we are led to believe they may play a central role in the plot, but they are indeterminate. The movie lacked a lot of the wit that made the first two memorable.
The movies preceding "The Last Stand" had actually made an attempt to develop characters such as Wolverine (his past, powers & rage), but the 3rd movie made a rather digressing turn by just putting him in every scene (whether emotional or a battle). It is not enough to just be there, the screenwriter should have given the characters more to work with. Speaking of the writer, it should be mentioned that the screenwriter does not care for continuity. The movie really never gets into a smooth groove because it is very choppy.
The movie is 1hr and 44 mins long, and it is an entertaining film. It is not one of those movies I am going to be going to see again in the theatres, but people should see it at least once to pay homage to the previous two films. There are some d*mn cool battle scenes (albeit, way too short), but battle scenes do not act as proper compensation for a script that is lacking. All I have to say is that if "The Last Stand" is not considered the 3rd movie of a trilogy, then the next director has a huge mess of a film to fix.
5 out of 10 was given because there are awesome displays of power, but the combination of bad script and bad director is atrocious.