Failure of a finale

Rating: 4/10 (14 August 2006)

This is supposedly the last in the X-Men series before they go on to more focused films like Magneto and Wolverine. The Last Stand is appreciably different than the two previous installments due primarily to it featuring a different director, and secondarily because they continue to introduce more characters from the series. This does make it markedly more difficult to maintain focus. The original X-Men comic books took years to move through the same story arc. This was evident while viewing this film. The story seemed fractured because there were so many sub-plots. It was almost like there was a bunch of different movies cut and put together. The forays into the characters we forgot we were supposed to care about are forgettable, and could easily have been cut. However, it was an entertaining film throughout with great acting and spectacular effects. The battle scenes were bigger than the last two films because the mutants moved from the underground to do battle out in the open. I really don't know what else to say. Now that I'm actually writing this down, the movie wasn't all that great. It was a lot of fun to watch, but it could have been much better. The effects tried to compensate for the weaknesses elsewhere, but even the giant finale battle was sort of aloof. We were sort of detached from what was actually going on, and I felt it was more of an atmosphere of battle than actual action. I think as a package of three films - the X-Men trilogy - everything would be really cool. I enjoyed it, I really liked it, but it is far from being the pinnacle of movie making - even at comic book standards.