It's another entry in the series of X-Men films. What would you expect?

Rating: 8/10 (28 May 2006)

"X-Men: The Last Stand," the third in the series of X-Men films based off of the immensely popular Stan Lee comic books, is just that: a mindless, fun, and highly entertaining action film. Critics have stated that it is nothing but an soulless action film devoid of a large amount of character development and drama; well, no kidding Sherlock. It's a movie about mutants that are able to run through solid objects and conjure storms instantaneously fighting other mutants that can manipulate metal and shoot giant spikes from their arms. "X-Men: The Last Stand" was NEVER meant to be a movie with a solid amount of depth to it...but alas, does that truly matter? The visual effects are fabulous, the performances are acceptable, and really, it's just a fun movie. And at least the characters have enough depth so that you can feel a bit of sadness when one of them gets killed off by the writers.
The film's plot involves a group of scientists creating a "cure" for the mutant gene...a medicine that suppresses a mutant's superpowers. While Proffesor Xavier and his colleagues have some impartiality to the medicine, in that they aren't going to try to halt production of it, Magneto and his group of supervillians are not content with this medicine's existence. They soon form a plan to travel to Alcatraz and kill the boy that the government requires for the production of the cure -- a small boy named Jimmy. In traditional action flick fashion, the X-Men begin a counter attack to stop Magneto and his team of mutants.
New characters are introduced in this entry, such as a giant blue creature called Beast, played by Kelsey Grammar (it must be hard finding high salary work after "Fraiser"), a man that can smash through walls known as Juggernaut, played by Vinnie Jones (whose most famous catchphrase is from a cartoon some X-Men aficionados might recall), and a boy with giant bird wings growing out of his back, played by "Six Feet Under"'s Ben Foster; and Jean Grey returns, this time having her dual personality known as the Pheonix taking over her body and making her an extremely powerful supervillian who carbonizes everybody in her path. It's a shame, however, than none of these characters are on screen for a very long time (other than Jean Grey), with the writers seldom exploiting their powers, and therein lies the movie's biggest weakness.
Despite some flaws, "X-Men: The Last Stand" is another fabulous entry into the series of X- Men films, with extravagant visuals and good acting from Patrick Stewart, Ian Mckellan, and Hugh Jackman; just don't go in expecting a lot of character exploration. But why the devil would you look for that anyway, going to a film based on a series of comic books? Not every film can be a "Spider-Man 2," you know. (****/*****)