Not the finale we all wanted

Rating: 6/10 (11 June 2006)

Watching X- Men: The Last Stand there is certainly a sense of finality to it all, unfortunately though, it's just not the finale we all wanted. Brett Ratner did a great job - direction wise and the third act really heats up. The problem lies in the other two. There are some very cool scenes, and moments and this is the most epic and darkest of all three but something is missing in this instalment, it felt numb, void of any real emotion or consequential characters.
It felt as if not all the pieces were there, characters just seemed to drop in and out all the time and even the deaths of the characters, especially the first one were all kind of humdrum. Basically, the film never really took off until the end and that was it's biggest letdown, it grew tired too early and did it's best to redeem in it's finale.
Ian McKellen as usual excels as Magneto and as expected, finally snaps while Halle Berry does what she does well, nobody really cares about Storm. She's a secondary character at best and yet, in this she basically runs the show in X3. Hugh Jackman returns as Wolverine, although sorry to say it, he's lost his edge and just falls in line like the rest.
Overall, the X-Men trilogy is suffice. This instalment didn't really hurt it, but then again it didn't do it any favours. Each instalment is decent in its own right, even good (I believe X-Men 2 edges them both) but if this does turn out to be the last stand then this series will never achieve greatness because so far we've had three above average movies - nothing more, nothing less.