A Great Disappointment!

Rating: 1/10 (5 June 2006)

The Last Stand should have been a Sequel, and as such should follow the previous movies' story and characterization. In my humble opinion it was a bad movie, failing to comply to every minimum of filming quality standard and had nothing to do with the very good X- Men and X2. And to explain myself, it was not a bad movie for comic fans, but a bad movie in general. Let me take this step by step:
Gaps in Scenario/Writers' short vision:
--Characters died without reason and no consequence to the killers' psychological traits. Jean Grey killed Cyclops and the Professor, why not kill everyone else too? Why not destroy all of new York, she seemed demented enough to do it and most capable of it. The loss of two of the main X-Men protagonists should lead to something other than "oh, the filmmaker is so cool, he killed main characters!". --Magneto could have Wolverine killed with a snap of his fingers. The Adamantium covering his bones and claws is indestructible, but his skeleton's joints aren't. Logan's limps would be easily scattered at the far corners of the earth. Instead of that, he just tossed him on trees and to the ground. He could have even stripped him of his Adamantium, leaving him more vulnerable and less dangerous, if he wanted him alive for some reason or personal agenda. --Magneto got Phoenix to his side just to have her watch him. He lured the most powerful mutant to follow him but he had no role for her. --Magneto moved the bridge (he could have lift a couple of mutant-manned buses, but anyway...) during daytime but he set foot on Alcatraz at night. --Again Magneto, used many mutants as "pawns" and let them become humans. He did to them what he didn't want the government do. --Kitty's superpower is to pass through solid objects. A power that could lead to harming herself or others, something similar to Nightcrawlers teleporting , when materializing in between them (remember Nightcrawler's fear in "X2"). When she left Jaggernaut halfway within the floor, he should have died an agonizing death. --Wolverine's healing factor couldn't have saved him during the end. But even if the healing process was kicking in that fast, he should have been thrown miles away by the Phoenix, like a feather blown by a tornado. --Wolverine used four vials to "cure" Magneto of his "mutantness", but kept none to help Jean. Instead of the claws at the end, he could have easily stab her with a needle with the serum, but that wouldn't be "cool" and couldn't prove his "love", right?
Worst Moments: --Angel's only Role was to save his father --Colossus was good in moving a TV around the mansion and tossing Wolverine. --There was a "Ministry of Mutants", something like Harry Potter's "Ministry of Magic". --Storm was not creating a twister, she was becoming one. --On Xavier's grave there was that "coin" of Julius Ceasar or Octavius, whatsoever. --The Brotherhood of Mutants was a bunch of hip-hop gangstas, all dressed in hoods. --Xavier dissolved in "triangles", drawn by a Voodoo FX's PC graphics board that brought special FX back to the video-games of the '90s. --Some characters' names, apart from Wolverine's and Storms', were all replaced by petty nicknames in every chance throughout the movie; it was mostly Tinman and Furball instead of Colossus and Beast.
Comic Fans' Disappointing points: --The "Phoenix Saga" could easily be a trilogy all by itself. The Hellfire Club, Starjammers, Lillandra and the Shi-ar Empire; major drama, super-hero action, explosive moments, unexpected finale. By stripping it from exaggeration, the parts with the alien civilization and the devouring of a galaxy by the Phoenix, it would fit right into Singer's realistic vision of the X-Men. --Two of the core characters of the comic series, Cyclops and Professor X, "died" without reason and consequence. --Colossus was not Russian. --Kitty Pryde flirted Iceman, not Piotr. --Callisto had the super-powers of Calliban and the Quicksilver. --Jaggernaut was a mutant and the helmet was just an ornament, not a psychic blocker. --Iceman "iced-up" for 7 seconds. Colossus "armored-up" for a couple of minutes. --The "Fast-Ball-Special" maneuver degraded in a "Hey, Tinman, toss me!". --Rogue again didn't "power-up". --Instead of using well-known mutants -they're hundreds of them- the assault was made by no-bodies, without the slightest sense of uniforms, with messed-up, vague superpowers.
Director's "Touch": The scenes were staged in a mediocre way and the cameras were set with no imagination. There are TV-films that the X3 have much to be jealous of. With only a little pleasant surprises -the flight of Angel, Magneto's attack to the police convoy and Jaggernaut Vs Wolverine-, Ratner's vision of the X-Men fell far behind his predecessor's genius film-making. If only Fox had decided to wait for Singer's return from Superman's filming, or even if Wenton would step-in, even at the last minute, the viewers would have a Major Trilogy to remember.
Overall: A pity...!
X-Men's Last Chance?