it's the best of all the x-men movie installments (yet)

Rating: 8/10 (28 May 2006)

I really must say, "X-Men: The Last Stand" is by far the most amazing superhero/comic flick movie i've ever seen. And it's not just because of the stunning effects, but because it was able to push the characters' powers to limitless possibilities (well, of Jean Grey mostly, but it's still good).
Yeah, it's true that Jean killed Scott and Prof. X and Logan killed Jean, but if you're a real X-Men avid fan, you'd know that it's even possible to escape death, come back to life or, even be reborn. For the longest history of the marvel storyline, only a very few really died.
But let's go back to the movie. The usual cast were just that.. usual, except for Berry, Janssen, Stewart and McKellen. Jackman's character nor his acting didn't really improve much, though he did appear tamer.
Grammar played Beast fairly well, with his look, voice and all, though there were times that the lighting made him look like care-bear fuzzy. Jones' portrayal of Juggernaut was disappointing and his costume sucks big time. Page's and Cudmore's role were really just supportive, but at least they didn't suck. Another disappointment was Foster's (very minimal) role.
When i heard that Angel's gonna be in x-men, I was eager to know who's gonna play the part. I'm not a big angel fan, but his character is really promising - wings, hollow bones, a pure muscle body that doesn't store fat, and healing blood that can be transferred to heal any injured person (unlike Wolverine who can only heal himself). I knew Foster from "Six Feet Under" and I know that he can act.. but for angel's role? His portrayal was fairly good though, but his minimal role made him less than a supporting character, more like just an extra who happened to be the son of the man who triggered the whole storyline.
What i like most about this movie was that it stretched the possibilities of the characters' powers and gave a fairly good explanation to all of it. Being a telepath and telekinetic, Jean is really yet the strongest mutant in the X-Men movie storyline - her powers range from simple mind reading and spoon bending to literally distorting atomic structure of any matter (like when she 'killed' Prof. X by disintegrating his body into atomic dusts) and it was good of the movie to harness that possibility, making her the real antagonist.
But what made it better was the explanation to it. In the original comic book story, Jean was capable of controlling her powers, until the psychic interventions of Mastermind caused the phoenix force, which inhabited her body to save the universe, to go berserk. The ingenious of the movie was that it offered a more viable reason to the rise of "the phoenix." In the movie, the phoenix was the other side of Jean, a powerful, irrational consciousness, caged by Prof. X to help her control her powers; when the wall of water hit Jean in Alkali Lake, she was cocooned by her powers and the phoenix unleashed itself.
Another amazing possibility that the movie storyline brought to the audience was the cure and its source, Leech. In the original comic book storyline, Leech was a mutant living in the sewers and only had the power to temporarily disable mutant powers. Unlike Rogue who can temporarily copy a mutant power, Leech can only disable it.
In the X-Men Evolution cartoon series however, Leech was portrayed as a kid who had the ability to disable mutant powers within a certain range. Apparently, this is where the movie's storyline spun off. The cure in that movie came from his DNA, which was able to disable mutant DNA and turn the mutant normal.
But the ingenious there wasn't how the cure was made; it was the lingering question whether the cure was temporary or permanent. When the cure hit Mystique, she immediately 'devolved' into a homo sapien. The fast reaction could have been caused by the immediate effect of Leech's powers over other mutant powers. But as seen in the end, Magneto (who was supposed to be 'cured') was able to at least wiggle the metal chess piece again.
Here's an assumption: though Leech's DNA may be able to disable a mutant gene, it could only suppress it for some time, depending on the dosage taken and evolution of the inflicted mutant's DNA. For example, if Jean was hit by a single 'cure shot,' it could only have a temporary effect on her since she was only injected a small dosage and her mutant abilities have been harnessed to its full potential already (and that's probably why the writers of the movie did not do it) Besides, since Leech is a mutant himself, his genes are 'mutated' as well and a mutant's body could dissolve its effect or even possibly get immune to it.
When i first watched X-Men and X2, I was disappointed because the storyline never gave the mutants' character a chance to explore the possibilities of their powers. At least now I understand that it was, more or less, part of the writers' technique to tell the story in a compelling manner.
And oh, don't forget to wait for the scene after the credits rolled. Apparently, Prof. X isn't dead. And I wouldn't be surprised if in the next installment (in any case there would be one) Prof. X becomes a different character. Again, his survival was another possibility explored by the storyline. After all, no matter how powerful Jean is, Prof. X was/is always the most powerful telepath alive.. and the mind is as limitless as space.