Not as good at #2 but very good anyway

Rating: 9/10 (7 June 2006)

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X-Men The Last Stand is the third installment of the X-Men series and in my opinion it is one of the few trilogies that actually lives up to the hype. From beginning to end this movie is non stop action and contains a lot of special effects that are pretty cool and pretty creepy at the same time but more on that later.
Staring Patrick Stewart (Professor X), Ian McKellen (Magneto), Famke "Hot" Janssen (Dr. Jean Grey/Phoenix), Kelsey Grammar (Beast), Hugh Jackman (Wolverine), Anna "Hot" Paquin (Rogue), Vinnie Jones (Juggernaut), Rebecca "Hot" Romijn (Mystique) and Halle "Too Hot for Words" Berry (Storm), X-Men The Last Stand should win an award just for casting. When I first heard that Kelsey Grammar was going to be playing Beast I thought to myself, "Self, Dr. Fraiser Crain can't play Beast", but and this doesn't happen very often I was wrong. He does an excellent job of portraying the intelligent side of Beast and because of make-up and special effects he does an excellent job of making the audience believe his mutant side. The other new addition that is worth mentioning is Vinnie Jones and honestly I couldn't think of a better person to play a bad ass like Juggernaut. Vinnie Jones is one of my favorite bit actors and has done an excellent job in such movies at Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch and Gone in 60 Seconds. If you need someone to play a bad ass, Vinnie Jones is the man for you. The only issue I had with his character is how they made his body look so big. Granted Juggernaut is supposed to be a huge unstoppable force but you could really tell that he was just wearing a body suit.
There really are two main story lines going on in X-3. First is the creation of a new medicine that gives mutants the ability to go back to normal humans. Of course this causes a riff in the mutant community. Magneto is leading a group of rebel mutants that will stop at nothing until the cure is eliminated. The X-Men represent the other side of the coin and spend much of the movie trying to stop Magneto. The other storyline is how Dr. Jean Grey survived after being consumed by a ton of water in X2 because of her hidden mutant talent. Because of the extreme stress of this event it causes her to become the Phoenix, a level 5 mutant that has the ability to pretty much kick the crap out of any other mutant. These two story lines of course intersect at the end.
****Warning! Potential Spoilers in the Next Paragraph! The only thing that really upset me about this movie is that I knew the X-Men series of movies is coming to an end. I started to think that after all the characters that were killed off that we'd never see another X-Men movie. But you need to stay until after the credits have ended. There is an additional scene that if my friend Ken did not know about I would have never ended up seeing. This scene pretty much opens up a door for another X-Men movie and God willing that will happen.
Now for the special effects in this movie. The scene where Magneto rescues Mystique is just awesome and well worth the price of admission. What they can do with a computer is just amazing. One of the scenes at the end (and no I won't ruin it for you) that involves Wolverine and Dr. Jean Grey is also awesome. However, the scene in the beginning of the movie where Professor X and Magneto go to meet with Jean Grey is just creepy. Since the scene is supposed to happen 20 years before current times they decided to digital enhance both Professor X and Magneto's faces to appear that they were 20 years younger. In reality all it really did was freak me out. Yes they do look younger but at the same time they both look like wax figurines that have come to life. It is so distracting that I found myself concentrating on the way they looked vs. what was going on in the scene.
Overall I really enjoyed this movie. Just like Empire Strikes Back, Aliens and Lord of the Ring The Two Towers the second movie in this 3 movie set is still the best. I would recommend this movie to almost anyone except for small children. There is a lot of violence in the movie that is not appropriate for children viewing. If you are fan of the X-Men comic or just movies that are based on comic books I think that you will really enjoy this movie. But then again, what do I know?