More Than They Could Handle

Rating: 7/10 (29 May 2006)

X3's title, "The Last Stand," and it's premise, which I'm sure you all know about by now, gives the impression that this is it for the franchise, and the war between humans and mutants will be that of WWII, but instead of "The Big One," it becomes Greneda.I'm not saying it is all bad, there are high points, but in the end the bads outweigh the goods, and this becomes one of the most highly anticipated disappointments of the year. Everything that the fans had asked and/or waited for, such as The Danger Room, The Sentinals, and especially, (this is what I was waiting for) the return of Jean Grey as Pheonix, was there, but was handled with a "Here you go so stop bothering me," attitude, meaning they were there, but just enough so none of the fans could say anything else, and there lies the problem. As readers of the comics know, the X-Men universe has a mind numbingly huge roster of heroes and villains, and with so many, everybody is bound to have a favorite they want in the movie. So, i guess they tried to appeal to everybody, adding about 15 mutants as main characters. Add to this, the overall continuing plot of the war between us and them, the main plot of this movie about a "cure" for mutants and their opinions on the subject, and two sub-plots involving a new mutant who is reason for the "cure" and Magneto's quest to capture him and The X-Men's attempt to stop him, and finally the return of Jean Grey as Pheonix, who is now one misunderstood word away from disintegrating the entire world, and the X-Men having to track her down too, and it just becomes too much, and the movie implodes, not giving enough time to flesh out anybody, except Wolverine, who learns about teamwork, and more less assumes the role of leader/mentor.
That's not even all of plots. There are several other issues going on. Such as the triangle between veterans Iceman, Rogue, and the newbie Kitty Pride, which causes Rogue to branch off into a side story of her own, Mystique and her unfortunate accident, and another newbie Angel and the issues with his father, who is involved with the "cure," and finally Beast, another highly anticipated new character torn between the opportunity of finally "fitting in," or remaining the blue hulking animal that he is. There aren't even soap operas that have this much going on, it is just too much. You would think that with all of this, everybody would have something to do, but amazingly, nobody really does much of anything, because it's all crammed into the span of about 90 minutes, so all potentially good ideas are ended in very anti-climatic ways, and new mutants introduced are thrown by the wayside or used solely for one or two reasons, and never heard from again. If thats not enough, because of these new angles, old ones built up from the first two, such as the triangle between Jean, Wolverine, and Cyclops, and the potential sparks that flew with Strom and Nightcrawler, are NOWHERE TO BE FOUND!!!!!! last but not least, since this is supposedly the last movie you would think that all questions would be answered, but instead of ending like that, the movie throws us for a loop, and ends with unresolved issues that only bring up more questions. I think they lied, and if there is a 4th (which, if they don't want to be hung, there should be) they will have a lot of explaining to do.