flawed, in the way you'd likely expect with the 3-timer

Rating: 6/10 (27 May 2006)

I wanted to like X-Men the Last Stand more than I ended up doing, but it goes without saying that the film does lend itself to a certaincase of style going triumphant over substance, it just is. There is an unspoken trend in sequels where the third film 9 times out of 10 is the weakest of the bunch (even if it may not be necessarily a very bad movie). It's a little sad in a way too to see a director like Brett Ratner- who is admittedly by many including myself not as good with the material as Bryan Singer- get pushed aside by a studio far more interested in the action over the substance. And it's unfortunately Do the new mutants look cool? Sure, some of them; it's one of the more amusing things to see this year in a blockbuster having Kelsey Grammar and Vinnie Jones as mutants with over-the-top make-up and costumes. And the special effects and action scenes are given as good, but not having the same real interest as in the past films. Moments in these action sequences- mainly in the wild climax at Alcatraz prison- are exciting, but the problems in the film run deeper than that. If you don't have things all well enough in the script, things are liable to fall apart.
One might think that the main plot line of the film, with Famke Janssen as Jean Gray's unbalance and quasi turn to the dark side of the mutant force (maybe just me seeing the 'Sith' comparisons), and the amount of tragedy that befalls the mutants under Xavier's school would make it a very engrossing entertainment. It isn't; there is the feeling more than anything that too much is stuffed into one film, where some sub-plots are left to being undercooked (i.e. the one with Michael Murphy and his winged son), or just given to a lack of creativity (the sub-plot with Anna Paquin's Rogue doesn't have much to it that isn't a mile away). Would I recommend the film as leave-your-brain-at-home-frozen to watch the film? Yeah, but it isn't much of a credit that it's lacking in the ways that would matter to most fans and just movie-goers in general. It will make a lot of money, that is certain, but it will also suffer in time from the good of the film (dependence on the cast like McKellan, Stewart, a couple of newer faces among so-so ones too) contending against the disappointing bits. As one critic somewhere wrote about this film, it's "soul-less", which is not what this potential material should have, and has me feeling less wanting to see it again the more I think about it. C+