Not X-cellent, but not X-ecrable either.

Rating: 7/10 (7 June 2006)

There were those who were worried about "X-Men: The Last Stand" when it was announced that Brett Ratner was directing; my worries came when I saw that the script was credited to Simon Kinberg ("Mr. & Mrs. Smith," "xXx: State of the Union") and Zak Penn ("Last Action Hero," "Elektra")... that this movie doesn't wind up as a bomb is a relief, therefore.
That's not to say it doesn't have its flaws - some movies suffer from being too long, but with the amount of story strands in this one (Jean Grey's resurrection, Rogue's heartbreak, the discovery of a cure, and so on) the movie isn't long enough to deal with all of them satisfactorily; another half hour would have helped (the first two movies didn't have such a problem) and would have given this movie the scope it was crying out for - what should be as powerful as "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" or the final episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is instead a bit undernourished, with lots of characters and not enough heft. It would also quite possibly have removed such jarring moments as an abrupt change from day to night in one crucial scene towards the end, but as this is a No Spoilers review I won't elaborate.
As well as shortchanging Rebecca Romijn's Mystique and several other mutants, the movie also suffers from some weak performances (Josef Sommer is particularly bad as the US President) and a worrying tendency to be comic book in the worst way (case in point: every single scene with Vinnie "Why the hell is he in this movie?" Jones's Juggernaut); Ratner might have been advised to take a tip from "Prison Break" and let other people... say, Bryan Singer... direct while he took executive producer credit. (And yes, I realise Ratner did the first episode.)
The main cast members are for the most part effective, both veterans (Stewart, McKellen, Jackman, Janssen, Paquin, Berry etc) and newcomers (Ellen Page, in addition to benefitting from the most convincing FX in the movie, is wonderful as Kitty); John Powell's terrific score is another plus, and even the general semi-dumbed-down approach can't hide the intelligence underneath the concept and the ambitious ideas. It still falls short of the first two films, yes, but there's still a big gap between "X-Men: The Last Stand" and, say, "Daredevil." (And I thought I had figured out what the post-credits scene would be like... I was, happily, wrong.)