X-Men: The Last Stand

“When an individual acquires great power, the use or misuse of that power is everything. Will it be used for the greater good? Or will it be used for personal or for destructive ends?”

Filmology Rating: 2.75 out of 4

X-Men: The Last Stand is another bad third film in any trilogy ever. Bryan Singer and writer, Michael Dougherty, left to do "Superman: Returns" so we got stuck with Hollywood's "Yes-Man", Brett Ratner.
In this film, we follow the main character, nobody, as Jean comes miraculously back to life for plot convenience. A cure is found for the mutant gene so a new debate begins over whether mutants should be "cured" or not. Many characters die just to have the end of the film undo all of it because Brett Ratner did anything the studio told him to.

The biggest issue this film suffers from is stupidity and boredom. It is not as terrible as I remembered, however, at nearly one hundred minutes, it's still too long. Most of the boredom can be attributed to Ratner's inability to make dialogue interesting. With Ratner especially, there is a clear distinction between the action scenes and the dialogue scenes. When they can be distinguished rather easily, there is an issue. The action never informs any of the characters. It is a perfect display of spectacle over substance.
In the previous two films, Wolverine was usually the protagonist. He is a main character in this film, but his character is "We need to learn to work as a team, Logan." It's so dumb and cliche that it makes you want to search for a new favorite character. That idea can work, but when it's spelled out so easily like that, it's just dumb. But, Hugh Jackman is so good that you just accept it.

Cyclops is cheaply killed off in the first twenty minutes because Brett Ratner didn't feel like dealing with that character. Later on, Jean, who becomes Dark Phoenix, kills Professor Xavier. That's a really impactful death and makes other characters step up. In the end credits it shows Xaiver survived by transferring his conscience into his brother. The ending also undoes Magneto's loss of power when it teased that Magneto could move metal again. Both of those moments are such a slap to the face because it undercuts all of the character growth from Xavier's death. At that point, why even make the movie if important aspects are going to be undone so easily?

Dark Phoenix is also a side plot for some reason. Instead, the overarching plot is a mutant cure that involves Rogue in some way, but she disappears for the entire third act. Dark Phoenix should have been the center of the film, but there is too many other things happening to give one specific aspect any real focus.

There are also too many characters in the film, which leads to to many underdeveloped characters. Some have sufficient development, but most just show up because why not.

There is also a character called the Juggernaut which is possibly the stupidest character in a comic book film. He has a terrible accent and has some awful line deliveries.

The only thing that keeps this film afloat are the characters. The performances are good enough, but some people (Halle Berry) stand out because of poor direction. But we only care about these characters because they were so well established and fleshed out in the last two. This film trilogy is similar to "Return of the Jedi." It has a decent enough story and characters where you can ignore a lot of trashy elements.

Just read a summary of this film on the internet somewhere and find something else to do for one hundred minutes.

Rating: Skip It

-Nolan