X-Men 3: The Last Stand - Review

This weekend I went to see X-Men 3: The Last Stand with my new flat mate (who also helped me with this post). I only have a passing familiarity with the comic books but that has not stopped me enjoying the first two movies. However, as I sat in the cinema this time I came to two conclusions. The first being that if I was a mutant I would want the power over other peoples voices so I could make them shut up while watching a movie and the second is that X-Men 3 is to my disappointment the weakest movie in the trilogy.

The movies main failing is its attempt to cover too many story lines at once. At least three story lines are included which should have been part of their own separate movies so they could be focused on properly. None of them are given the chance to be what they could have been. The characters also suffer from the same failure. Neither the old or new x-men are given enough screen time to develop.

Since this was really three movies crammed into one I am going to give you three reviews not just one. If you have not seen the movie yet there are some spoilers ahead:

X-Men 3: The Cure
When the 'cure' for mutation is discovered the mutant community is split between those who wish take the treatment and no longer be persecuted and those who wish to keep their abilities even though they will never be fully accepted by human society.

Here was an opportunity to further explore the themes from the last two movies and the opposing views of Xavier who believes in tolerance and Magneto who believes in survival of the fittest. However the story was not developed and so many possible angles were hinted at but left unexplored:

• What was life like for the mutant child who was the source of the cure?
• What were repercussions of a mutant (Rogue) taking the cure voluntarily?
• How would a mutant (Mystique) adjust to life after their abilities were forcefully taken away?

The way Magneto tossed Mystic aside once she became human also felt like it did not fit with their (platonic) relationship built up in the last two movies.

The conclusion felt rushed as if it was a sudden cut off of the story because a big battle was 'needed for the end of the movie'. The sudden change from day to night during this sequence did not help with this feel as well.

X-Men 3: The Phoenix
This is the story most comic book fans have been waiting for. After being believed dead Jean Grey comes back as something much more powerful and dark, the Phoenix. The time which is spent on this story arch is flawed. It is over before it really has time to start and when it came to its conclusion it has little impact. It is very obvious that this was not their intention at the end of X-Men 2.

The love triangle between Jean, Scott and Logan that has been part of the previous two movies was handled with such clumsiness that all emotion associated with it was lost. There was an interesting opportunity to see how the two men dealt with Jean's turn to the dark side but the movie makers never took advantage of this. Characters were also killed off with disregard in an attempt to be shocking but only weakened the movie when important characters were suddenly gone.

X-Men 3: The Next Generation
A new group of x-men are going through training but the big question is will they ever be ready for the coming battle. Magneto is also recruiting new mutants to his brotherhood.

None of the new characters are properly introduced or developed, they are given minimal screen time which makes their addition pointless. Some of these characters could have been cut and you would not have noticed they were supposed to be in the scene. Ultimately this leads to the feeling that for the end battle on Alcatraz, the film makers were forced to include a few of the back ground characters here to some disarray.

Even the Angel characters screen time was limited (he was in four scenes but his total screen time was under 2 mins) even though all the movie advertising shows him to be a main character including showing him in a x-men costume.

Some of the casting choices were also to distracting such as Mutant Vinnie Jones (Juggernaut) with his power to be extremely cockney and Mutant Lady Boy (Shockwave) who's mutant power is to keep the audience confused as to if it is a girl or boy, whereas Kelsey Grammer who some people had doubts about turned out to be a very good casting choice.

X-Men 3: The Cure + The Phoenix + The Next Generation = The Last Stand
All together the movie does have a few interesting and fun moments but these do not outweigh the flaws.