Review: X-Men: The Last Stand

A politician (Michael Murphy) whose son (Ben Foster) is a mutant, believes he has found a cure for the ‘mutant gene’ in the person of creepy-eyed young Cameron Bright. Mutants are divided as to how to act on this, with Kelsey Grammer’s dedicated diplomat Dr. Hank McCoy (AKA Beast) now residing in cabinet, as a chief advisor to the President on mutant affairs whose job is to prevent the fit hitting the shan, apocalypse-style. Needless to say, with the aggressive nature of Magneto (Sir Ian McKellen) and his legion (who fear genocide, we are lead to believe) and the naturally trigger-happy, xenophobic U.S. Government (who despite allowing a mutant into cabinet, are still mutant-weary), McCoy (who, like Patrick Stewart’s Prof. Xavier and his brood, believes diplomacy and integration will hopefully lead to mainstream acceptance) is one helluva piggy in the middle. Also to contend with is the resurrection of the dead Dr. Jean Gray (Famke Janssen) as the unpredictable, super-powerful Phoenix. Vinnie Jones plays the uber-muscular, aggressive mutant Juggernaut, who gets the film’s best line, but barely features in the film. Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Storm (Halle Berry), meanwhile, take more active roles at Xavier’s school for mutants.

The first “X-Men” movie was a fun but paper-thin summer flick that worked while it was on, but one felt should’ve been longer (several characters and actors went largely to waste) and deeper. For the second, director Bryan Singer (“The Usual Suspects”)  went too far in making important allegorical statements, foregoing the comic book action aspect, and the result was even more underwhelming than the merely OK original. With this third chapter in the comic book saga, Singer was boned in favour of popcorn flick specialist Brett Ratner (“Red Dragon”, “Rush Hour”, “After the Sunset”, “Hercules”), and surprisingly, the change works for the better. Ratner manages to combine the thematic elements (a ‘cure’ to the mutant gene, as well as Murphy’s character, are in my view clear references to Dick and Mary Chaney, and the gay rights debate in the US at the time) with the summer action stuff to create what is in my view the most successful entry in the series thus far.

Interesting new edition Grammer is perhaps the key to it all, and fellow newbie Jones has some amusing moments too, even if Jones’ character is indicative of the same character development issues the previous films suffered from. There’s also a nifty flashback sequence in which seamless computer FX technology allows for younger versions of Stewart and McKellen (Stewart’s wrinkles have been removed, making him look even more like a cue-ball than ever) to provide a back-story for some of what is to follow. Look, it doesn’t give us anything we haven’t seen in the previous films (except a lot more main character deaths than I expected, another plus in my view), but this time it works better. The thematic elements don’t stick out so badly in this one as unlike Singer, Ratner seems to want to apply a real-world subtext to a comic book movie, rather than the other way around. It works. Sure, there are still some actors who are either underused (Vinnie Jones, Rebecca Romijn, Anna Paquin and Ben Foster, not to mention human characters briefly played by character actors Bill Duke, Josef Sommer, and Shoreh Aghdashloo) as well as actors who never were all that much chop to begin with (James Marsden and the wrongly Oscar-winning Halle Berry). However, on the whole this is the most entertaining of the entire franchise to date.

My only real problems involve McKellen and Bright. The former’s villain has always been too watered-down for my tastes (he’s difficult to hate, his arguments, whilst not ones I’d agree with, are not without merit, and that’s a problem in a superhero movie. You need a supervillain, someone of pure evil, possibly megalomaniacal. Simply having ‘intolerance’ as the villain just doesn’t cut it. But Magneto isn’t evil enough and never really cuts loose. As for Bright, the role in the grand scheme of things seems like a bit of a MacGuffin to me. Thankfully, the former problem is lessened to a great extent with the character of Phoenix, who is a more dominant, dangerous threat than the rather stuffy Magneto (McKellen seems in cruise mode in this role).

Despite what most will tell you, this is the best of the franchise, even with its continued issues with Magneto being a watered down villain. The change in director thankfully steers the film away from too much overt allegorical stuff and mostly focuses on just being damn entertaining. Remember when comic book/superhero films were fun? Good times…

Rating: B-