May 27, 2006 09:23
X-Men: The Last Stand - The third and (possibly) final part to the X-Men series. A mutant "cure" is found, and then everything goes to hell. Magneto (the always wonderful Ian McKellen) gathers an army to destroy the source: a mutant boy named Leech. Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and his band of peaceful mutants hope to stop Magneto and blah blah blah. You get the picture. The story's much cooler in execution than on paper.
Okay. The great things. Characters lose their powers. Characters die. And goodness knows there are a lot of them. Storm, Beast ,Wolverine (me fav), Collosus, Shadowcat, Iceman, Magneto, Pyro, Cyclops, Juggernaut (who almost steals the show with his one-liners) and best of all: Jean Gray (Famke Jannsen). I haven't even read half the list off, but you get the picture. Needless to say, with so many protagonists, some people's screen time is shunted over, but I don't really give a crap. If you've ever read the original comics, the fightscene pages were twice as spastic and crammed as this movie was.
Kelsey Grammar and Hugh Jackman are wonderful as Beast and Wolverine. No wonder the latter's getting his own spin-off (I personally hope he's going to fight the Hulk). She's changed actresses three times over but ShadowCat (Ellen Page) finally gets to kick some ass. Jannsen is F***ing SCARY as Jean Gray/ Phoenix. This plot line in particular is well done.There's no cheesy "coming out" sequence like in #2. The action sequences were a blast.
People were so afraid that Brett Ratner was going to screw up the movie. In my opinion he did better than Bryan Singer. There weren't so many stupid moments that caused me to shake my head. This was hard-hitting. Wolverine got to kill people. Favorite characters got to die. This was serious, and it really uped the ante knowing that no one was safe from termination. Well, everyone but Hugh Jackman, cause he rocks so damn much.
Halle Berry can kick the bucket for all I care. She can use lightning but she's just not cut out for comic book movies. And can she STICK with an accent/hairstyle/place in the story? Jean Grey may change into Phoenix but Berry is the real re-inventor around here. I mean, now she can FLY and spin faster than a twister on crack? C'mon. Lets have some continuity here.
A great comic book movie except for Halle Berry, X-Men:: The Last Stand gets an A- Now lets move onto that Wolverine movie.