X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
The Cast
Hugh Jackman .... Wolverine - X-cellent
Halle Berry .... Storm - passable for what was asked of the character
Ian McKellen .... Magneto - second best
Famke Janssen .... Dr. Jean Grey/Phoenix - did her best with the character that would receive the most fanboy backlash
Anna Paquin .... Rogue - meh.. barely in the movie enough to matter, though the writers made her look like an idiot
Kelsey Grammer .... Dr. Hank McCoy/Beast - injected some much needed class to the X-team
Rebecca Romijn .... Mystique - sadly not in the movie enough, but she commanded the screen when she was on it... being blue does that though
James Marsden .... Scott Summers/Cyclops - he's a dick, and the writers wasted potential plots by eliminating him early on
Shawn Ashmore .... Iceman - maddeningly slow character build for one of comicdom's original X-Men
Aaron Stanford .... Pyro - did his job well
Vinnie Jones .... Juggernaut - tosser
Patrick Stewart .... Professor Charles Xavier - gets the bronze medal
Ben Foster .... Warren Worthington III/Angel - probably gets nine minutes of screen time, used primarily as a plot device
Dania Ramirez .... Callisto - I thought she was Jada Pinkett half the time.. did an alright job
Ellen Page .... Kitty Pryde - too cute for words, frustratingly mis-used from a fanboy's perspective
Michael Murphy .... Warren Worthington II - played the well-meaning bigot's role thanklessly
Shohreh Aghdashloo .... Dr. Kavita Rao - I liked her as Dina Araz, but she was distractingly miscast in this role
Josef Sommer .... The President - I don't believe that in the "Not Too Distant Future" the American Voters are going to be electing such ancient-looking unconvincing Presidents
Daniel Cudmore .... Peter Rasputin/Colossus - gets a nice little "Colossus is STRONG" bit, but not in the movie enough to matter
Eric Dane .... Multiple Man - 'ey, he was a'ight for his two lines, but I could've sworn he was a good guy in the comics
Cameron Bright .... Jimmy/Leech - not terrible
R. Lee Ermey .... Sergeant - well, his voice was in the movie, and it was your typical Ermey performance
Stan Lee .... Waterhose Man - he looked appropriately befuddled
Chris Claremont .... Lawnmower Man - stupid comics writer cameos
Olivia Williams .... Dr. Moira MacTaggart - she was looking decidedly Liz Hurley-esque and I'm hoping they expand her character if they make an X4
I watched X3 a couple weeks ago, and since then I've been bogged down by a lack of creative juices. I've read online reviews of the movie, mostly here at T5R, and I've found that it's difficult to explain exactly why I didn't hate the film without attacking the sentiments of fanboys all over. That's kind of why I did the character evaluation thing on the massive cast list up there, something different from all the other reviews.
I'm not an X-Men fanboy by any means, but there are things that I liked about the movie, and things that didn't play out too well in my eyes. Let's go with the bad first, since most reviews seem to be concentrating on that aspect of the movie. Firstly, the absolute dumbest part of the movie was Magneto moving the Golden Gate bridge as a means to transport his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants over to Alcatraz to destroy the facility that's manufacturing the so-called "mutant cure". As we saw in X2, Magneto has incredible magnetic powers and could just levitate someone due to an increased amount of iron in their blood. Why not just treat the Brotherhood to Red Lobster or something and then just zip them over there with his powers? (Also on the Golden Gate issue, why did all the abandoned cars have their headlights on at the end of the battle? It's dumb that this bothers me, but it didn't make any sense to me whatsoever.)
Most of my thoughts on the cast are mentioned specifically above, but really, look at how ridiculously huge that list is. The comics purist in me comes out when I confirmed that yes, Psylocke was in the movie. In the comics she was a powerful psychic mutant (like Kadabra, only with psychic daggers instead of spoons) and in the film she was relegated to no more than "Was that Psylocke?" status. The giant cast meant that many fans would feel ripped off by the incidental status that many of their favourite mutants were given. Congratulations Psylocke, you're barely an extra in the movie and original X-Man Angel is onscreen for about 5 minutes.
There are many more petty little quibblings with the film, but the biggest from a fanboy standpoint is that they tried to cram too many X-plotlines into the movie rather than split it into two superior films. The Dark Phoenix storyline would have been better served as the fourth instalment in the franchise to satisfy the fans, rather than completely altering it for mass consumption by the hundreds of millions of people that don't read the comics and only know of the X-Men from the movies. In hindsight, they should've filmed the third and fourth parts at the same time (preferably with someone other than director Brett Ratner at the helm) and given the slow burn treatment to the Dark Phoenix plot throughout the third movie, building up to a huge storyline conclusion.
Now then, if this were simply a movie franchise not dependant on decades of comic book history, created just for the multiplex and home entertainment industry, I think that the film would have been received in a far better manner. It's not a great film by any means, but the blame for that lands squarely on Ratner and the screenwriters. I found it to be an entertaining if not relatively brainless popcorn movie that tried just a little too hard. The absolute main cast of characters (not neccessarily the characters that were the main cast in the first two X films) were fleshed out well and didn't act out of the characteristics that they established in the first two movies, not the comic books. The action was a little too big in my estimation, killing off mutants left right and centre for little more than shock value, allowing us as an audience no time to form an emotional bond with any of the characters.
Basically the movie is a step back from the greatness that was X2, seemingly going back to the beginning of the X-Franchise, leaving us in a world that will require a re-introduction to should an X4 ever be made. As long as Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Kelsey Grammar, and Ian McKellen are still in the cast list and Ratner is no longer attached to any X-films of the future, fans of the franchise should still have some hope left in them for mutantkind in the movies.
3 / 5