X-Men: The Last Stand

First off, I want to say that I actually really like this movie, despite the fact a lot of people don't like it, but this movie is still far from perfect, but what it does right, it does very good. On the other hand, what it does wrong, those parts are probably the weakest parts of the whole movie.

This was intended to be the end of the X-Men film series, because trilogies were kind of the big thing at the time. The story follows the Cure storyline, where they have supposedly found a cure for being a mutant and this brings conflict between Professor X's X-Men and Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants, and it leads to an all out war between them. Also, the Dark Phoenix storyline, where Jean Grey becomes evil, happens as well. It was thrown in to appease the fans but they forgot to make it fit the story so it's kind of inconsequential overall.

I'd say the action of this film, especially the final battle at Alcatraz, and the progression of the Cure storyline, is pretty compelling, but whenever they do anything with Jean, I just stopped caring because it just wasn't interesting to me at all. It was very poorly written, and, as I mentioned earlier, felt like a studio mandate rather than an organic part of the story. The acting was passable, although not much was done with the new actors, which includes Kelsey Grammer as Beast, among other things.

Overall, this movie was a fine superhero movie, but as an intended finale to the X-Men story, it falls short way too often. It still is watchable, and the action is definitely entertaining, but it doesn't have a satisfying sense of finality and a lot of decisions feel 'meh' at best.

Next time, we return to where it all began with a look back at the man of steel himself in a modern look at the Christopher Reeve Superman movies. Does Superman still make an impact in 2006? Find out when I review Superman Returns.

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