X-Men: The Last Stand ***

It’s amazing that a film franchise with so much potential was completely obliterated in such a short burst of computer generated special effects. The X-Men movies have been hugely successful because of their mix of humor, character, action, and an all-star cast. In this final X-Men movie, they throw that all out the window and go for huge special effects. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still entertaining to watch but if you liked the first two movies and love the characters like I do, you will be leaving the theatre very disappointed - if not downright sad.

There are two over-arching storylines for this film, the resurgence of Jean Gray as Phoenix and the government development of a mutant cure. Each of these stories could have, and probably should have, been a movie in themselves. Instead, they twist them up and throw a lot of explosions over it and give you a big bloody mess. All of the banter and humorous back and forth between the characters like Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Cyclops (James Marsden) is gone. Instead it’s replaced by melodramatic moments for Storm (Halle Berry) and a juvenile love triangle for Rouge (Anna Paquin). Instead of delving into the already established characters, this film throws a new mutant your way every few minutes and doesn’t develop any of them.

The beginning of the film is promising, with a trip down memory lane to give you some back story on Jean Gray (Famke Janssen). This is pretty much the only part of the movie where you get to see Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen together; their scenes have generally been the soul of the x-men movies. While this film does give Storm a bigger role, it is at the complete expense of Rouge. The addition of Kelsey Grammer as Beast was an excellent casting choice, but we never get to know the character in the film.

**SPOILER ALERT – don’t read on if you haven’t seen it**
While I generally hate spoilers in reviews, I found it hard to even begin to review this film without one. First of all they kill way too many characters off. Cyclops is gone in the first five minutes. Professor X, who in their right mind would kill Professor X? His death was also within the first half of the movie. Then there’s Jean Gray whose story is really interesting in the movie, but they barely scratch the surface on it before they kill her off too. And the prize for the most underutilized mutant definitely goes to Mystique (Rebecca Romijn), who quickly becomes “cured” and is not really heard from again. By taking away the heart of this movie franchise, the characters, they reduced X-Men to nothing more than a summer action movie. It’s disappointing.