(Seriously, Don't Read This If You Haven't Seen X3!!)It has taken me a week to do so, but I am now ready to present my thoughts on
X-Men: The Last Stand. On its own merit, the movie is very cool, a lot of fun, with plenty of action. However, in the overarching scope of the X-Men movie series, it stems the momentum of what could have been an infinitely better series altogether.
First, we'll talk about the
Dark Phoenix storyline; while it was certainly dramatic, and probably contained the best moments of the film, and Famke Janssen was
muy sexy, there's probably enough material there for it to stand as its own film. There was absolutely no reason to kill off Scott Summers other than for cheap shock value; the same applies to Professor Xavier. In fact, none of the deaths in this movie amount to much of anything; the only demise that served a purpose was Mystique's loss of powers (a high note of the movie, I might add). I think everyone would have been happier with an
X3 without Jean, followed by an
X4 in which she resurrects and causes some major havok (if you caught that last pun, you're an X-nerd).
My next major problem with the film has to do with some other major X-nerd stuff, so beware; it has to do with the use of
Callisto as a major villain. I have no major problem with the character, or even her role as a villain in the movie. My thing is, if the creative team behind the movie were going to give Callisto the same powers as
Quicksilver, why not just use Quicksilver? He's Magneto's son, after all! How much more added emotional depth could they have given this film by including Magneto's children in the storyline, saving the Dark Phoenix stuff for the next movie, and making the mutants seem less disposable? What's the point of writing Callisto with the same exact powers of a more useful character?
There was plenty of cool stuff on display here, however.
James Madrox was ill; Iceman finally got to be Iceman; the plot twist after the closing credits was some true X-Men ish; Storm got in some cool weather effects, and Beast was on point. I'm not hating on this movie at all, but is it me, or was the threat significantly lower than in
X2? In that one, Magneto tried to kill all the humans on earth; this time, he just tried to attack a lab. Anyway, there were some nice nods to the comics, and Joss Whedon and Grant Morrison's runs on
Astonishing X-Men and
New X-Men got some shine. All in all, I had fun watching it, even if I came away wishing for more.
