[A] distinctly dull offering.
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:222
Fresh:125
Rotten:97
Average Rating:5.9/10
Consensus: Director Brett Ratner has replaced the heart and emotion (and character development) of the previous X-Men films with more action and explosions. The film should still provide ample entertainment, but viewers may truly wish this to be the Last Stand.
Runtime: 1 hr 44 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
Synopsis: As the third installment of the X-Men series opens, the world has entered a relatively peaceful period for mutants. There's a mutant-tolerant president of the United States, a blue furry mutant... As the third installment of the X-Men series opens, the world has entered a relatively peaceful period for mutants. There's a mutant-tolerant president of the United States, a blue furry mutant named Beast (Kelsey Grammer) heading up the Department of Mutant Affairs, and Magneto's shape-shifting femme fatale, Mystique, has been captured. The tranquility is shattered by two events. Worthington Laboratories, using a powerful mutant boy, develops a serum that eliminates the "mutant X gene" permanently. This so-called "cure" quickly divides the mutant community; Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and his school are willing to give the government the benefit of the doubt, but Magneto (Ian McKellen) and his mutant Brotherhood see the serum as a vile threat to their way of life. They form an army of mutants and march on the fortified Worthington Laboratory located on Alcatraz Island. A much more dire threat appears in the form of the resurrected super-mutant Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), who has succumbed to her cataclysmic Id identity known as The Phoenix. To face these menaces Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Storm (Halle Berry) and the younger members of the X-Men must leap into action, but they must do so without the guidance of Professor Xavier--in a showdown with the powers of The Phoenix, his mind-control powers proved insufficient. To his credit, new X-Men director Brett Ratner emulates the style and tone struck by Bryan Singer (director of the two previous films) by combining outrageous special effects and hyperkinetic action sequences with earnest soul-searching and mutant "issues" that are clearly meant to parallel the political hot-button topics of tolerance, prejudice, power, and responsibility. [More]
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen, Halle Berry, James Marsden, Kelsey Grammer, Anna Paquin, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Shawn Ashmore, Aaron Stanford, Daniel Cudmore, Vinnie Jones, Ellen Page, Josef Sommer, Ben Foster
Director: Brett Ratner
Director: Brett Ratner
Screenwriter: Simon Kinberg, Zak Penn
Producer: Ralph Winter, Avi Arad
Composer: John Powell
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Reviews for X-Men: The Last Stand
While the movie takes itself seriously, not to say solemnly, it's really an occasion for funny, frightening metamorphoses and spectacular effects.
Singer’s absence is felt but not fatal. By adding too much new blood Ratner loses some of the original DNA, but with its nifty set-pieces and a few nasty surprises, X3’s still a worthy enough sequel to ensure it’s no Last Stand.
Aa tighter focus might have enhanced the set-up’s latent allegorical powers, and its emotional resonance.
This is an enjoyable blockbuster and not the disaster that many feared.
Unless you're already dedicated to the X-Men, The Last Stand won't really hold up.
At least Ratner knows how to handle both action and drama on screen, even if subtlety and substance fall by the wayside.
Its concept hinted at real greatness, but the end result is never anything more than average.
Nothing really feels at stake other than box-office opening-weekend numbers
Yes, Ratner’s music-video attention span and inability to linger on a shot ... blunts the impact of some of [the] big emotional moments. Nonetheless, he liked Singer’s films as much as you did, and he hasn’t tried to fix what ain't broke.
X-Men: The Last Stand is far from perfect, but it does manage to move in the direction of a crowd-pleasing thrill ride without completely lobotomizing itself.
As usual, character development is dashed off in quick sketches while mutant powers are shown in all the lavish detail that $200 million worth of computers can generate; the thrill may dissipate over time, but it’s great fun while it lasts.
The film exists solely to give the Comic Book Guys of the world a chance to see all their favorite action figures, life size and in full form.
It has no passion, no connection to where we are now, and in a series whose stories have heretofore spoken dark truths about American intolerance, that matters.
It may be just another superhero movie (or several of them, all frantically playing out at the same time), but it delivers everything you could want from the genre several times over.
A surefire kiddie crowd-pleaser, given the teeny-bop penchant for over-stimulating computer game warfare.
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