X-Men: Last Stand is another film that's often quoted whenever this subject comes up. Although it grossed a decent amount at the box office, the critical reception to it was a lot cooler than it was for the first two and it's generally regarded as the point where the series stumbled headlong into the fog without its compass, only briefly coming up for air a couple of times in the intervening decade or so. However...recent Marvel Mondays have shown that a lot of the mid-noughties films that were critically reviled at the time (Elektra, Blade Trinity, Fantastic Four) have, if not exactly been redeemed, then proven to be not quite as awful as everyone thought when they came out. Maybe we'll be in for another one here...
The film kicks off in the aftermath of Jean Grey's death at the end of X-Men 2. The remaining X-Men have returned to Professor Xavier's school where Storm and Wolverine are now supervising teaching for the younger mutants such as Rogue, Iceman, Colossus and Kitty Pryde (who has the power of being able to pass through solid objects which extends to anyone she touches). Cyclops has understandably taken Jean's death very hard and his duties have suffered as a result. As for Nightcrawler, nobody seems to know what's happened to him as he's been written out of the series here by the looks of things.
On the Brotherhood side of the mutant divide, Magneto and Pyro have become separated from Mystique who was captured by the government trying to break into their property and is now being held by the CIA. With news that a mutant cure serum has been developed by Worthington Labs (whose owner Warren Worthington II, has a son who is a mutant with huge wings known by the mutant name of Angel), they take it as a sign that the mutants vs humans conflict that they've been preparing for over the previous two films is finally happening and as well as going to break Mystique out, assemble a new team of war-hungry mutants including Callisto (who has ESP powers), Kid Omega (who has porcupine like spines which can shoot through his skin), Psylocke (who can teleport) and Arclight (who can generate shockwaves). You know how I mentioned in the X-Men 2 review how one of the things that nearly derailed it was the sheer amount of new characters and trying to find screen time for all of them? Yeah, they didn't learn their lesson here evidently...
News of the cure has also reached the X-Men who now have a man on the inside in the form of Beast (aka Hank McCoy, played by Frasier's Kelsey Grammer) who is working as the minister for mutants in the current president's administration. The formula has been developed by studying the DNA of a young mutant boy called Jimmy who has the power to make other mutants lose their powers when they come near him. Hope everyone's following this okay - it only gets more complicated from hereon in, believe me...
Still brooding, Cyclops returns to Lake Alkali only for Jean to rise out of the water and appear on the shore next to him. They embrace but as they do so, a huge energy surge occurs and we see Xavier instructing Storm and Wolverine to head down there and find out what's going on.
The pair land on the shores of the lake to find it's covered in a thick fog. Although Storm's able to summon her tornado skills to blow it away, the pair find a number of objects including rocks, plants and Cyclops' glasses floating around in midair around the lake before Storm discovers Jean's body on the shore.
The pair take her back to Xavier's lab where he explains that when he recruited Jean he knew that she had a dark alternate personality known as Phoenix. He worked on a number of methods to keep this part of her brain inactive knowing how destructive it could be, something that horrifies Wolverine. He opts to stay with Jean and make sure she's okay but when she wakes up, he realises she has turned into the Phoenix and she destroys the lab, knocks him out and escapes.
Meanwhile, Magneto and his crew succeed in breaking into the armoured convoy carrying Mystique and set her free along with two other prisoners, the clone-producing Multiple Man and the giant Juggernaut (played by Vinnie Jones of all people!). However, during their escape Mystique steps in front of Magneto when a guard fires a gun loaded with an antidote vaccine at him and takes the hit herself, being turned into a human in the process leading the Brotherhood to leave without her. Enraged, she becomes a government informant on Magneto's doings.
Grey has fled to her family home and both Xavier and Magneto follow her there with their respective teams. Both try to persuade her to join their faction but after they start arguing, the stress causes the Phoenix part of her personality to emerge and disintegrate Xavier. She eventually leaves with Magneto and joins the Brotherhood.
Following Xavier's death, the academy is in a state of mourning. Rogue decides to leave the academy and take up the government's offer of being cured of her mutation (not helped by her splitting up with Iceman who ends up becoming closer to Kitty) while Wolverine goes off in search of the Brotherhood to try and bring Jean back. However, he's intercepted by Magneto who blasts him out of there. En route though, he realises that the Brotherhood are gearing up for an attack on Alcatraz where Worthington Labs are based. The army tries to raid their base but find it's full of clones of Multiple Man with the others having moved on for the attack.
The scene is duly set for the final showdown with Magneto bending the Golden Gate Bridge across to Alcatraz and the X-Men (including Angel who's turned down his father's offer of a cure to join the group) arriving in their stealth jet to face off with him. After a visually impressive but slightly by-numbers final confrontation, Magneto is stopped by Beast injecting him with the mutant cure causing him to lose his powers. Kitty rescues Jimmy from his cell, stopping Juggernaut en route, Angel rescues his dad after Psylocke and Omega try to throw him off a balcony, Iceman bests his old friend Pyro in one-on-one combat and Wolverine eventually kills Jean upon her begging him to do so after her Phoenix powers run well and truly out of control and are on the verge of destroying the whole island.
At the end of the film, we discover that Rogue has taken the cure and is no longer a member of the X-Men, Storm has now succeeded Xavier as the headmaster of the academy and Magneto and Xavier might not be as powerless and dead respectively as we thought they were...
Although it's not quite as bad as some people say, "Last Stand" definitely does feel like a bit of a step down from the first two X-Men films. The multiple plotlines make it difficult to focus on the script at times and often it seems like they're dropped suddenly then randomly picked up again later on without any real continuity. Also, as with X-Men 2, there's a bit of a feeling of character overload at times meaning that there's not much time to flesh the new arrivals like Angel etc out while others such as Mystique just end up being written out of large portions of the film. Apparently there were over 20 cut scenes from the final version of this film leaving it half an hour shorter than its predecessors which maybe was part of the problem - if anyone ever does a directors' cut of this thing it might be worth a watch. The main problem though is it just lacks the subtleties of X-Men 1 and 2, especially the finale which looks impressive but does kind of feel a bit action-film-by-numbers.
However, it isn't completely without merit - when the plot actually aligns in this film it just about keeps you gripped and, as said before, the action sequences look cool while the cast does well with what they're given to work with (even if it's precious little in some cases). However, with several characters killed off and others essentially written out, you can see that this was supposed to be the closing chapter on the X-Men film franchise. Of course, it didn't quite work out that way and, after a couple of origin films (Wolverine and First Class), we'd get a load of confusing stories based around timelines which essentially retconned this film completely out of existence. We'll deal with all of these in time but suffice to say that the X-Men universe is about to become incredibly confusing from hereon in...
FINAL RATING: ⦻⦻⦻⦻⦻⦻ (6/10)
CURRENT MARVEL FILM TABLE
1. Spiderman 2 (2004) (9/10)
2. Spiderman (2002) (9/10)
3. X-Men 2 (2002) (8/10)
4. Men In Black (1997) (8/10)
5. X-Men (2000) (8/10)
6. Blade 2 (2001) (7/10)
7. Blade (1998) (7/10)
8. The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988) (6/10)
9. The Punisher (2004) (6/10)
10. Conan The Barbarian (1982) (6/10)
11. Elektra (2005) (6/10)
12. Conan The Destroyer (1984) (6/10)
13. The Trial Of The Incredible Hulk (1989) (6/10)
14. X-Men: Last Stand (2006) (6/10)
15. Blade Trinity (2004) (6/10)
16. Men In Black 2 (2000) (6/10)
17. The Incredible Hulk (1977) (5/10)
18. The Fantastic Four (2005) (5/10)
19. Doctor Mordrid (1992) (5/10)
20. The Punisher (1989) (5/10)
21. Doctor Strange (1978) (5/10)
22. Nick Fury: Agent Of SHIELD (1998) (4/10)
23. The Fantastic Four (1994) (4/10)
24. Hulk (2003) (4/10)
25. Red Sonja (1985) (4/10)
26. Captain America 2: Death Too Soon (1979) (4/10)
27. Spiderman (1977) (4/10)
28. Bride of the Incredible Hulk (1978) (3/10)
29. The Death Of The Incredible Hulk (1990) (3/10)
30. Man-Thing (2005) (3/10)
31. Return of the Incredible Hulk (1978) (3/10)
32. Spiderman: The Dragon's Challenge (1979) (3/10)
33. Howard The Duck (1986) (2/10)
34. Captain America (1990) (2/10)
35. Captain America (1979) (2/10)
36. Generation X (1996) (2/10)
37. Spiderman Strikes Back (1978) (2/10)
38. Daredevil (2003) (2/10)
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