InsidePulse Review – X-Men: The Last Stand

Image courtesy of www.impawards.com

Directed by:
Brett Ratner

Starring:
Hugh Jackman……….Logan/Wolverine
Halle Berry……….Ororo Munroe/Storm
Ian McKellen……….Eric Lensherr/Magneto
Patrick Stewart……….Professor Charles Xavier
Famke Janssen……….Dr. Jean Grey/Phoenix
Shawn Ashmore……….Bobby Drake/Iceman
Aaron Stanford……….John Allerdyce/Pyro
Kelsey Grammer……….Dr. Hank McCoy/Beast
Ellen Page……….Kitty Pryde
Daniel Cudmore……….Peter Rasputin/Colossus
Anna Paquin……….Marie/Rogue
Vinnie Jones……….Cain Marko/Juggernaut
Ben Foster……….Warren Worthington III/Angel
Rebecca Romijn……….Raven Darkholme/Mystique
James Marsden……….Scott Summers/Cyclops
Dania Ramirez……….Callisto
Eric Dane……….Multiple Man
Cameron Bright……….Jimmy/Leech
Omahyra……….Arclight
Ken Leung……….Kid Omega
Lance Gibson……….Spike
Mei Melançon……….Psylocke
Michael Murphy……….Warren Worthington II
Shohreh Aghdashloo……….Dr. Kavita Rao
Josef Sommer……….The President

Twentieth Century Fox presents a film directed by Brett Ratner. Written by Zak Penn and Simon Kinberg. Rated PG-13 (for intense sequences of action violence, some sexual content and language). Running time: 104 minutes.

X-Men: The Last Stand… a film that for the past few months has been probably the most speculated and prejudged production of the entire summer. First Bryan Singer leaves to make Superman, then FOX thinks they can move forward without Singer, going so far as to scrap the spec script he wrote for them and kicking him off of the studio lot. They then looked towards British director Mathew Vaughn to take the franchise under his wing after viewing his film Layer Cake. With a production schedule he himself saw as impossible to meet he left the project for “personal reasons”. So where does FOX turn? Who can salvage this sinking ship? Brett Ratner, who doesn’t instill much faith in to the X-Men fan community.

The question you’re wondering, is it good? Well, that depends on how you view things. If you’re expecting this to be the next X2: X-Men United, then this will be a major letdown because it’s tough to top near perfection. Still, when walking into this film there is an expectation by audiences. While they aren’t demanding another X2, they have realized the level of greatness the series could accomplish and they wanted something that could stand proudly beside the previous installments. Depending on your personal take, this film could either be satisfying or a complete disappointment.

The trouble with the description of X-Men: The Last Stand is that there is so much to cover yet so very little of actual substance. We aren’t given much of an indicator of how much time has passed since we last left the team but what’s quite clear is that at this point and time there has been a recent discovery on how to cure mutants of their abilities, allowing them to lead normal lives. To Charles Xavier and his school children this, while not embraced with open arms, is accepted as a form to relieve those of what they may not want to possess. Whereas with Magneto this is a smack in the face to him and his kind and he plans to do something about it.

The cure comes from Warren Worthington II who developed the cure based on a mutant’s DNA that has the ability to remove the powers of any mutant around him. The cure was created by Worthington to help his son Warren be cured of his mutation but it eventually is turned in to a weapon by the armed forces and they begin to use it to defeat mutants who break the law. Now this is where the film gets lost in itself because outside of the “cure” there isn’t any evil being in the film, nobody to rally against. Worthington only wanted to cure his son. He’s not Striker or Magneto evil. What’s so awful about a concerned parent with expendable income? Basically we’re forced to pick sides over who is right in this confrontation between Magneto and Xavier in this war that in hindsight has no effect on the balance of man and mutant.

We discover that Jean Grey is alive and in the opening of the movie it is revealed to us that she has powers beyond her control that are a danger to herself and everything and everyone around her. Now, after the incident, those powers are not only stronger but are taking over her train of thought. I’ve never read the Dark Phoenix saga in the comic books, but this can’t be the iconic and legendary story talked about for all these years. I know this because all she does is stand around in a catatonic state for almost the entire picture, only making her presence known in a handful of scenes. The inner struggle between Jean and Dark Phoenix is never touched upon in a way that makes us invest in this struggle. We see it happening, and Famke Janssen does a marvelous job at conveying these torn feelings, but the script just doesn’t allow us the get a complete view at what’s happening in her mind or the reason for her actions or the mental struggles that happen due to said actions.

Magneto is back at it again when he finds out about this cure, by enlisting the help of numerous teen outcast mutants to join his Brotherhood. Still under his command are Pyro and Mystique, who are both played by actors that light up the film when on screen, no matter how little it is. He also has the help of the Juggernaut, a behemoth of a man that is both an unstoppable force AND an immovable object in one. Among the group of younger mutants he rallies towards his cause are Callisto, Spike, Multiple Man, Psylocke and Arclight, who are nothing more than wallflowers in this movie, some not even mentioned by name or given anything to do. They just simply are there to be there.

Wolverine and Storm were turned in to the sudden leaders of the X-Men team after Cyclops had a complete breakdown after the incident at Alkali Lake. He’s taken Jean’s death so hard he’s become nothing of what he used to be. He went from a leader to… Well, we’re never really told in the film exactly how deep this depression went because Scott has three scenes in the movie. When the final battle between good and evil begins all they have with them are Colossus, Kitty Pride, Iceman, and Beast. Three students and a doctor. Exactly what are they teaching at this school where only three of their students are combat ready?

Rogue and Bobby are in a lover’s spat, even though Bobby isn’t aware of it. Rogue mistakes Bobby consoling Kitty over a death as a sign their relationship isn’t strong so she wants to be cured, she wants to be normal, she wants to be able to fall completely in love. This wouldn’t be a problem as all teens go through phases and mutant teens are no different, and as we’ve learned from the previous films, this gift is in her eyes a curse. Only this feeling of being torn between love and staying true to herself isn’t covered in the film. The plot is such a minute detail. It’s given perhaps three minutes of screen time. Yet when the resolution comes the director and composer try to make a moment that nobody in the audience is feeling.

Plenty of characters are here to appease fans of the books but what Ratner and crew don’t realize is that they have an hour and forty minutes to tell their story. Little moments like these are not needed and are time spent wasted rather than making the main focus of the film more important. People like Kitty Pride, Colossus, Callisto, Spike, Psylocke, Multiple Man, Angel… the list goes on and on when it comes to characters thrown into the mix that have no purpose being in it. These characters are backdrop, nothing else, have no substance, and just eat up screen time.

Ratner, to the surprise of many, does his best at making this a seamless transition from Singer’s work to his own. Sadly, however, while he tries to imitate the style that Singer brought to the series it just didn’t work. He didn’t turn this film into a car wreck as many believed he would and in fact, if given time, he may have, dare I say, turned out a quality picture. But the tight production schedule seems to have kept us from ever finding that out. That isn’t to say he doesn’t make his fair share of cringe worthy moments, they’re here aplenty. Remember in the original X-Men how bad it was to listen to Storm pose the question “Do you know what happens to a toad when it gets struck by lightning? The same thing that happens to everything else.” Well, Vinnie Jones has that beaten when his Juggernaut character utters the phrase, “Don’t you know who I am? I’m the Juggernaut, bitch!”.

More stories and plot are happening here than in X2, yet there is nowhere near enough time in which to tell it all. There’s about three hours worth of story and characters condensed into an hour and forty minutes. The film had real potential if it was given time and nurtured like it should have been, but the length of the film just wasn’t enough. I can’t reiterate this point enough. A longer runtime would have helped make this a more coherent and believable story. Watching the film progress you just know there was more that had to be said but wasn’t. But knowing Ratner, with the added time he probably would have thrown in another half dozen needless mutant cameos.