Review: X-Men: The Last Stand

It takes a certain amount of intestinal fortitude to adapt a beloved comic book series on to the big screen. The fans of the comics are so nit-picky about every aspect of the production, from casting, to plotlines, to histories. No comic book yet adapted has had a wider background of characters and stories than the X-Men. Superman, Batman, Spiderman or even the Hulk are singular characters, with well-established origins and simplistic storylines. But with the X-Men, there is an ever-expanding universe of mutants, each with their own personalities and quirks. So you can imagine then the ulcers which plague the creators of the X-Men series of films. They began with a select few, and during the course of the sequels, added many more. But each new character they add dilutes the plot of this third installment, X-Men: The Last Stand. The title itself is misleading, as there were too many signs that pointed to an unfinished story that would need to be told. And besides that, Wolverine and Magneto are each set to have their own spinoff film. The fan reaction to the new movie has been largely positive but still clamouring to see the inclusion of such characters as Gambit, Havoc, Jubilee or Apocalypse. Personally, I couldn't get past Kelsey Grammer in blue fur. And Angel, one of the original X-Men, is relegated to standing around in the background and being generally useless. Plus, I really enjoyed Nightstalker in X2, and missed him here. But the point of this third film was to wrap up certain storylines of the first two films. One, the ultimate resolution of Jean Grey's powers. Two, the political ramifications of Magneto's war on an unsympathetic human populace. Three, the student population of Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Children reaches maturity.

After Jean Grey's (Famke Janssen) "death", both Cyclops (James Marsden) and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) are taking it very hard. This forces Professor X (Patrick Stewart) to look to Storm (Halle Berry, who only agreed to return after getting a larger part) for leadership. Meanwhile, Rogue (Anna Paquin) is beginning to regret not being able to touch her boyfriend, Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), who is showing an interest in Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page, a Halifax native who played Treena Lahey on Trailer Park Boys). Mean even more while, the US gov't has captured Mystique (Rebecca Romijn) and interrogates her to find the whereabouts of Magneto (Ian McKellan), while Hank McCoy (Grammer) looks on as Sect. of Mutant Affairs. Meanest of the whiles yet, a lab in San Fransisco, led by a man whose son (Ben Foster) is sprouting a set of wings, has developed a mutation suppressant based on the powers of a mutant named Leech (Cameron Bright, from Nanaimo). Phew, and that's just the important characters. The "cure" outrages Magneto, who begins amassing an army of mutants to fight back. At the same time, Rogue believes the cure may be the answer to her problems. Prof X receives a distress call from Alkali Lake (the site of the last movie's climax) and sends the team out find that Jean Grey is alive, but Cyclops may not be so lucky. Jean's ordeal may have led to the release of a secondary personality, a stronger, more powerful alter ego called the Phoenix. It may have overridden Jean entirely and may ultimately destroy her. The psychic blockage was placed there by Prof X as a child and stunted her uncontrollable abilites. Now that the Phoenix has been released, she rejects Prof X and the X-Men (boy, does she ever) and aligns with Magneto's Brotherhood. Their attack is directed towards the lab making the cure, and it's up to the remaining X-Men and the students to stop them.

Some of the events and characters may bother some of the purists who hold the canon near and dear, but remember that the producers are trying to fit nearly 50 years of X-Men history into 6 hours of celluloid. They have to pick and choose what makes sense to weave into the script. Sometimes the particulars merge into glossed over bits of information, be it two distinct characters who appear fused into one more powerful mutant, or events which may occur way outside of the canonical timeline. So we must give them credit, they have made three very good movies (and will probably make a fourth (opinion based purely on speculation)) that have taken the lives of a great variety of interesting characters and played them out onscreen. And believe me when I tell you to stay to the end of the credits, you won't regret it.

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