X-Men: The Last Stand - Austin American-Statesman movie review

'X-Men: The Last Stand' is Xtreme disappointment

By JOHN DeFORE
Austin American-Statesman

There comes a point, in most movie franchises, when a studio tires of pleasing its fans. While a series is making money, producers decide to shake things up: to turn a deliciously dark "Batman" into neon camp; to put Richard Pryor in a "Superman" film; to allow William Shatner to make "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier."

Or to hire Brett Ratner.

20th Century Fox

'X-Men: The Last Stand'

2 out of 5 stars

The verdict: An intriguing premise saddled with an inept director.

Director: Brett Ratner
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen, Anna Paquin, James Marsden, Shawn Ashmore
Run time: 104 minutes
Release date: May 26, 2005
Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of action violence, some sexual content and language.
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Sneak peek!
Get an early look at the action with these slides of:
• The movie
• The mutants

Behind the scenes
• As a mutant, Grammer pays blue suede dues
• When the third time isn't the charm: threequels

On the web
Official movie site
View the trailer
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After squeezing all the charm out of the "Rush Hour" formula and abetting the milk-it-to-death execution of the Hannibal Lecter saga, Ratner returns to direct a superhero film whose very subtitle broadcasts its "let's pack this one in" intent. Yes, there might be a Wolverine spinoff, and no "last stand" is forever in the comic-book world. But "X3" kills off some major characters, neuters others and squanders one of the comic's best stories by turning the "Dark Phoenix" epic into a limp subplot.

"Dark Phoenix" refers to the comic's plotline in which Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), the immensely powerful telepath who martyred herself to save her teammates in the last film, returns from the dead as a near-godlike figure on the wrong side of the good/evil divide.

Here, Grey serves as little more than a new weapon in Magneto's ongoing battle with homo sapiens and an excuse for the filmmakers to make this movie what its predecessors never were: a soulless journey from one overblown effects sequence to the next.

That's especially disappointing given the solidity of the trilogy's basic story. This time out, humanity's fear of mutants has led to the discovery of a "cure": a serum that can incapacitate the genes giving mutants their powers. The government advertises this as a voluntary procedure, but militant Magneto and peace-minded Professor X both see the writing on the wall: The cure won't be voluntary for long.

Magneto (Ian McKellen, who as in "The Da Vinci Code" demonstrates his ability to enjoy himself in joyless movies) recruits an army of new characters who dress like goth-club refugees. They declare war on those who would strip them of their special abilities — and any X-Men who get in the middle of the fight.

The premise is strong, a natural progression of the first two films, but it is executed as if "X-Men" had become a television series, where plot beats are graphed out to accommodate commercial breaks and dramatic gravity is the first thing to go. After one turning point, a character's ostensibly triumphant line — "tell all the students that the school stays open" — might as well be an announcement of the week's cafeteria menu.

Acting-wise, much is expected of one of the series' weakest links, Halle Berry's Storm. While the most commanding personality the good guys have, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), is busy fretting about his feelings for Jean Grey (and, one assumes, resenting the fact that his supposedly vicious fight scenes are literally bloodless, owing to the film's family-friendly rating), Storm is given rally-the-troops scenes that Berry can't come close to selling. It's a wonder that so few of the School for the Gifted's students decide they'd rather be ex-mutants than X-Men.

This is the indefinable lameness of Ratner — although the overall blame surely rests with a studio anxious to hustle something onto screens after series leader Bryan Singer left "X-Men" to take over the troubled "Superman Returns." (One of the troubles that film faced during development? It was to be directed by Brett Ratner.) Fans are left with what feels like one of those innumerable "Star Trek" sequels that coast on our fondness for familiar characters while begging the question: How long can they keep this up?