X-Men: The Last Stand - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution movie review

Cure sets stage for showdown in 'X-Men: The Last Stand'

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The "X-Men" movies always deserve an A for effort, and so it is with the third installment, "X-Men: The Last Stand."

But this time around, the effort shows a little more. The film is still a lot of mindless fun, but whether it's the switch in directors (Brett "Rush Hour" Ratner takes over for Bryan Singer) or the feeling that a good premise has been rushed (it's a half-hour shorter than its predecessor), "Last Stand" is more satisfying than transporting.

20th Century Fox

'X-Men: The Last Stand'

B-

The verdict: Not Xceptional, but still quite entertaining.

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
Trailers require Quicktime

A cure for the mutant gene has been discovered. To the more reasonable mutants, led by the wise, disabled Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart), this is a good thing — a choice, not a dictate. Neither Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), with his super-duper claws and regenerative powers, nor Storm (Halle Berry), with her weather-manipulating abilities, is interested. But for someone like Rogue (Anna Paquin), whose power is to suck the life out of whomever she touches, it could be a godsend. (Losing this increasingly uninteresting mutant could be a godsend, too.)

But to the more, um, excitable mutants, who follow the power-minded Magneto (Ian McKellen), anything that calls itself a cure is a threat. They'll be forced to become "meat-sacks," as the gorgeous blue-skinned shape-shifter Mystique (Rebecca Romijn) contemptuously calls humans.

To assimilate, so to speak, or to embrace your otherness is one pertinent question the film asks. Another is, what is meant by "choice"?

It's probably not by chance the standoff between the Xavier and the Magneto factions recall confrontations at real-life abortion clinics.

Pyro, a hot-tempered flame-thrower in Magneto's camp, even pulls a kind of Eric Rudolph and firebombs a clinic (at moments like this, the picture is so proto-feminist you wonder if the group should be called the XX-Men ... er, People).

Of far more importance in the X-World, however, is the return of Jean Grey (beautiful Famke Janssen).

Thanks to her boundless telekinetic powers, she's considered by both Xavier and Magneto to be the most powerful of all the mutants. But who has emerged from the watery grave to which she was consigned in "X2" — Jean or her dark alter ego, the Phoenix, who has certain, well, issues?

The big action scenes are well-staged — especially the climactic battle royale in which Jean/Phoenix strides through the chaos like Carrie at her prom.

One of the great appeals of the "X-Men" movies — well, along with Jackman in a torn T-shirt — is the endless supply of mutants. The guy with the porcupine face. The girl who whips from one place to the next in the blink of an eye. The one with the super-powerful clapper effect (more than the lights turn off). The Harry Potter look-alike (what does he do, beside function as an ongoing in-joke?).

Among the more welcome additions here are Kelsey Grammer as well-dressed, all-blue diplomat Hank McCoy, aka Beast, and Ellen Page (the hard-eyed nymphet from "Hard Candy") as Kitty Pryde, who can zip through walls. Less compelling is "Six Feet Under's" Ben Foster as the magnificently winged Angel, though there is a nice shot of him flying over the Golden Gate Bridge.

Unfortunately, the movie itself doesn't take flight often enough. At times, the gathering of defiant mutants camped out with Magneto looks uncomfortably like a group of fans at an X-Men convention: Hey, I've slammed an eggplant on my forehead; now I'm Eggplant Boy!

"X-Men: The Last Stand" is set up to be just that, and, as such, several major characters are knocked off. However, stick around through the end credits, which offer a heavy-handed hint that this stand may not be their last after all.

Which would be fine by me.