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*** Official X-MEN: THE LAST STAND Review Thread (1 Viewer)

Shawn.F

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I saw the film yesterday (5/18) at a press screening here in Boston. It's a two and a half star film for me. The screenplay is a mess as it tries to pack way too much, including some pretty lousy dialogue and situations, into a scant 100 minutes (it easily could have used another 30 minutes). Ratner's pedestrian directing didn't really help matters much.

Thankfully, we still have the performances of Jackman, McKellen and Stewart still there to keep things moving. I also noticed that Halle Berry got a LOT more screentime in this film, most likely the result of her demanding it in order to get her back. I thought Kelsey Grammer was good as Beast, although he, like others, wasn't onscreen enough to really flesh out his character.

I think fans of the comic books will get more of out this film than people who have not read the comics (such as myself). I loved the first two movies because Bryan Singer knew how to balance the action scenes and special effects with character development and empathy. Ratner and screenwriter Simon Kinberg obviously do not. They know how to make a watchable and mildly enjoyable popcorn flick, but they have also made a film that one cannot help but walk away someone let down from.

When you watch the film, stick around for a coda after the end credits.
 

Simon Massey

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Just got back from watching this. Non-spoiler brief review.

I have never read an XMen comic so knew very little about the storylines. I really enjoyed the first film but theught the second one was a great film. This film doesn't come close to either of those films and in view of how good the second one is, it is something of a disappointment. That said, there is some good stuff in the film.

The main problem is that this seems to be 2 films condensed into 1. Both storylines in the film could have easily been fleshed out into 2 films and not only that, but even with condensing the films into 1 they still managed to cut it down to less than 2 hours. So the film just seems to rush from one moment to the next with little time for the characters to breathe. I think it was pretty obvious from the second film that Jean Grey was going to turn up again and her story in this film could have been great. In fact what we see is great, but for the fact that we tear through all the scenes with no time for the audience to take a moment and dwell on what is happening. Her actions have serious consequences for some of the characters yet much of this is ultimately wasted because we have to get back to the plot or return to the other storyline. Its also clear that Jean Grey's story needed more fleshing out in this film - for much of the middle of the film she does very little probably due to the need to focus on the other storyline as well.

Even more infuriating is that the second storyline would have been just as good as a story on its own as well. We could have had 2 superb X Men films here to go with the other 2 but instead we get what amounts to a film with some great sequences and moments, stitched together with some quick scenes to move the plot along. Even then if they had added another half an hour or so to flesh out each story, things could probably have been improved.

Its an ok film, but in view of the previous films a huge disappointment

:star::star: out of :star::star::star::star::star:
 

JonZ

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The good news is that its better than Return Of The Jedi :)

Everything feels rushed and underdeveloped. This movie should have been a half hour longer. It seems alot of seconds were cut - Rogue kissing Boby saying "This is who I am", Kitty kissing Bobby on the pond, Logans"You might not come back, she might not come back" clips. None of it was there.

Lots of cheers for "Im Juggernaut bitch" and suprisingly everyone seemed pretty happy when it was over. Funniest thing was a guy (Id guess late teens) who showed up dressed as wolverine - mask, costume with stripes, everything. The crowd, mostly younger people were very quite for this once it started.

Also not enough groans or displeasure mumbled about the treatment of Cyclops.

Its not as good as X2, prob on par with the first film I guess.

I loved Beast.
 

Patrick Sun

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Where to start? This film is way underwritten, and it seemed very rushed in many scenes. I missed Singer's sensibilities in the film, as Ratner was not able to bring as much emotional pathos to the plight of mutants as humans appear to have a cure for such genetic abberations and real-time reversal of their mutancy.

There are events that happen that require some decompression of the import of such events, but the screenplay is just go-go-go and whatever connections you have to the character drift away as they just serve to join in the battle royale in the final stanza, and my affinity to the characters just sort of evaporated. I wanted to feel for the cast of characters, but truthfully I didn't feel much, and I should have, thus I feel cheated by the combination of story/direction/acting. I did get the feeling that quite a few of the actors didn't bring their A game, but the script wasn't all that interesting, either, so it undermined them to a noticeable degree. I did warm up to Ellen Page's Kitty Pryde as she made the most of her scenes, but there far too little of the other cast members due to the relatively short running time with so many characters.

I came away with the feeling that there were 2 distinct storylines that both got the short-shrift, and that made the final product a mish-mash of a movie where neither delivered a satisfying cohesive story.

I give it 2.5 stars, or a grade of C+.
 

Adam_S

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When the reveiw thread is started, this can be moved there:

:star::star:1/2 (out of four, recommended with reservations)

There are a lot of strong points to this film, firstmost being that the women are actually a lot more interesting now, not just things to be set aside while we see more of Singer's boys flexing father issues. Storm is a badass, Rogue has little to do, sadly, but looks and sounds ten times better, the little girl who phases through walls is really cute and will turn into something very nice in a few years. Jean Grey is scary, powerful and a lot of fun. but this is XMen so the guys are the main interest here. Wolverine is good, but doesn't explode off the screen like in the first two films (granted they were 90% about him, though, this is more an ensemble film) Archangel is pretty, has two nice moments, The Professor and Magneto are great fun and Magneto walks away easily with every scene he's in. Juggernaut gets the best line of the film while Pyro became an empty shell and Iceman developed in a lot of interesting directions. Beast is excellent and badass.

However there's not really much story at all involved in this film, there's some plot involving a Jean and a Cure but that's about it, nothing really connects any scene to another scene emotionally. In fact most of the time the characters don't connect to each other emotionally, except for some nicely constructed moments between Iceman and phase girl and Pyro. Considering all the loss in this film, it's strikingly unaffective of any part of me that should care, if the film resembles anything, its' like being in an amusement park, we jump from one fun bit to another fun bit.

On the other hand they do a lot of exposition work laying out the two plot threads of Jean and Cure, so it resembles the first movie in pacing, but neither movie in character development, they make rough attempts at story, but all the necessary threads to create emotion and connection never come together. On the other hand it has a ton of characters and a hell of a lot of great eye-candy and mutant abilities everywhere, so that is quite fun. You also get a sense that there are vast numbers of mutants out there, where Singer's film would have you thinking there were only a few hundred in the world.

Everyone dies, or is wiped out, Eric, Mystique, Scott, Jean, Charles* and so on.

On the other hand, a three year old could write the one line explanation for Eric and Rogue returning to powers in the next film, and that's that mutation is built into their DNA, it just takes a certain time for their mutation to adjust to the Cure and defeat it, which may only happen in the higher class mutants. But like many resistancies, they're likely to come back stronger.

Two things, I was surprised that Rogue didn't try to meet Leech, it'd be interesting to see what happened when you mixed the two, and someone else thought Rogue would try to suck down Jean Grey a little bit, and thus gain more powers.

I loved seeing flashes of Wolverine's adamantium skeleton in the end. Great stuff.

And the fire/ice showdown was classic.



Adam
 

TheBat

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I saw the movie last night.. it seems that fox did it again.. cut the movie to peices like they did with daredevil and fantastic four.. it was worse then both of those movies in terms of cuts.. there was no character to care about in this one.. even the familar cast from the first 2 movies.. there is a good movie there somewhere.. it needs to be much longer.. a least 20 or 30 minutes. I hope fox will let bret do a special edition directors cut to fix the problem like they did with daredevil.

Jacob
 

Robert Crawford

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This thread is now the Official Review Thread for "X-Men: The Last Stand". Please post all HTF member reviews in this thread.

Any other comments, links to other reviews, or discussion items will be deleted from this thread without warning!

If you need to discuss those type of issues then I have designated an Official Discussion Thread.



Crawdaddy
 

SteveGon

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:star: :star: :star: out of :star: :star: :star: :star:

An enjoyable film, but too short for its own good. More comments in the discussion thread.
 

Kristian

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It was neither the rousing finale I would've hoped for, nor the disaster that I had feared. Ratner and the actors (particularly McKellen, Jannsen and Jackman) took a weak script and did their best to rise above it. The movie feels rushed and is way too short, but I blame Fox and their deadline for that.

:star::star::star:
 

Nkosi

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I'm too disappointed to write an articulate review at the moment. Here are a few quick words:

I agree with many of the sentiments already expressed. I give the movie a 2.5 out of 4 stars.

I'm a long time fan of the comics. I thought the first X-Men movie was good. I thought its sequel, X2, was arguably the best comic book movie ever made.

I felt 'X3: The Last Stand' betrayed the mythology of not only the comics but also the themes, plot narratives, character development, etc. constructed in the two previous movies. The movie tried to do too much in a condensed amount of time. It dealt with 2 major storylines: The Cure and the Phoenix Saga. It should have focused on either or. Instead it tries to juggle both. As a result everything gets shortchanged.

As a "series finale" it does not deliver. It's a summer popcorn flick that had the potential to be more but is not given that chance primarily due to a well chronicled constrained production schedule. Still, don't let my mini-review deter you from checking the film out. I think it's a film that will bring about a lot of discussion from the various streams of viewers (i.e.- fans of the comic and/ or fans of the movies, casual viewers, etc.). It's not a bad film but it's not a very good one either. I left the theater quite disappointed and upset.
 

Larry Sutliff

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It's not quite as good as X2, but I thought it was better than the first one. Some of it is a bit too perfunctory-they try to pack too many characters and incidents in a fairly short picture-but the Dark Phoenix stuff was handled well, McKellen and Stewart were perfect, and I really enjoyed Kelsey Grammar as the Beast. I also thought the action sequences and the musical score were the best of the series so far. I liked this a whole heckuva lot more than I thought I would.

:star::star::star: out of :star::star::star::star:
 

DaveD'

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Patrick and Nkosi pretty much nailed my opinion of it. I really hope a director's cut is released on dvd with about 45min of extra MEANINGFUL footage. More Angel, Collossus please? Still, good flick to check out, but disappointing is my word of the day. Also, where the heck was Nightcrawler???
 

Tim Glover

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Well, I liked it more than I thought I would too. Not sure why I had such low expectations because I love the first 2. X-Men 3 is a solid film...but I do need more time to digest it. As others say, it's very rushed and could've used a bit more reflective screen time. Some of the dialogue is bad & corny...but still I think it was overall an effective film.

I have no X-Men knowledge other than what's in the movies, so I wasn't expecting certain events to play out.

Not as good as the first 2, but still good. A fun summer film.

For now,

8/10
 

James_Kiang

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I had heard a lot of the more negative/disappointing reviews headed into the movie but I knew I would still be seeing it. Turns out, IMO, they were pretty far off base. Yes, the movie could have been longer (and hopefully will at some point?) but what was there was not the train-wreck I feared it would be. While not as good as X2, I think I would put it on a similar level as X1 (been a while since I saw that one).
 

MatS

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I hold X2 in the highest regards so after having heard people knocking this film down early on all the way up until opening I went in with very low expectations

..... there was no need to
this movie was fantastic!!!!

there were some moments early on where I thought the movie could have lost me due to pacing issues (dragging) with the script but it quickly got past those

there were some moments that had me showing tears of joy, something I didn't think would happen again after X2

When I saw early shots of Juggs I didn't think they could pull this off, and thought the character could be laughable ...... oh how wrong I was (though he was laughable, in the best of ways).

final thoughts (for now)....don't miss this movie
 

Sam Favate

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I enjoyed the movie, but was still disappointed by it.

I am just so tired of movies (and television shows) that so casually kill off major characters. It's easy drama; they're just trying to shock the audience or elict an emotional response. Far more complicated - and rewarding - would be seeing the characters cope and survive. It's been done to death (no pun intended); enough already!

Phoenix should have been a separate movie. The all-powerful Phoenix never would have allowed herself to be subject to someone else's authority, even if it was Magneto.

Still, some nice sequences and some good stuff from Jackman and McKellan. Halle Berry, once again, was superfluous and not at all necessary to the story. Professor X (and Patrick Stewart) and Cyclops (and James Marsden)
deserved much better.

(Admin note to other reviewers, please don't spoil the film with your reviews, use the Discussion thread to vent if you must.)
 

Bob Graz

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I saw this yesterday. Long on action, short on story. Not a bad movie, just not a great one either. I'd give it a C+. I should have waited for it to make the discount theater.
 

Bryan Ri

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I went into X3 not expecting much, having seen a lot of the unfold via the Internet. While there are some glimmers of greatness in the film, it can simply be described as rushed.

Even as I sit to write this, I am still unclear what the main plot of the film was. Was it the Jean Grey/Phoenix saga that was the very first seen of the film, or was it the mutant cure story? I don't think the writers were very sure of how it was supposed to work either, but it is something that should have been found and corrected in a re-write. For a while it felt like Jean Grey was going to take center stage, then all of a sudden she disappears until the last five minutes of the film.

This leads me to me next critique, in that characterization in this film is nearly non existent. Can someone please explain to me what the purpose of Angel was in this film? From the opening hook, it seemed like he was going to be a main character, only to be left with the thankless job of saving his father at the very end of the film.
I felt the story between Kitty (who was excellent), Bobby, and Rogue could have been milked to create much more drama, but instead I felt shortchanged again. Wolverine is reduced to a punchline, and the death of Cyclops and Xavier felt cheap and without real meaning.
It appears as though Halle Berry's demands were met, with Storm taking center stage. Her character could have been effective, but without true character arch, I could not buy her taking over for Xavier at the school.

Still, there were some nice moments. I loved the ice skating with Bobby and Kitty. I loved Beast interacting with the mutant cure boy. Mystique's tragic fall worked as well. Rogue's choice to take the cure or not could have been VERY emotional and dramatic, but again felt cheap.

This film was one missed opportunity after another. Each of the smaller storylines had opportunities to be films in their ownright, but FOX and the writers went out of their way to make sure that it can't happen.

Was it better than Return of the Jedi? Absolutely not. Jedi had emotional weight in it's finale, that did carry through to the end of the film. X3 looses it in the Danger Room.
 

Shane Dodson

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Just got back from an early morning showing (9:30) so I thought I'd offer some fresh thoughts...

In short...GOOD movie. Easily the best of the series (yes, I'm including X2, which seemed a bit TOO long for my tastes). Fanboy's criticisms of the prescence of Brett Ratner at the helm were completely unwarranted. His direction is, well, "workmanlike." That's not a slam, but a compliment. He easily picks up where Singer left off, and doesn't "mess" with the visual template set forth by X2.

I thought the performances were easily on par with the last installment. And I enjoyed the broad political and social issues raised without any desire to offer any preachy solutions (no painful "I'm coming out to my parents" scene which hamstrung X2's middle section). Ratner's method is simple: raise the issues, then let the heroes/villains duke it out with elaborate stunts, CGI, and wirework.

I don't understand the criticisms leveled at the short running time. The film did seem jampacked with plots, subplots, and sub-subplots...but I enjoyed the fact that Ratner just kept things moving without succumbing to the temptation to show things down. One could argue, I suppose, that this hurt character development...but, fer cryin' out loud, we're at the THIRD movie; folks should know these characters by now. Yes, Berry's Storm character is a weak link, but at least her increased screen time is given a plausible explanation (Xavier's desire to groom her to take over the school for him). Jackman's Wolverine is at his brutal, sardonic best, and McKellen's Magneto gets to go full-bore villainous this time around (thankfully...he always seemed like a weak villain in the first two installments). Also, Kelsey Grammer's Beast was a welcome addition, providing quiet dignity when Xavier's not onscreen.

As for the fanboys' outrage over the handling (or lack of handling) of the "Dark Phoenix" subplot...sorry, I haven't read the comics in years, so I'm not familiar with this particular story arc. As it appeared onscreen, though, it was suitably compelling and added a sorely-needed dramatic layer to the pyrotechnics. Some fans need to remember that this is a comic-book adaption and, much like a novel adapted for the screen, much will be lost in the translation. The most important thing to consider is...does what make it to the screen work? For me, it did. Wolverine's final, heartbreaking solution worked for me...and it will give the character some added complexity should the Powers That Be ever greenlight a "Wolverine" spin-off franchise.

The practical FX/CGI were top-notch and never overwhelmed the narrative. Ratner's handling of the action sequences was completely assured (unlike Singer's clumsy action/FX choreography in the first film--which I'll forgive since it was his first big-budget FX movie). His actors knew their characters inside-and-out and delivered admirably.

In short, I was pleasantly surprised by THE LAST STAND. So much so that I'm willing to forgive the tacky 15-second coda that appears after the closing credits have ended. In fact, I'd rather forget that entirely. Otherwise, this is a great popcorn flick, perfectly suited for the summer movie season, and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Regards,

- S.D.
 

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