|
 -Men:
The Last Stand" is the third installment in
the popular comic book franchise originally
shepherded onto the big screen by director Bryan
Singer in 2000, and was followed up by an equally
successful sequel in 2003. Part three says goodbye
to Singer, who opted out of the property in order
to lavish his fanboy attentions on the Last Son of
Krypton, aka the further re-imagined adventures of
Superman in "Superman
Returns". From all appearances, it would
seem as if new director Brett Ratner (the
"Rush Hour" movies) has done a decent
enough job in Singer's stead. But while Ratner
didn't screw the pooch, as it were, he doesn't
exactly impress, either.
Written by Simon Kinberg
("Mr.
and Mrs. Smith") and Zak Penn ("X-Men
2"), "The Last Stand" returns
the entire original cast, as well as introducing
new ones into the mix. The plot this time centers
on the emergence of a mutant cure, which when
injected into a mutant effectively destroys his or
her mutated cells and revert him into Joe Q.
Average. Needless to say, powerful mutant villain
Magneto (Ian McKellen), who sees mutants as the
superior race and takes umbrage to the world's
rule under Homo sapiens, won't take that lying
down. Soon, he's gathered himself an army of
mutants big and small (including the unstoppable
Juggernaut (Vinnie Jones), the firestarter Pyro
(Aaron Stanford), and some really lame porcupine
guy) to do battle. Better watch out, humans!
Well actually, the humans
won't be standing up to Magneto's Brotherhood
alone, as the X-Men are still around. Led by
wheelchair-bound telepath Professor X (Patrick
Stewart), the X-Men have a couple of formidable
mutants ready to rumble, including feral killer
Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), Mistress of the Weather
Channel Storm (Halle Berry), and diplomatic
furball Beast (a blue furred Kelsey Grammer). And
oh yeah, apparently Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), who
was supposed to have died in "X-Men 2",
isn't dead after all. She resurfaces, just in time
to off poor Cyclops (James Marsden) with a kiss,
and then later -- well, let's not spoil it.
Suffice to say, Jean Grey's transition into the
Phoenix
is gonna take out a lot of people.
It has been widely reported
that "The Last Stand" will indeed mark
the final installment in the popular
action-adventure franchise. The reasons are
numerous, but mostly it's because this is the
final picture the original cast has been signed
for, so one assumes bringing everyone back for a
fourth might not be financially feasible. And of
course Hugh Jackman's Wolverine will soon be spun
off into his own movie, which one further presumes
will explore the clawed one's history, something
that never registers as much as a blip in this
third installment. Then again, not a whole lot of
character development gets registered, so Wolvie's
lack of follow-through is not surprising.
Which leads me to the film's
biggest fault: it is at least three comic book
story arcs crammed into an hour and 40 minutes of
screentime. By which I mean the film is over
populated, and as a result we only get brief bits
of information about each character, the new and
the old ones. Most, like the main cast from the
previous two films, are given so little screentime
that they seem like background characters than the
stars of the picture. And yes, it is a Goddamn
crying shame how Cyclops is dispatched, with
barely 5 minutes of total screentime before he is
offed with a kiss. One can only hypothesize that
James Marsden may have been anxious to ditch
"Last Stand's" sets for the greener
pastures of Australia, where former "X-Men"
director Bryan Singer was shooting "Superman
Returns". (Marsden, for those who don't know,
plays the "other guy" in the Lois
Lane-Superman love triangle in
"Returns"; which, curiously, is similar
to his role in the "X-Men" franchise as
the "other guy" in the Wolverine-Jean
Grey love triangle, actually.)
One suspects that
characterization took a major hit as Brett Ratner
and his screenwriters rushed us along the
"story stuff" (i.e. the movie's plot
points) in order to get to the film's big action
set piece -- a 30-minute extended battle sequence
on the former Alcatraz prison, where the mutant
cure is being developed and housed, and which
comes under attack by Magneto and his band of
superpowered malcontents. To be sure, the action
in the Third Act is quite entertaining, if poorly
choreographed and barely coherent. I'm still
unsure how half a dozen X-Men were able to battle
what seemed like 200 mutants, each one with their
own groovy powers, but maybe that's just me
thinking too much again.
Under Ratner's stewardship,
"The Last Stand" doesn't have one-tenth
of the emotional resonance of the first or second
film, opting instead to stuff the turkey with
comic book action. The creators have literally
written themselves into a corner, spending brief
Cliffs Note moments with its characters, including
Rogue (Anna Paquin) and Iceman's sophomoric
romance, Rebecca Romijn's Mystique's anger at
being betrayed by Magneto, and most of all, the
conflicted character of Angel (Ben Foster), whose
angel wings was the impetus for the creation of
the mutant cure. Nothing would have been lost by
jettisoning the Rogue-Iceman subplot in favor of
more screentime with Angel and his father, who
really did seem to care for his son, and I found
their relationship very intriguing.
But perhaps I'm overly
emphasizing the negative here. As mentioned,
"The Last Stand" is a very entertaining
film, especially for those who love comic book
action, of which "The Last Stand" has in
wild abundance. And if most of the characters gets
shortchanged, then Ian McKellen's Magneto gets a
major boost in screentime, as we come to know and,
in a way, respect him for the decisions he has
made. Most of all, the credit goes to McKellen the
actor, who is simply brilliant in the scenes where
his character is required to stand in one place
and emote. Witness his torn loyalties as he
watches Jean Grey literally vaporize a major
character; or his almost chagrin disappointment at
the sight of the X-Men falling out of the sky to
oppose him at Alcatraz.
It's really too bad that
"X-Men: The Last Stand" had to have so
much going on and so little time to tell it. It
feels rushed, out of control, and there is never
any gravitas to the proceedings. The action
benefits greatly from CGI and state-of-the-art
effects, but that is to be expected from a major
Hollywood Summer Event movie. The film is
disappointing in that it seems to want to be so
much, and yet fails in so many areas.
Nevertheless, you have to give the filmmakers some
credit: they set out to make an action-packed
comic book movie, and they succeeded; nothing
more, nothing less.
|
