X-Men: The Last Stand | Little White Lies

X‑Men: The Last Stand

12 May 2006 / Released: 26 May 2006

Two characters, a man and a woman, standing in an urban setting. The man has a rugged appearance with stubble and is wearing a brown leather jacket. The woman has short blond hair and is wearing a dark green jacket. They are both holding what appear to be long metal claws.
Two characters, a man and a woman, standing in an urban setting. The man has a rugged appearance with stubble and is wearing a brown leather jacket. The woman has short blond hair and is wearing a dark green jacket. They are both holding what appear to be long metal claws.
2

Anticipation.

Iconic comic superstars, but they’ve never really hit the heights on screen.

1

Enjoyment.

Frustrating, insulting, pointless. Truly dire.

1

In Retrospect.

See above.

Brett Rat­ner doesn’t have the brains, inter­est or bud­get to do the X‑Men any kind of justice.

The Gold­en Gate Bridge isn’t the only Amer­i­can icon strand­ed in the rub­ble of X‑Men: The Last Stand. The only thing extra­or­di­nary’ about these mutants would be if the smok­ing ruin of their rep­u­ta­tion can be sal­vaged in time for a fourth film. Let’s hope not.

Not so much pick­ing up from as repeat­ing the plot of the first two films, The Last Stand sees ten­sions ris­ing as a cure’ for mutants pro­vokes civ­il war. Added to the mix is the return of Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) – now called the Phoenix – a per­son­i­fi­ca­tion of Freudi­an pas­sions and world-shak­ing power.

Or so we’re told. Most­ly her job is to stand around look­ing blank while Wolver­ine and the gang hit the head­less chick­en but­ton. She gets to cut loose a cou­ple of times in the movie’s best scenes, but most­ly direc­tor Brett Rat­ner doesn’t have the brains, inter­est or bud­get to do her any kind of justice.

So it’s more of the same. Halle Berry and Hugh Jack­man get in the way of the cam­era; Ian McK­ellen does his Brit bit as best he can; and the new faces – blue fur-ball Beast (Kelsey Gram­mer) and armour-plat­ed foot­ball hooli­gan Jug­ger­naut (Vin­nie Jones) – try in vain to reg­is­ter per­son­al­i­ty through the prosthetics.

All to no avail, because the sheer inep­ti­tude on dis­play is breath­tak­ing. No, it’s an insult to every­body who pays to be slapped in the face like this. Ratner’s X‑Men is a cav­al­cade of slap­dash film­mak­ing. From basic con­ti­nu­ity errors and care­less cam­er­a­work to a stag­ger­ing­ly wrong-head­ed epi­logue that crys­tallis­es a key ques­tion: what the fuck is the point of all this bullshit?

James Marsden’s Cyclops is dis­patched with an almost audi­ble sod off to Super­man’. Mutant pow­ers come and go, day becomes night, char­ac­ters wan­der off aim­less­ly for chunks of the film, the emo­tion­al pay-offs are sign­post­ed in neon lights. It’s never-ending.

Is it faith­ful to the comics? Who cares? Sel­l­otape a page to your TV if you want to see a com­ic book come to life. As an exer­cise in the basic mechan­ics of film­mak­ing, X‑Men: The Last Stand is a sham­bles. For­get Posei­don, this is the summer’s big dis­as­ter movie.

You might like

Accessibility Settings

Text

Applies the Open Dyslexic font, designed to improve readability for individuals with dyslexia.

Applies a more readable font throughout the website, improving readability.

Underlines links throughout the website, making them easier to distinguish.

Adjusts the font size for improved readability.

Visuals

Reduces animations and disables autoplaying videos across the website, reducing distractions and improving focus.

Reduces the colour saturation throughout the website to create a more soothing visual experience.

Increases the contrast of elements on the website, making text and interface elements easier to distinguish.