FILM - "X-Men: The Last Stand"

In a more perfect world, I could just say that this film is bad and you'd believe it, and I wouldn't have to relive the trauma of watching it in order to paint you a more descriptive picture. In a better world, I wouldn't have to use words at all, I could just use action sequences so hideously poor that you wouldn't even be able to read the review, let alone watch the film, without flinching. In a decent world, there'd be a quick cure, like in X-Men: The Last Stand (a.k.a. X3), for mutant growth, and we could use it on the director, Brett Ratner, and be rid of him and his unnatural ego (he's correct in calling this "A Brett Ratner film," but that's not something to be proud of). Even in an awful world, we could at least slit our wrists with the ten dollar bill and choke ourselves with the three quarters and die a horribly slow and agonizing death before willingly handing our money to the perfunctory ticket-sellers.

That just goes to show you what a downright despicable world we live in, where a film like X3 goes unpunished. I didn't like X2 much, but compared to this, it's a masterpiece. Now we've got even more Oscar-winning Halle Berry inaction (See Storm! See Storm fly! See Storm rage! Rage Storm, rage!), and it's rubbed off on Hugh Jackman, too, who now grunts more than he speaks, which is okay, since, as Wolverine, he mostly speaks with his fists. Gone is the brilliant Alan Cummings (Nightcrawler) -- replaced with an enjoyable Beast (surprisingly, Kelsey Grammer). And once again, Rogue, Iceman, Kitty Pryde and Colossus sit around with nothing much to do. At least Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) kills Cyclops before he grows too irritating, and then joins up with Magneto (Ian McKellen, who's just old and predictable by now), where we don't have to pay much attention to her. In fact, most of the recurring characters are quickly killed or cured, eliminating both their whining and special-effect costs. The franchise peters out here because both the script and the director are working with recycled material, and they make the social relevance of the film's discriminated-against mutants a laughing matter, or simply fodder for the choppy plot.

Yes, the plot is more choppy than a random stuntman after fighting Wolverine. Random moments are strung together, half-assed sub-plots involving mutant romance are desperately thrown out to sea (and left there), and the action scenes -- few and far between -- are brief and, if anything, jaw-raising. They're poor excuses to show off the CG department's ability to make things levitate, or to light things on fire, neither of which are very impressive. By emphasizing the "Phoenix" subplot (now just a handy split personality for Jean Gray, rather than a possessive alien entity), the film focuses on mental feats over the physical, though it's a proven fact that the fans really just want to see Wolverine punching something, hard.

Then again, Brett Ratner does as Brett Ratner does. That's his mutant power. Deal with it.