Critic's Grade: B

By the time I was a young child, comic books had lost their fascination by kids and had been replaced with cartoons. Many adults had something against reading comics, but had no problem with their children watching TV, which I cannot understand. Comic books was in a way reading in disguise, there was a lot reading involved. Whether one believes it or not, it is true. As comics died out,those superheroes were thrown into animated half hour TV shows, whether it was Batman or The X-Men, these heroes were experienced and known differently than they used to be.

Recently, these superheroes have been adapted by our favorite actors and after a continuous flow of cheesy live-action TV shows, the heroes were brought to the big screen. Richard Donner's Superman (1978) is probably one of the most memorable superhero films to date, even though it looks somewhat dated itself. Spider-man of 2002, dawned the new comic book movie age, and inspired both Marvel and D.C. to do film adaptations of their most read works.

The adventures of The X-Men were last seen in X-Men 2: X-Men United. An asassination attempt was made on the president, mutants attacked the Academy, and Magneto and Xavier banded together to defend the mutant society.

In X-men: The Last Stand, there is a lot more going on than one might expect. A "cure" has been developed that will supposedly suppress the mutant gene permanently and is open to any mutant who wishes to be "normal." Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), the wise and wheelchaired headmaster of the mutant academy is somewhat concerned about what problems could arise. The other mutants question whether one would really want it or not, especially considering that being a mutant does not constitute that something is wrong with oneself.

Meanwhile, Mystique (Rebecca Romijn), the blue shapeshifting woman, has been captured by the FBI and is being forced to explain the whereabouts about Magneto (Ian McKellan, last seen in The Da Vinci Code only last week). Magneto has also become aware of the possible cure and believes that it will indeed become a war against humans if the cure is ever forced against them. He organizes a brotherhood to wage war against the company and to find and kill the source of the suppressant, a young teenage mutant known as "Leech" (Cameron Bright).

Dr. Hank McCoy, also known as Beast (Kelsey Grammer) who represents the mutant society meets with Charles Xavier about the possible concern. To top it all off, Cyclops (James Marsden) heads to the lake of Jean Grey's (Famke Janssen)death and ressurects her along with her alter evil ego, Dark Pheonix, who destroys Cyclops.

Director Brett Ratner (Red Dragon) gets his turn with the X-Men, and has an acceptable handle on it. Each scene flows from beggining to end, though I can say, many scenes lacked the emotional feeling that they could have had. Think about this for a few seconds, a war is going on, people are different and are thought to be a threat to society and others want to make them like everyone else. It's sounds like a real world problem that would devastate thousands of people. Where is the emotional grasp on these scenes, as elaborated in the writing, this is practically the end of their world. Many scenes include too many mutants to count and the amount of them is overwhelming and somewhat distracting about what is going on in the film.

Cinematographers Philippe Rousselot (Charlie and The Chocolate Factory) and Dante Spinotti (After The Sunset) use an array or recognizable shots from both sides of their respective works. Rousselot uses many wide shots of characters, and this is esepecially useful during action, but also unecessary in dialogue shots. Spinotti uses a technique is proudly his own, using tight shots around an emotional character, bringing out what they are really feeling.

Writers Simon Kinkberg and Zak Penn bring a fair story to the screen, but also weigh it down with many quirky and nasty one liners. Penn, also the writer of X-2, constructs a solid and interesting story, with occassional unexpected twists and turns. Much of the dialogue is intelligent and a few events in the story are quite sad, especially the decease of a particular character. Kingkberg (XXX: State of The Union and Mr. and Mrs. Smith) has also written the screenplay, but seeing the other films he has written screenplays for, his dialogue has a certain style. Tastless and idiotic seems to be his parade. He loves to filll his films with unwanted one-liners. "I'm the Juggernaut, **!"

The special effects by a list of people way too long to name, is quite entertaining to watch. When Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is harmed, he is immediately healed in a somewhat gruesome contraction of skin and tissue. Many characters have the abilities to wonderous things that can only require top notch effects, such as Magneto's metal wielding abilities.

The acting is average, Patrick Stewart as Xavier and Ian McKellen as Magneto hold the strongest performances. The writing of the film was at a decent level, but it is really noticeable that these two actors went above of what I expected of the two of them. The war between them and the humans is quite emotional, Xavier a sad dissapointment and Magneto, an angry rage.

Though not as well construced as the second X-Men film, the film stands solidly as the final film of the trilogy. Many of the characters in the films lacked a backstory, yet they all seem to have hidden secrets that we have all been itching to learn. Thankfully, two other prequels are currently in production, but I'll leave that to you to explore and I'm sure you will be pleasantly surprised. The film had way too much to follow, a war, some personal mishaps, a ressurection, a decease, etc. Something such as a war is plenty overwhelming as it is, the last thing the film honestly needs is more complications.

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