X-Men: The Last Stand

Just when your spirit gears up for an epic conclusion to the original X-Men trilogy, came along a bummer.

For us who love the previous two installments, we would unanimously agree that The Last Stand isn't a worthy sequel. The sense of realism brought by the predecessors is ponderously missing in this one. It wastes time to arrive at the point, the focus. Although the primary conflict of mutants' living rights is still intact, several subplots bog it down. For example: Do we really need the unwanted & uninteresting love triangle sequences between Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), Shadowcat (Ellen Page) & Rogue (Anna Paquin)?

Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is underutilized in this movie. Characterizations for him are not consistently written well. To our horror, the crowd puller in the X-Men franchise becomes colorless. Too many main characters' death in a row is rushed! It's easy to spot bad acting performances here, especially of Warren Worthington III's father.

On the flip side of the coin, we are served a number of new & exciting additions, such as Beast (Kelsey Grammer), Angel (Ben Foster) & Multiple Man (Eric Dane). Iceman's full body transformation is a good watch. Mystique's (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) pre & post-human renditions are by far the best.

The idea of neutralizing mutants is cool. Charles Xavier's (Patrick Stewart) & Erik Lehnsherr (Ian McKellen) friendship is till day, still amusing! Professor X's death is saddening. Ending done right with Wolverine embracing the toughest choice to kill Dark Phoenix. Scenes where Magneto's ambushed with the vaccine, Beast's palm turns furless upon approaching the 'cure' & Magneto shifting the Golden Gate Bridge towards Alcatraz are great.

Sometimes, the writings just don't understand itself. Logan finds Cyclop's (James Marsden) glasses straying without the owner, but did not even wonder about his whereabouts, not until a later portion of the motion picture. Apart from the fact that Jean's (Famke Janssen) Phoenix appears intimidating, what's the actual purpose of bringing her back? To be a war machine? Her actions in X2's already doubtful, why make it sillier with a resurrection out of nowhere?

What's wrong in constructing solid visual effects in an X-Men film? Young Charles' & Erik's faces look bad & outdated, or either one. John Powell's score is weak too for unknown reasons. Professor X implores against the use of power in public display, yet contradicts it during his visit to teenage Jane's. How can it be of any measure of tense or seriousness if you could show two protagonist taking down a herd of opponents without any difficulties? Why the heck plentiful of these mutants are able to fly?

Unfortunately, this disappointment doesn't end here. There's one more much, much worse test that we would have to go through, in 2009.

Here's a fun fact. A lot of fans often complain about the timeline continuity issue which is either confusing or gainsaying. The end credits scene which shows Professor X who has transferred his consciousness into the comatose twin would help explain the living Charles Xavier in future installments. There is nothing perplexing here at all. The X-Men series is a mammoth puzzle, which requires the audiences to piece it together & enjoy the sense-making outcome afterwards.