Movie Review – X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

The 2003 film X2: X-Men United was a smash hit with both the audiences and critics.

The film ended with Magneto betraying Charles Xavier and escaping with Mystique and Pyro before the dam broke.  Jean Grey then sacrificed herself to save the lives of the X-Men, helping them flee before being crushed by the wall of water.

It was natural to expect a sequel to the film, perhaps a film even bigger and better than what we experienced in X2: X-Men United.

The next X-Men sequel was released in 2006 in the film X-Men: The Last Stand.

X-Men: The Last Stand was written to make the X-Men films a trilogy.  The first film introduced us to the characters, the second film had a killer plot, and the third film was meant to tie all of the stories together and finish the story.  This third film does so, but it’s not an epic of a film that you may be expecting.

Directed by Brett Ratner, X-Men: The Last Stand brings back pretty much the entire cast of characters from the second film.  The movie stars Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Famke Jansse and Rebecca Romijn.  Also in this film you’ll find Kelsey Grammer as Dr. Hank McCoy / Beast, Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde / Shadowcat, and Vinnie Jones as Cain Marko / Juggernaut.

X-Men: The Last Stand begins twenty years ago as Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Eric Lensherr (Ian McKellen) visit the childhood home of Jean Grey.  They are there to recruit the young girl with telekinetic powers to Xavier’s private school in upstate New York.  Jean demonstrates her telekinetic powers by levitating all of the cars in her neighborhood.

Ten years later, industrialist Warren Worthington II (Michael Murphy), the head of Worthington Labs, discovers that his young son, Warren Worthington III, is a mutant.  The boy is caught while trying to cut a large pair of wings off his back.

In the present, the X-Men are working together in the Danger Room to fight against a Sentinel robot.  The X-Men team includes Logan / Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), Ororo Munroe / Storm (Halle Berry), Marie / Rogue (Anna Paquin), Bobby Drake / Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), Peter Rasputin / Colossus (Daniel Cudmore) and Kitty Pryde / Shadowcat (Ellen Page).

Or rather, they were working together until Wolverine grows impatient and has Colossus throw him at the Sentinel so he can destroy it.  The technique works but Storm is upset by Wolverine’s brash tactic.  The goal was for them to work together to find a solution.

During the training session, Marie notices Kitty saving Bobby from an attack, and Bobby really noticing the girl and taking an interest in her.  After the session in the Danger Room, we see that there is stress in Marie and Bobby’s relationship.  Rogue is unable to touch Bobby without hurting him and this is pushing their relationship to the breaking point.  Now a younger girl has Bobby’s attention.

At the Department of Mutant Affairs, Dr. Hank McCoy / Beast (Kelsey Grammer) has a meeting with the President of the United States (Josef Sommer).  McCoy learns that although Magneto is still missing, his top soldier, Mystique (Rebecca Romijn), was recently captured while she was raiding the F.D.A.  The president tells McCoy that Mystique was trying to steal information about a person named Jimmy / Leech, a resource subject at Worthington Labs.  Leech has the power to suppress the mutant gene.

Back at the X-Mansion, Charles Xavier gives his students a lecture on the use and misuse of power and responsibility.  This also covers ethics.  He asks his students if it’s considered ethical to take a “brain dead” person with a living body and to transfer the healthy consciousness of a dying person into it.  This will be important later.

There’s a television news conference where Warren Worthington II presents a vaccine, a “mutant cure,” that can suppress the X-Gene and, thus, cure the mutants of their powers / curses.  It’s an opportunity for mutants to become normal people and live a normal life without hiding or living in fear of others.  Rogue becomes excited at the news, thinking that she can “cure” herself of her power and be able to touch people without crippling or killing them.

After the news is announced, an underground group of mutants called The Omegas has a meeting where they decide to take a stand.  Magneto and Pyro (Aaron Stanford) attend the meeting and recruit many of the people who are aginst the cure into his organization, the Brotherhood of Mutants.

Meanwhile, Scott Summers / Cyclops (James Marsden) is still feeling depressed after the death of Jean Grey.  He’s not able to perform his duties and help train the students at the X-Mansion.  Needing to seek closure over her death, Cyclops goes to Alkali Lake and the final resting place of Jean Grey.  When he approaches the water, Cyclops hears the voice of Jean calling to him.

And then she appears once again in person.  It should not be possible, yet there she is.  When the two of them kiss, Jean’s significantly more powerful inner powers awaken, and she attacks Cyclops.

Charles Xavier senses the psychic attack, so he sends Wolverine and Storm to investigate Alkali Lake and find Cyclops.  When they arrive at the lake, rocks are being levitated along with Cyclops’s special glasses, but Cyclops is nowhere to be found.  Nearby they do find the unconscious body of Jean Grey.

Back at the X-Mansion, Xavier surmises that Jean’s inner powers wrapped her in a cocoon of telekinetic energy, protecting her from the wall of water that should have smashed and killed her.  Xavier then tells Wolverine that Jean Grey is really an extremely powerful mutant.  The only reason why she appeared to be somewhat weak is that years ago Xavier placed a series of psychic barriers in her mind, safety measures used to isolate her powers from her conscious mind.  The result created a dual personality, one of Jean Grey and one of the Phoenix.

It’s now a question of whether the woman is really Jean Grey or the Phoenix.  Xavier has been trying to restore the psychic barriers and protect Jean from the Phoenix, but it’s not clear if he’ll be successful.

Outside the headquarters for Worthington Labs, mutants are protesting the company and its so-called “cure” against mutants.  The fear is that the government will force all mutants to be vaccinated, and, thus, permanently removing their powers.  Inside of the building, Warren Worthington II pushes for his son, Warren Worthington III / Angel (Ben Foster) to be one of the first mutants to be “cured” of the X-gene.  At the last second Angel refuses and spreads his wings.  He then escapes by jumping out of the window and then flying away.

Meanwhile, out on a highway, Mystique is being held in a roaming prison cell.  Suddenly Magneto is there and he attacks the prison truck.  This allows Mystique to escape and re-join Magneto.  Along with freeing Mystique, Magneto also frees the other dangerous mutants.  James Madrox / Multiple Man (Eric Dane) and Cain Marko / Juggernaut (Vinnie Jones) both join the Brotherhood.

As they’re about to leave, one of the guards awakens and fires a dart with the mutant cure at Magneto.  Mystique jumps in front of the projectile and saves Magneto.  They watch as the vaccine works and Mystique changes into a normal woman.  Since Mystique no longer has her powers, she’s of no use to Magneto.  They leave her in the prison truck, and that’s the last we see of the woman.

Back at the X-Mansion, when Jean awakens, she tries to seduce Wolverine, but he refuses.  When Wolverine asks about Cyclops, all of a sudden her personality changes and Logan realizes that he’s now talking to the real Jean, and not the Phoenix.  The emotional stress of realizing that Cyclops is dead causes the Phoenix to return to Jean’s body.  She pleads for him to kill her before she kills anybody else.  Suddenly the Phoenix attacks Wolverine, knocking him unconscious, and then she leaves the X-Mansion.

A short while later, Wolverine, Storm and Charles Xavier take the professor to Jean’s childhood home.  Waiting for them outside of the house is Magneto along with several mutants from the Brotherhood.  Xavier and Magneto head inside to talk to Jean while everybody else has to wait outdoors.

Both Xavier and Magneto try to talk to Jean and convince her to join their side.  Charles can help suppress the Phoenix while Magneto will let the Phoenix flourish and do whatever it wants.  When Charles tries to use his psychic powers against Jean, this awakens the Phoenix and causes the creature to go into a rage.  There’s chaos as the X-Men and Brotherhood mutants fight while Jean’s house levitates and the Phoenix and Professor X have a psychic battle.  The Phoenix wins and Xavier’s body is disintegrated.  The Brotherhood takes Jean Grey back with them, and Storm and Wolverine return to the X-Mansion.

At the mansion there’s a memorial service for Charles Xavier.  That night, Bobby and Kitty seek solace by spending time together.  Bobby freezes an outdoor fountain and he and Kitty skate on the ice.  Rogue watches them from a window and makes up her mind about how to handle the situation.  She leaves the X-Mansion to go seek out the “mutant cure” vaccine.

Magneto and the Brotherhood of Mutants have been hiding in the woods as their organization grows in size and in strength.  Tensions have been escalating since Pyro attacked a facility administrating vaccines to willing mutants.  Wolverine tries to infiltrate the Brotherhood, but first he has to fight his way past Spike (Lance Gibson), a mutant who can quickly grow quills and then throw them with deadly accuracy.

At the rally, Magneto fires up his colleagues and announces his plan at attack Alcatraz Island, the research facility for Worthington Labs.  There they will destroy the company and its vaccine once and for all, eliminating that threat to the mutant race.  After the rally, Magneto confronts Wolverine and tells him that Jean Grey is not a prisoner, and that she’s there because of her choosing.  Magneto then discards Wolverine by throwing him through the woods.

Magneto’s actions have concerned the president, so the president orders a special forces attack against Magneto’s compound in the woods.  The soldiers all use plastic weapons and the mutant cure vaccine.  Unfortunately, the camp that they raid is really just Multiple Man acting as a decoy.  The real army of mutants has already left for San Francisco.

Back at the X-Mansion, the remaining X-Men band together and decide to head to Alcatraz to protect it from Magneto.  They suit up and fly away in the X-Jet.

In San Francisco, Magneto uses his powers to levitate the Golden Gate Bridge and relocate it so that the bridge spans from a wharf to Alcatraz Island.  The army of mutants easily walks across the bridge and prepares to attack the research facility.  The Worthington Labs facility is guarded by soldiers armed with the mutant cure vaccine, but everybody knows that the military is going to need more help against the Brotherhood.

The soldiers fight off the first wave of attacking mutants until Arclight (Omahyra Mota) uses her shock wave power to destroy the soldiers’ weapons.  Just as it’s looking bleak to the defenders, the X-Men arrive in the X-Jet.  Led by Wolverine, the X-Men form a defensive line and make a stand on Alcatraz Island.  The defensive line includes Wolverine, Beast, Storm, Iceman, Colossus and Shadowcat.

A massive battle begins where the vastly outnumbered X-Men somehow manage to fight off most of the Brotherhood’s mutants.  The tide turns when Storm defeats Callisto (Dania Ramirez), Beast injects Magneto with the mutant cure, Iceman defeats Pyro, and Shadowcat rescues Jimmy / Leech (Cameron Bright) from Juggernaut.

Just as it looks like the battle is finished, the army attacks Jean Grey.  This unleashes the Phoenix and she easily kills all of the soldiers.  The Phoenix then begins to destroy the entire research facility.  Realizing that he has regeneration powers and is the only one who can stop her, Wolverine approaches and tries to talk to Jean.  He’s able to get past the Phoenix, and Jean pleads with him to kill her to stop the Phoenix.  Wolverine does so, using his claws to finally kill Jean Grey and stop the Phoenix.

Some time later classes resume again at Xavier’s school for mutants, and Storm is now the headmistress.  We see that Rogue used the mutant cure vaccine to remove her power, allowing her to finally have physical contact with Bobby.  The president appoints Beast as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.  At a park in San Francisco, Eric Lehnsherr is playing chess by himself when we see that he’s able to use his power to make a metal playing piece start to wobble, suggesting that he’s regaining his powers.  If Magneto can regenerate his powers after being vaccinated, then can anybody else do that as well?

In a post-credits scene, Dr. Moira MacTaggert is checking on a “brain dead” patient when the patient suddenly wakes and speaks to her.  She recognizes the voice as that of Charles Xavier.  Remember Xavier’s classroom lesson about ethics and transferring a person’s consciousness from a dying body to an “unused” one?

So is X-Men: The Last Stand any good?

Yes and no, mostly no.

Although X-Men: The Last Stand has a great cast and equally impressive special effects, this film clearly lacks the magic, story and drive as the second film, X2: X-Men United.

For starters, don’t expect to see much of Cyclops or Rogue in this film.  Cyclops’s role is so small that he’s pretty much a cameo and far from anything resembling a major character.  Rogue is downgraded to a secondary character, and we don’t see any fight scenes with her.  Once she leaves the X-Mansion, we don’t see her again until the very end of the film.

This film also eliminates the Charles Xavier and Mystique characters about halfway through the film.  The X-Men lose their top leadership, and Magneto loses his best warrior.  Meanwhile, the audience cringes as yet more major characters will be missing in the rest of this film.

Do we gain any good characters in this film?

Sort of.

For starters, the X-Men have Beast and Shadowcat on their side.  Beast is an older character but a great fighter in the final battle.  Shadowcat is a young love interest of Iceman, but her mutant power is a better defensive weapon than a fighting skill.  It’s almost laughable that she’s part of the X-Men in the final battle.

The Brotherhood gains a bunch of new fighters when criminals as well as The Omega join their side.  This adds a ton of new mutants into the film, but so many of them have so little screen time that it really doesn’t matter.  It’s as if this was just a weak effort to try to add everybody in the X-Men universe into this film.

Apart from the lack of Xavier, Mystique, Cyclops and Rogue in most of the film, my biggest problem is with the Brotherhood’s attack on Alcatraz as well as the defense of the island.

For starters, was it really necessary for Magneto to use his power to move the Golden Gate Bridge so that the Brotherhood could easily reach Alcatraz Island?  The visual effects looked good in the film, but the move itself looked stupid.  Magneto could have easily put everybody onto a ship or barge, and then used his powers to move them across the water.

Or, better yet, Magneto could have simply dropped a flammable oil transport ship onto the research facility on Alcatraz Island.  The explosion and fire would have destroyed the facility and killed everybody inside, including the Leech.

But no.  Instead there’s the wacky solution of Magneto moving the Golden Gate Bridge, and then a bunch of Brotherhood mutants losing to the soldiers defending the island.  Again, Magneto could have used his powers to destroy them.  He could have taken all of the metal around him and used it to literally shred the defenders as well as the facility.

The military should have also had a significantly better defense of Alcatraz Island.  There should have been more forces ready in the city, and ships and aircraft should have also been attacking the mutants.  They could have modified all sorts of weapons to make them more effective against the mutants.

Of course, the Phoenix could have destroyed Alcatraz Island as well as the city of San Francisco and whatever else the Phoenix chooses.

X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) – movie trailer

It’s difficult to sit back and enjoy X-Men: The Last Stand.  Parts of the story are just plain wacky (such as the Brotherhood hanging out in the woods of all places, and the final attack sequence), the film is missing major characters, and some elements in the story just suck.  This movie had a ton of potential, but it clearly felt sort of being a great X-Men film.

Logan – “Who’s the furball?”
Dr. Hank McCoy – “Hank McCoy, Secretary of Mutant Affairs.”
Logan – “Right, right. The secretary. Nice suit.”
Prof. Charles Xavier – “Henry, this is Logan. He’s, uh…”
Dr. Hank McCoy – “Wolverine. I hear you are quite an animal.”
Logan – “Look who’s talkin’.”

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Raven Darkholme – [after she’s intercepted a mutant cure meant for Magneto] “Eric?”
Eric Lensherr – “I’m sorry, my dear. You’re not one of us any more.”

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Eric Lensherr – [to Pyro] “Charles Xavier did more for mutants than you will ever know. My single greatest regret is that he had to die for our dream to live.”

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Cain Marko – [to Shadowcat] “Don’t you know who I am? I’m the Juggernaut, bitch!”