The X-Men films are tough films to make for one simple reason. There are too many characters and too little time to give each one their rightful screentime. One thing Bryan Singer was smart about in making X2 was that it was twenty nine minutes longer than the original. Believe it or not, this extra time helps because it helps introduce and devote sometime to new characters. This is something new Director Brett Ratner does not do, making X-Men 3 the same length as the original. It works with the original because it is an introduction and their aren't as many characters as we get later on in the series.
So now we have tons of new characters in The Last Stand and very little time to get to know them. Well, we hardly receive an introduction to any new characters. The direction Ratner has taken here is for each character to show off their power and say their name, that is the character development in X-Men 3. The development of the characters is one of the most important things in superhero films and former X-Men director Bryan Singer was decent enough, with Ratner we are cheated out of it.
Brett Ratner who directed Rush Hour and Rush Hour 2 has taken Bryan Singers spot. Singer dropped X-Men 3 to direct Superman Returns and perhaps that was a smart move. What we get with Ratner is definitely a change. There is more action, more comedic one liners and less screentime for some major characters. None of those three are necessarily good things. The Last Stand does have a lot of action and its CGI looks great. The character causing the most destruction in this film is the Phoenix who is also Jean Grey stuck in between two personalities. The Phoenix is an extremely powerful mutant that can do anything and is far more powerful than Magneto and Professor Xavier.
X-Men: The Last Stand focuses a lot on Phoenix, but the story involving the cure for mutants doesn't fit well with her entrance into the series. Its always entertaining watching Famke Janssen show off her powers and how she can kill off her own kind, but its a shame that her existence diminishes the presence of characters like Cyclops, Mystique, Wolverine, and Professor Xavier. For one thing, Wolverine is no longer the main character of the mutant pack, one can argue that Storm is more of a leader in this installment. Cyclops once again gets hardly any screentime much like in X2 where he was knocked out for a good forty five minutes.
All three X-Men pictures had room for improvement, but this film might have needed the most. As an entertainment standpoint it doesn't disappointment, featuring some entertaining scenes and at times surprising you. However, there are only a few dialogue scenes in which one can see it helping to advance the story. With the action scenes, some of them are there for pure entertainment and in reality it could have ended up in the deleted scenes section of the future dvd. Its impressive what Ratner has done with the action, but its the screenplay written by Simon Kinberg and Zak Penn that could have used some editing.
The dialogue uttered by some of the mutants are silly and made for comic relief, but it could have used less of it. Granted, both of Singer's X-Men films had its share, but it went farther with this film. Had Singer directed The Last Stand would it have been better? Perhaps it could have been, but still Ratner does rather well in what a action fanatic would want. Pure X-men fans might be disappointed, especially in the characters that are missing in most of the films duration.
Going back to the plot of this film, its more straightforward than the other films had. Humans have developed a cure to rid the mutants of the powers and make them human. Its expected to have some mutants favoring the cure and others against it. This is what we get with The Last Stand along with a major focus on The Phoenix. Phoenix may be inaccurate to what the comics had her as, but its impressive watching her ridiculous powers unfold. The times when we once hailed Xavier and Magneto as the most powerful mutants are over.
X-Men: the Last Stand has a way of drawing the viewer to it and making it an enjoyable time even while being flawed. Its flawed entertainment, with some top notch destruction, but weak on other levels. Its simple, if you enjoy summer blockbusters than The Last Stand will most likely fulfill your needs, but if you are die hard fans of these superheroes than you will be a bit disappointed in one way or another. This films delivers what was expected from its previews, but it didn't surpass it. Theres mistakes in The Last Stand that are unforgivable, but the simple fact that these characters we have come to enjoy are back is a positive note. Its just a shame that some of the best characters are ignored in one way or another early on in the film.
