X-Men: The Last Stand
Year: 2006
Rating: PG-13
Length: 104 minutes / 1.73 hours

What a difference a director makes. While the previous two films in this franchise used Bryan Singer, the choice to go with Brett Ratner in this final film of the trilogy was a mistake. There was a tone and style to the previous X-Men movies that was just never quite captured in this one. The comedy seemed unnatural, the plot wasn’t taken quite seriously enough, and the new characters were never given enough time to really fully develop. Perhaps some of the weakness of this film can be blamed on the previous two films being strong, independent storylines, thus not giving much to tie into a conclusive chapter of a trilogy.

Despite X2 (2003) not holding to the traditional form of “the trilogy conundrum”, the fact that X-Men III has to start with some very main characters missing is a plot point that requires viewers to have seen the previous film. The concept of a “mutant cure” definitely gives the film a good sense of finality (regardless of its pre- and post-credits scenes), except that much of the focus of the film is on Jean Grey’s (Famke Janssen) unrivaled power bringing untold destruction to everywhere she visits. The distracted nature of the subplots and way too many new mutant introductions really waters down the whole film.

I also understand that the end of a trilogy should bring some finality, but I really didn’t like how they essentially kill everyone off in one way or another. Of course, this is just below my dislike of the cop-outs to bring characters back after they had been killed or disabled. Now that Bryan Singer has directed two more X-Men films in this six-film saga, none of this even matters anyway; essentially giving Singer a way to show us all how he would have ended the trilogy were he given the chance.

Kind of a weak end to a good trilogy, I give X-Men: The Last Stand 3.0 stars out of 5.