Halcohol said:
The original post in this thread is great... I agree with pretty much all of your points, Boba_Fett, but I have to disagree with you on your Storm-hating
Looking at the role objectively, apart from the source material, Storm has grown since the first movie. In
X-Men, she was still afraid of humans, but she was a strong enough character that she tried to talk Logan into staying at the mansion and joining the team.
Then, in
X2, she gained a little more self-confidence and replaced her earlier fear with anger. She had arguably one of the most powerful mutant displays in the film by creating the tornado maze, and we saw how protective she was of the students at the school (by going after them with Nightcrawler).
Finally, in
The Last Stand, we saw the full evolution of her character. She was the leader of the team, the headmistress of the school, and a strong enough character to realize that sometimes you simply have to do what must be done. Her anger over the cure stems from her acceptance of her mutation and the idea that all she worked so hard to master and control could simply be wiped away with a little shot.
No, I don't think she was perfect, just as Logan was imperfect as well. Both characters worked very well when they were in their established characterization as set by the previous 2 movies. However, since Scott's place on the team has been cannibalized by Storm and Logan, they each have little moments where they're not completely in character as they should be.
I'd like to thank you, BF for pointing out that Logan has assimilated Scott's role (hehe... Locutus
), as it pretty much summarizes much of what I felt was wrong with the film. It seems in the story that any place we should have had Scott interacting with Jean, we got Logan, and any place we should have had Scott interacting with the school or Professor, we got Storm.
I think Storm was way too angry in this film. Her arc with Nightcrawler in X2 led to her becoming a more balanced person, more faithful and less hateful. In TLS, it's all fanaticism and no substance. She yells at everyone, she has no faith in Jean, who should be her friend. I like Storm: I like militant Storm: but it's not the only side to her character, and the Storm we get is a one dimensional cutout of the character in the books.
Anyway, here's the end:
39. Alcatraz I – So after “hold this line”, then. We finally get to see some all-out action with the X-Men, and it’s a good thing. The climax is pretty much the best part of this movie. I don’t like that Jean is forgotten about the way she is, but chalk that off to the inability to give her something to do within the plot. She still doesn’t work as an X-Man. Wolverine has a cute one-liner which, if nothing else, tells us this is, indeed, a Ratner film. To be fair, Singer had his share of one-liners in his films, and it gets a chuckle, so it’s cool. Kitty chases after Juggernaut, and right, “he’s the Juggernaut, *****”. Psylocke and Arclight, still nameless, kidnap Worthington, and Quill kills Kavita in cold blood. Shoreh was definitely wasted. Beast quotes Churchill, and simultaneously Kelsey totally channels the character. Perfect casting. Cameron Bright is still a really bad actor when Kitty goes to rescue him, and Juggernaut gets outsmarted. Did Kitty really have to say ********? It felt unnecessary to me, and it wasn’t even funny like Juggernaut ***** was. I like Ken Leung’s delivery of “do we look like we need your help?” They push Worthington off the roof, and—Angel! He must have stowed away with the X-Men. Wish we would’ve seen that, but that’s okay. What is NECESSARY is a scene, just a few words, between father and son. We don’t get that, and it hurts the film.
40. Alcatraz II – Magneto and Pyro team up and hurl flaming cars. It’s a cool idea, and again, always nice to see the mutants using their powers together. Here’s some controversy- the X-men spot a few extra cure darts and decide they have to use them on Magneto. There’s a callback to Logan and Storm’s Danger Room confrontation that’s pretty campy and clichéd. Bobby and John square off, but it’s not that exciting. It’s actually staged a lot like the Harry/Voldemort fight in Goblet of Fire, which isn’t a complement. There’s nothing visually interesting. Bobby finally ices up, but it’s so anticlimactic it doesn’t really make an impact. Magneto stops Wolverine, but Beast leaps behind him (the effect looks sorta weird here) and Powell’s “cured” motif recurs. Ian does a good job here, but I wish that we’d had a little more conflict among the X-Men using the cure as a weapon, which they should REALLY be against.
41. Phoenix Rises – Cyclops tells Jean it’s over. But then all the soldiers ever fire on Jean, and she gets hella pissed (but still no flame). Cyclops yells really loud, but it doesn’t stop her from ripping everyone to shreds. I like this scene, I like the extended version better, but hey, what we got is still pretty cool. Everyone runs away, because Cyclops is the only one who can stop her. Magneto asks the camera what he’s done—seriously, Brett, stop pointing the camera right at people’s faces!! Cyclops calls out to Jean and starts a heroic march up to her, but she rips him apart. It’s an emotional scene, helped tremendously by Powell’s score, where the Phoenix theme takes off with female choirs shrieking in Sanskrit and plenty of war drums and orchestra hits. It’s epic, and a clear indication there should’ve been more focus on Phoenix in the movie. This feels kind of empty. Jean’s a powerful threat, but there’s no humanity because no one’s seen Jean except Logan/Cyclops. Jean wants to be saved, but Cyclops loves her. So much that he stabs her, to free her. Jean’s pretty happy about that, and then she dies. Cool effect of the water collapsing. Cyclops yells up at the heavens, sad that Jean is dead. Again.
42. Finale – Two tombstones. They’re pretty ugly and plain. At least they bothered to make one for Scott (they still haven’t looked for a body or anything, mind. I guess they’re confused since Cyclops is still walking around the mansion, just with muttonchops). Rogue tells Bobby that she got cured. It’s not what he wanted, but it is what she wanted. And now she can wuv wuv him all night long! Storm welcomes Leech to the school. Hope he doesn’t inadvertently kill anyone by turning off their powers. Hank is appointed as an ambassador the UN, which doesn’t make too much sense. And what is with major plot points happening on TV in this movie? Then Cyclops goes out and looks wistfully into the sky as Powell’s score blares. God, I hope that’s not the end. Oh, no, Angel’s theme. And there he is, flying over the GG bridge as it’s rebuilt. Nice scene. Pan down to a park. Erik plays chess all by himself, and tries to move a chess piece with his powers. It works. Incidentally, watching this with headphones, I can hear one particular extra telling a boy to “watch your little sister”. Makes me wish I had surround sound, and not my laptop, just to see what other sounds I’m missing.
Okay, so that’s the movie. As a whole, I think it works. It’s got great acting from everyone involved, even the bit players. I think that the major faults lie in the writing, even more than the directing. Occasionally Brett makes some mistakes, but he more than makes up for it most of the time. The writing, however, is lazy, hackneyed, and often just plain bad. Other times it’s right on the nose, but it’s too hit and miss, honestly. The movie never reaches the epic heights that we were promised, and that’s a little bit of a letdown for sure.
The Phoenix story is largely neglected: it really seems like we just got the Cliffs Notes version. There are many missed opportunities for several characters, especially Jean and Storm. A lot of times there’s a major emotional disconnect, as Jean only ever speaks to Scott, Logan, Xavier, and Magneto throughout the entire film. She’s more important than that, and deserves more than that. Avi Arad thinks that Phoenix couldn’t sustain an entire film. I heavily disagree: more on that in a future fan fic, more than likely. Honestly, I think this film should have been left to either the cure or Phoenix, but not both. They’re never efficiently juggled, and I feel like the Phoenix Rising sequence at the end is simply tacked on because they needed to conclude that plot.
While the film does have several emotionally moving scenes, too many of the scenes rely on the previous films, with not enough within THIS film to really make them work. There’s a little leeway because it’s the third film in a trilogy, but not that much. The pace is too fast, and there’s no denying it. Ultimately, we all know that this movie was made by the studio, and so there’s only so much that could have been done. Considering the circumstances, it’s a good movie. It’s not as good as X2. I think it is about on par with X-Men, however. I’m not going to compare it to Superman Returns, because they aren’t similar films at all, and there’s no fair way to make that comparison. Is it a worthy end to the trilogy? Yes and no. It does end all the relevant character arcs, though some (ROGUE) are ended in less than satisfying ways. While subtext in a film isn’t bad, I feel like too many aspects of the cure plot were left to viewer to fill in. There should have been much more sociopolitical allegory in this film, but instead we’re given a starting point, some token (poorly acted) debate, and then thrust into the action.
The fact of the matter is, the film feels like two separate movies spliced together. Each plot is strong enough to sustain its own film, and I feel like there needed to be a choice made. It’s not a terrible film. There are many mistakes, but there’s also a lot to like. It trumps both previous films on action, hands down. And the showdown at Jean’s house is probably one of the best scenes in the trilogy. There’s no denying that Ratner has a better visual sense than Singer, although I might be more ready to attribute that to cinematographer Dante Spinotti. It’s not a masterpiece of cinema, but neither is X2. It’s a competent comic book film, certainly better than Batman and Robin, Daredevil, and any number of others. It may be lacking a bit in emotion overall, but several of the scenes are quite moving.
In the end, it’s a film with a lot of minor issues, but few fundamental flaws. It’s incredibly annoying that Halle still has nothing to do. It’s clear that no one knows what to do with Storm, and she got the screentime simply because she’s Halle Berry. This character CAN be done justice, but no one seems to want to be bothered. Jackman is still very good, but the writers essentially turn him into Cyclops for the last act. Of course, that’s because it should be Cyclops, but Wolverine is more marketable. That’s inexcusable, and this isn’t a fan-specific issue, either: it’s incongruous with the first two films. The rest of the characters are good, even those who don’t have too much time to shine.
All things considered, it’s slightly above average. I hate rating films, but I figure it’s a good way to cap this off. I’ll give my score on a normal letter scale. X-Men: The Last Stand gets a B- from me. To put that in perspective, X-Men gets a B+, and X2 gets an A. It’s not awful. It does everything well, but not as well as the A movie (or, for that matter, the B+ movie). A B- is still above average, though, which I do believe this film is. It could and should have been a hell of a lot worse. This is getting sort of long winded now, so that’ll just be the end. But hopefully this makes my views a lot clearer, since I know I’ve confused myself as far as my opinions on this movie are concerned. Take it for what it’s worth, and I look forward to hearing your takes as well.
To make things easier, maybe anyone commenting could use the same scene identification system I’ve set up? For example, to talk about the Jean flashback, refer to it as “scene 1-20 Years Ago” (or even just “scene 1”
. Thanks for reading!
EDIT for coherence.
If you want it more realistic, a club of black people with the poster "No Ku Klux Klan allowed". 
