X.Men 3 Last Stand Movie.

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The problem with X-Men, The Last Stand is not that it's bad, because it's not. The problem is that both X-Men and X2 were good, it had a lot to live up to, and considering it had a new director and new scriptwriters, it would be extremely hard for it to be better than its predeceases.Sir Ian, Patrick Picard, Hugh Wolverine were all excellent as expected. The young mutant boy with the 'cure' was great for the part too, and should have featured more IMHO

The X-Men movies did one thing which I thought was almost impossible to do for the movies, and that is to massage the multi-characters' egos into one feature length film, within reasonable screen time. congratulations are necessary for Bryan Singer and his team, for pulling the original X-Men off, then top it with X2, beating odds, that sequels are generally crap, what with bigger sets, action, and horrors, even more characters!

With Singer's departure for another summer movie this year, the grand daddy of superheroes, Superman, the X-Men franchise was temporarily put into development hell, and was left direction-less. Having its stars ask for more money and a bigger role, was natural too. But I'm glad that these issues were resolved and director Brett Ratner took on the thankless task of adding a rudder to steer a fitting last movie of a trilogy (will there be more?well IMO yes)

And I'm glad to announce it's one of best 2006 movies so far, one which surpassed my expectations, which probably was low to begin with. It had a decent storyline which is a direct continuation from X2, and had bleak moments interspersed throughout the movie. A cure has been found, extracted from a fellow mutant boy, which the humans offer to the mutants to become normal again. But just what is normal? Herein lies the age old question to the theme like you-are-who-you-are, stay-true-to-yourself etc. But it doesn't bog down the pace of the movie, not quite, especially since most will be in it for the action. And it's always human tendency to want to weaponize anything for that advantage over our enemies. We come in peace? Hell yeah yeah where have I heard that before?

There are again plenty of set action pieces, some of which will disappoint, like the beginning which somewhat borrowed from a bad Terminator setting, but on the other end of the spectrum, the Grey House battle is the best among all, beating even the finale. It's full of concurrent action, tense moments, loads of special effects with a dash of character development. The finale battle was great (look out for the Iceman teaser), but I thought it was a bit of a letdown with its major continuity error with the bleeding cars on the bridge WTF.

Not surprisingly, having Hugh Jackman and Halle Berry's names headlining the marquee, Wolverine (as always, the most popular X-character) and Storm had more leadership roles in this sequel. But, and no offence to the fans, it seemed that Wolverine's solo action sequence was a bit ordinary, like watching a scene from Mortal Kombat. If there's gonna be a movie spin off, show off more slicing and dicing, up the violence a bit more blood, a little and slap it with some rating.

But with the focus on the 2 main leads, as well as The Beast, little attention is paid toward Magneto and his brotherhood (then again, we need not have much introduction and can afford diving straight in), and fans of Mystique will be disappointed with the diminished role, as do other characters like Rogue, Cyclops and new kid on the block Angel (looked really cosmetic if you ask me).

The Phoenix was introduced to great fanfare, and it made a bit more sense without the fusion of that outer space element from the comics. This story-arc is the main pivot, and it was a fantastic scene in the beginning to witness the camaraderie between Charles Xavier and Eric Lensherr, before they became bitter enemies. I'd tip my hat too to the little moments of acknowledgement and admiration one has for the other, despite being on opposites.

All in all,not normally my real type of movie but it was very much enjoyable, and I'm sure fans of the movie franchise will agree it's a fitting end to the trilogy.This movie might be a little bit mature for children, but comic book fans, and fans of the films will thoroughly enjoy this. Though it hinted the option of making a fourth, and the more lucrative potential of solo character spin offs.my rating 7/10 for the action,but movie in general 6/10.