"In chess, the pawns go first" (X-Men - The Last Stand (DVD))

Member Name: triplecthegame

Product:	X-Men - The Last Stand (DVD)
Date:	16/06/06 (185 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Famke Janssen, Excellent special effects, Kelsey Grammar as Beast

Disadvantages: It's all packed in a bit too much in too little time

Not wanting to sound up myself but when it comes to movies like the X-Men Trilogy I’m probably one of the hardest people to please - reason being? Not only am I a fan of Movies in General, I’m also a big Comic-Book fan, so no matter how good a movie is, if it isn’t up to the standard of the Comic or if there’s parts changed (even if for the better) then I’m not happy, however after leaving The Last Stand I had a half smile on my face at how well it had been done as a Comic-Book movie, but as a Stand Alone movie, well the jury‘s still out on that one.

The general storyline behind the movie is simple - there are people living amongst us who thanks to a different gene in their system have different powers who’ve been dubbed Mutants, the general public have been raised to almost fear them and the whole ethic of being a Mutant is an illness. Fast forward to present day and there’s been a ‘cure’ found to the Mutant Gene that leaves the recipients normal humans however some Mutants aren’t happy at this and have decided to stand up and fight against it, throw in a second group of Mutants that although they don’t like the idea of a ‘cure’ they also don’t want to wage war to stop it and add in a Major character coming back from the dead with an evil streak re-born in her and you’ve got the premise of The Last Stand. Now that is an extremely quick and short synopsis of the general storyline and believe me that its a lot more intertwined than that and if I was to go into detail then you’d still be reading this review tomorrow - but hopefully you get the general idea.

Onto the specifics of the movie and firstly to how the storyline’s played out - it does the comic-book version proud, in the books although the storylines are mostly serious there was always an underlying humour to the story and a lot of times in Movie versions of comic books you’ll see that they don’t hit the tone right and it either ends up too serious or too jokey, in The Last Stand they’ve hit the nail on the head. Wolverine is as picky as ever, and the new characters brought in stay loyal to their paper bound counterparts.

Then there’s the story itself, as with the whole of the X-Men franchise be it Comic-Book, Cartoon or Movie there’s always a general theme of acceptance of those different to the majority and The Last Stand is no exception - and to a degree the story is done well, but its also a tad rushed, in a total of 1 and 3 quarter hours there’s several new characters to introduce, several shocking moments and 2 major storylines to intertwine with each other and its a bit too action packed so to speak.

Onto the acting performances, when I first looked at the cast sheet 2 names startled me in a not so good way, firstly Vinnie Jones playing Juggernaut, a man who’s acting talents have never impressed me and secondly Kelsey Grammar playing Beast, the idea of the man behind both Frasier Crane and Sideshow Bob being in an X-Men Movie just seemed wrong, but having said that neither of them majorly disappointed me when it all ended up on the big screen, in fact I’d go as far as saying Grammar wowed me as Beast and almost seemed born for the role.

From the rest of the cast there isn’t one bad performance I can think of, however there are plenty of characters that stood out especially Famke Janssen playing Jean Grey/Phoenix - in the 2 previous films she’s always been good, but heck she takes it up a notch in this one, so much so that my comments to my fellow filmgoers were along the lines of ‘She can have my Babies’, when she’s on screen even if she’s just standing there and not saying a word she has a controlling presence. However that’s not taking anything away from any of the other characters, Halle Berry will never be one of my favourite actresses but she makes the character of Storm her own, even though she had no character explanation Ellen Page plays the character of Kitty Pryde excellently and then as per always Sir Ian Mckellen and Patrick Stewart play the characters of Magneto and Professor X to absolute perfection.

As can be expected with such a huge release the Special Effects have been done to a tee, in a movie where random people have different special powers its obvious that a lot of your times going to be spent showing them off, be it a bit of lighting effects, CGI showing a character flying through the air or manipulation of a characters features, it has to be a big part of the movie - but it doesn’t seem tacked on like it so easily could have been and it does adds an extra edge to the movie.

Music and Scenery wise the producers have again gotten it spot on, the woods where a major part of the film are simply breath-taking and add to the action feel of the film. Then there are the mock-ups of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge - both times they seem so lifelike to the originals. Music-wise it’s there, it’s great but it’s not in your face and is almost incidental to the film, which makes it just that little bit better as an overpowering soundtrack would have ruined the movie in my eyes.

So overall thoughts? It’s good but it’s not the greatest it could have been, the way they forced too much action and too many new characters into a film that it does at times seem like a bit of a mess, but as a comic-book translation it excels itself, its one of those rare things that is both a semi-decent film but a true to book cross over and for that I applaud it, and finally saying this - its a movie that NEEDS to be seen on the big screen, getting it on DVD won’t do the special effects justice, plus if Famke Janssen ever reads this - marry me?

Summary: A semi-worthy addition to the series just a bit too action packed.