Now as I said last week this is a two part review. This part is the review of X3 while part two is my further thoughts on X3 which explains my problem with this film and how could they did it differently.
X-Men: The Last Stand or X3: The Last Stand was the third installment in the X-Men franchise that came out in 2006. While the first two X-Men films were directed by Bryan Singer which I believe he did a good job decided to drop out directing X3 to go directing Superman Returns. So Brett Ratner took over to direct X3 and the final result a complete and utter mess of a film. Now Brett Ratner is most known for directing the Rush Hour film series which is more of a poor man's Lethal Weapon in my opinion.
So the film starts off with flashbacks one with Professor X and Magneto meeting the younger Jean Grey. And another one with Warren Worthington III (Angel) already beginning to mutate which soon after his father finds out and this is basically where the search for the mutant cure begins. After the opening credits we see the X-Men in "combat" with an unseen enemy which turns out to be a Sentinel (giant robots design to hunt down mutants). Wolverine (played by Hugh Jackman) manages to chop its head off ending the "fight" which turns that the whole battle was the Danger Room (the X-Men's training room) As much it was nice to see the Danger Room and a Sentinel in the same film deep down it's a tad bit disappointing and abrupt. The X-Men soon learned that the government has developed the cure for genetic mutation which turns out that the cure is a mutant (named Leech who can dampen or negate the powers of other mutants). Of course this information gets to Magento (played Sir Ian Mckellen) and he doesn't like this at all as most mutants are now taking the cure including Rogue. So he decided to rally up any mutants who don't want the cure which he meets with "The Omegas". Not The Morlocks which that would be your first thought if you're familiar with the X-Men comic series but no they're called the Omegas. Why would they change the name of an established group of outcast is beyond me but I'm saving my argument on that for part two. While that's going on Cyclops (played by James Marsden) (still depress about Jean's death at the end of X2) begins to hear thoughts from Jean and heads back to Alkali Lake where she died. Eventually Cyclops finds Jean (played by Famke Janssen) alive but somehow different resulting Cyclops to die off-screen. Professor X (played by Patrick Stewart) has a psychic sense from Alkali Lake and sends Wolverine and Storm (played by Halle Berry) there to investigate. They find Jean but no Cyclops and brought her back to the school.
It's explained that when she was a child Jean developed a split-personality which called itself the Phoenix. To be fair that's actually pretty good, in the comics the whole phoenix situation occurred in outer space. X2 didn't end in outer space otherwise that would be a little silly. So to change the outer space origin to a split-personality origin actually does works. But unfortunately this explanation is not fully explored further mainly because of the conflicting sub-plots in the film but more on that in part two. So Jean/Phoenix goes ape-crap for a moment and escapes the mansion and somehow has not faced with any resistance whatsoever. Magneto becomes aware of this via Callisto's (played by Dania Ramirez) ability to sense the presence and powers of other mutants an ability she DOESN'T HAVE IN THE COMICS. At this point Brett Ratner is not even trying to match the mutant powers with the characters so expect a lot stupidity of Ratner pointed out in part two. So the X-Men and the Brotherhood converge at Jean's childhood home the Professor and Magneto try to talk her down but doesn't work out well. So Jean/Phoenix starts psychically attacking Professor X while the X-Men and the Brotherhood fight erupts outside. Eventually Jean/Phoenix kills Professor X and Magneto takes her away. With X2 already established the "Phoenix Force" power which is obviously fire/flame of energy but here it's a full on Evil Willow effect ripoff. Why? Moving on the film pads out with the students mourning for Charles Xavier's death while Magneto lends his mutant army to Alcatraz Island where the cure is being distributed. Final scenes of the film take place at Alcatraz with the X-Men defending the humans from Magneto's army. I must say as much as this battle seem awesome to look at but it feel's almost average. Most of Magneto's army appears to have copy-and-paste abilities which make this battle feel unimpressive and lazy. So obviously the X-Men win the battle, defeated Magneto by injected him with the cure, and with Wolverine killed Jean/Phoenix. The film ends with the government beginning to accept mutants with Beast/Hank McCoy (played by Kelsey Grammer) as a mutant ambassador at the U.N. and Storm manages the school as the new Headmistress. The final scene of the film shows Magneto at park playing chess alone with his hand hovering over a chess piece hinting that the mutant cure didn't work after all.
My Further Thoughts: Hello everyone and welcome to part 2 of the X3 review. So basically this part of the review is my thoughts on X3. As I pointed out last week there's a plethora of flaws in X3 that makes you think did Brett Ratner did any research before making this film. Well apparently it doesn't feel it with X3 for one there's at least three sub-plots in the film that are conflicting one other. You have the Cure sub-plot, the Human-Mutant War sub-plot, and the Dark Phoenix sub-plot. At least two of these sub-plots would work together in this film maybe but again there's just too many sub-plots going on. There's two ways they could have done with the plot. One the cure plot could have been use as human propaganda. Meaning that the government has discover the mutant cure but Magneto believes that it's a lie there is no cure it's all human propaganda. So Magneto convinces most mutants by secretly destroying camps where mutants are taking the cure. Making it look like the humans are using this false hope as a way to gather mutants in one place and then capture or kill them. This would lead to the Human-Mutant war due to Magneto's deadly persuasion over most of the mutants. Two have the plot be that the cure is a product of human propaganda to serve as a smokescreen for a secret project developed by the government. Somewhere through the film Magneto discovers this Project Wideawake is a plot to capture or eliminate mutants. So this leads Magneto to warn everyone that there is a cure is a lie but no one doesn't want to believe and you have the Human-Mutant War again. As for the Dark Phoenix plot they could save that for a possible fourth X-Men film, it really didn't need to be in X3. Mainly because it has its own plot that actually last through the film and not to mention introducing new characters to give the film series a breath of fresh air. And again having the Phoenix a split-personality origin really works in its own film instead of clashing with two other sub-plots.
Most of the issues in this film are the completely misuse and inaccurate interpretation of some of the mutant characters. For instance, "The Omega" (The Morlocks) unbelievably misinterpreted Ratner really has no clue what they do, what their names are, or why put them in this film. To start Callisto (played by Dania Ramirez) it's like they try to make her look more intimidating by giving her two different powers from other mutants in the comics. Superhuman speed (Quicksilver) and the ability to sense and track other mutants (Caliban) two abilities which she doesn't have in the comics. Kid Omega (played by Ken Leung) instead of having omega level psionic powers here he has "quill" powers. I'm sorry but if you have Omega in your name it's mandatory that you may become a badass this film doesn't do that which is deeply sad. And lastly Psylocke (played by Meiling Melançon) who her power in this film is the ability to.....go in Predator camouflage mode. So it's bad enough that Ratner brings in characters whose names and powers don't match up at all. Now the only "Omega" character who's truly accurate from the comics was Arclight (played by Omahyra Mota). Yeah don't try to get the popular characters right but have that one character that no one cares just right. Other characters make appearance in this film but they don't do much of anything other than being cannon fodders. Like the Juggernaut (played by Vinnie Jones) whom in the comics he's Charles Xaiver's step-brother yet they don't establish that in the film so basically he's just a bad fan request. At least in X2 they gave a hint hint wink wink in a scene with Nightcrawler and Mystique (that they're mother and son).
My Final Verdict: This film is one of those films that even if you enjoyed it, subconsciously you're gonna be a little unsatisfied. X3 displays how much Brett Ratner is too incompetent for a film franchise like X-Men and again not sure if he did any research before making this film. Sub-plots clash each other without any smooth exposition among the characters nor the main plot. Basically X3 is a mess of action scenes, no purpose misinterpret characters, and misused plots.
Next week I'm reviewing a good Schumacher film in fact it's the only good Schumacher film that I know. That's right next week I'm reviewing The Lost Boys, stay tuned.
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