Movie Review: X-Men: The Last Stand

X-Men: The Last Stand: Torgo approves

There's a clumsy conceit at the heart of this and all the X-Men movies. The mutants are a metaphor for a group that's discriminated against. In the last movie, I think it was a metaphor for race. In this one, it seems to be homosexuality. A "cure" is discovered, one that makes mutants no longer mutants. Sure, it'd mean Wolverine could get through airport security, but he wouldn't be such a bad-ass anymore.

This theme is played out by Angel and his father (the dad thinks, great! I can make my son not gay, I mean, a mutant!) and also played out by Rogue who, strangely, wants to lose her superpowers so she can give it up to her boyfriend, Iceman (I say strangely b/c this is all they give Rogue to do -- fret over losing her boyfriend. Rogue kills people by touching them. Storm makes it foggy. Magneto sticks to refrigerators. And this is the plotline for Rogue?!).

It leads to some forced dialogue and silly situations, including an incredibly weak ending to the Rogue story, one made all the more confounding in the dvd's deleted scenes, where we see that they filmed the story the way it should have ended.

Ok, but let's get past the plot. If you ignore Angel and Rogue and a lot of brooding, this is a very good movie.

I was happiest that they dramatically thinned out the cast. Lots of key mutants either get killed or 'unmutantated' throughout the movie, which was unexpected but welcome. I never got into the X-Men comics (though I apparently live with a X-Men uber-geek). The Fantastic Four was a large enough cast for me. I stuck more to Spider-Man, The Punisher, Batman -- smaller crowds where the metaphors were more subtle and nuanced (although, admittedly, I don't think the Punisher had much in the way of metaphors, I just thought he was cool when I was 12).

Back to the movie. It also centers much of the action in San Francisco. Sure, SF gets the crap kicked out of it. But it's nice to see familiar places. When we lived in Massachusetts, they filmed a lot of "Mystic River" in our town. I guess Clint Eastwood hung out at a local diner up the street from our apt. He liked the buffalo wings. That would've been more cool if I ever saw "Mystic River," but I haven't yet.

Anyway, it's slightly less cool b/c they didn't actually ever film in SF. It's all just effects shots. But it sure looks like SF.

I recommend this movie. The plot is kind of the same as the other two (mutants vs. humans vs. mutants over discrimination against mutants), but it's more satisfying here.

I haven't even mentioned Phoenix, a key character. She adds depth here. She's good, or was, as Jean Grey, but now she's bad, or neutral, or just capable of playing all sides.