X-Men: The Last Stand

Hugh Jackman: Wolverine/Logan
Halle Berry: Storm/Ororo Munroe
Ian McKellan: Magneto/Eric Lensherr
Famke Janssen: Phoenix/Dr. Jean Grey
Kelsey Grammar: Beast/Dr. Hank McCoy
Directed by: Brett Ratner

Plot: The federal government comes across a “cure” for mutancy and offers it to its the mutant population. The announcement creates a rift in the X-Men between those that would like to be “normal” and those that are fine the way they are. Magneto is against the idea of the so-called “cure” and recruits a rag-tag group of mutants to destroy all traces of it. In a smaller subplot that gains momentum as the movie moves along Scott Summers/Cyclops, in a fit of depression, searches out the gravesite of Jean Grey only to realize that he may have awakened something much more dangerous than he could have imagined.

Review: This movie should have been released later this summer. It was obvious to me while watching the movie that not enough care was put into actually putting the story together. While this movie had its flaws with a dull plotline, characters that seemed a little too bored to be in an action film and moments where the movie just seemed to jump off and then back on track, the biggest problems with X-Men: The Last Stand had to do with the people behind the camera. All of these issues were just enhanced by the editing.

Simply put, the movie was edited poorly. It seems to me that part of the reason for this was to cover holes that they could not, or did not have the time to, fix with CGI. Big, beautiful action shots were shown close up and very quickly so the audience really could not get a good idea of what they were seeing, some of the action scenes were awkward and actually seemed to be cut short, which left me feeling a little gypped. Don’t get me wrong, some of the CGI was actually pretty incredible. The last 30 minutes of the movie was some of the coolest action I have ever seen and mixed pretty seamlessly with the CGI. I would watch the movie again just for the beautiful CGI if I didn’t have to sit through the first hour and a half to do it.

The editing caused a lot more than CGI problems. Because of the editing, the movie dragged in places a little longer than it should have, scenes that had real potential came across as dull and unexciting, and the movie just seemed clunky. One of the most disappointing of these scenes is in the Danger Room (yes, it is in this movie), a scene that should have had fans drooling and jumping in their seats, was shot in such a way that the subsequent reveal had all of the impact of a Star Trek holodeck scene. More than a few segues between scenes were awkward and overused to the point where it was just simply annoying. Case in point, more than a few times whenever they would cut to a new scene or announce something important it would be precluded by Professor X sitting in his wheelchair and looking off into the distance dreamily, like his spider-sense was tingling. It seems that for all of the time they took to put a great ending together the rest of the movie was left to its own devices. It is a shame really. If the creators had spent more time re-editing and re-shooting scenes that really did not fit together well along with a little more time in the special effects department I might have enjoyed this movie.
 

Film Review Index