PREMIERE.COM'S MOVIE REVIEW (posted 5/26/06)

Comic-book enthusiasts can breathe a sigh of relief: Brett Ratner hasn't completely ruined the X-Men series a.k.a. ‘The Franchise that Bryan Singer Built.’ In fact, at first glance it's difficult to spot any substantial differences between the third film and its predecessors. But really, it shouldn't come as a shock that the director of Rush Hour has turned out a reasonably entertaining piece of blockbuster filmmaking. Unlike Singer, Ratner is a product of the Hollywood system and what his movies lack in style and personality, they usually make up for in professionalism (the ramshackle heist picture After the Sunset notwithstanding). He's a prime example of the director as hired hand rather than as artist and on that level, he's done his job effectively here.

The plot of The Last Stand consists of two main story threads, each of which is lifted directly from the pages of the comic book. The first involves the discovery of a cure for mutation, which sets off shockwaves within the mutant community. On the one hand, you've got mutants like X-Gal Rogue (Anna Paquin), who have never been comfortable with their powers. At the opposite end of the spectrum is Magneto (Ian McKellen), who, along with his Brotherhood of Mutants, plans to fight the cure by any means necessary. As for Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and the rest of his X-Men, they're somewhere in the middle, uncomfortable with the idea of curing mutation, but fully aware of its appeal. The other storyline is a loose re-telling of the seminal ‘Dark Phoenix’ saga, in which Jean Grey (Famke Janssen)—who was last seen sleeping with the fishes at the bottom of Alkalai Lake—returns from the dead as a super-powerful mutant with a lust for some of that good old-fashioned ultra-violence. After rejecting her former comrades, Jean/Phoenix joins up with Magneto's army as they march on San Francisco to destroy the source of the mutant cure: a creepy young boy (Cameron Bright, who has made a career playing creepy young boys in movies like Birth and Ultraviolet).

X-Men fans should be prepared to take movie's subtitle seriously, because a number of major characters perish, one of them within the first ten minutes. The most shocking death occurs about a half-hour in, at which point you think that Ratner is actually going to push the story to a darker place. But no, for the remainder of its running time The Last Stand becomes another CGI-heavy sound and light show, albeit one with better-than-average special effects. That's a shame, because some interesting characters are sidelined by the action, including two new faces Beast (played by Kelsey Grammer of all people) and Warren Worthington III (Ben Foster), a young mutant with giant feathery wings.

A number of familiar mutants have had their screentime reduced as well, most notably Rogue and Mystique, who only appear in glorified cameos. At least Hugh Jackman's Wolverine is still front and center, although it's a little depressing to see how this once dangerous outsider has been neutered over the course of the three films. By the end of The Last Stand, he's shown proudly donning the leather outfit that he ridiculed back in the first movie. Hopefully the rumored Wolverine spin-off will get Logan out of the X-mansion and back in the wild where he belongs.

Where Singer played up the real-world parallels inherent in the franchise's premise, Ratner clearly feels more comfortable when things are going boom. Lip service is paid to the questionable ethics behind a cure for mutation, but these scenes are largely rushed through in favor of the bigger set-pieces, culminating in the climactic battle royale between the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants. It's here that Ratner shows why he was hired; he may not be a deep thinker, but he does know how to oversee a stunt-filled action sequence. If the first two films tried, sometimes unsuccessfully, to elevate the comic-book movie, this one is satisfied to be a straightforward summer blockbuster. As a result, don't be surprised if The Last Stand becomes the highest-grossing X-Men adventure yet. —Ethan Alter