Film Review: X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

Also known as: X-Men 3, X-Men 3: The Last Stand (working titles), X3, X III: The Last Stand (alternative titles)
Release Date: May 22nd, 2006 (Cannes)
Directed by: Brett Ratner
Written by: Simon Kinberg, Zak Penn
Based on: X-Men by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby
Music by: John Powell
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen, Anna Paquin, Kelsey Grammer, James Marsden, Rebecca Romijn, Shawn Ashmore, Aaron Stanford, Vinnie Jones, Patrick Stewart, Ben Foster, Ellen Page, Dania Ramirez, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Bill Duke, Daniel Cudmore, Eric Dane, R. Lee Ermey, Ken Leung

The Donners’ Company, Marvel Enterprises, Twentieth Century Fox, 104 Minutes

Review:

“Charles Xavier did more for mutants than you will ever know. My single greatest regret is that he had to die for our dream to live.” – Magneto

From memory, this was the worst X-Men film of the lot. Well, after about a dozen movies with spinoffs and whatnot, this one still takes the cake in that regard.

This really killed the film franchise, at least for its time. It wouldn’t bounce back until First Class rolled around and gave the series a bit of a soft reboot.

Here, we see the original trilogy of films come to an end and unfortunately, that end is a very unsatisfactory one. Granted, none of these films have aged particularly well and they actually feel quite dated now.

That’s not to say that some of the performances aren’t great or iconic, a few of them are. Specifically, Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. This is probably also why they tried to find ways to include these guys in the X-Men films that followed during the reboot era.

The plot for this is pretty fucking atrocious and the film spends more time killing off beloved characters than trying to tell a good story. It’s like it went for shock and cheap emotional grabs but it failed in generating any real emotion because it all felt soulless and cheap.

I think the biggest issue with the film was that Bryan Singer left to make that big bust, Superman Returns. While Brett Ratner probably wasn’t a bad choice, the final product makes me feel like he was sort of just inserted into a movie that was already well into production and found himself in over his head.

The film is also pretty short when compared to the two chapter before it. It makes me wonder if a lot was left out of the final movie. It certainly feels like it’s lacking story, context and depth.

In the end, this is okay if you want to spend a little more time with these characters and if you turn your brain off, it has some neat moments, but overall, it’s a sloppy misfire.

Rating: 5.5/10
Pairs well with: the other films in the original X-Men trilogy.

Film Review: The Expendables 3 (2014)

Release Date: August 4th, 2014 (London premiere)
Directed by: Patrick Hughes
Written by: Sylvester Stallone, Creighton Rothenberger, Katrin Benedikt
Music by: Brian Tyler
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Antonio Banderas, Jet Li, Wesley Snipes, Dolph Lundgren, Kelsey Grammer, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Kellan Lutz, Ronda Rousey, Glen Powell, Victor Ortiz, Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford, Arnold Schwarzenegger

Millennium Films, Nu Image, Lionsgate, 126 Minutes

Review:

*Written in 2014.

“I need a job! All I know what to do is kill people! And I do that very well, Goddammit!” – Galgo

The Expendables 3 isn’t out yet but I saw it. This film is just about exactly what I expected. At this point, the novelty has worn off and the film is just incredibly cookie cutter, predictable and the one-liners made me roll my eyes. I can’t tell, at this point, if they are trying too hard or just not trying at all.

I feel like Stallone has taken the Michael Bay approach and just sees these as Transformers movies starring humans instead of CGI robots. I say that because like those films, The Expendables series has given us movies full of insane action sequences strung together by something barely resembling an actual plot that isn’t even all that important.

I get it though, these films are about celebrating the fact that all these cinematic bad asses are all together on the same screen, at the same time. But as I said, that novelty has worn off.

As the second film had to up the ante from the first, this one has to up the ante as well and gives us the addition of Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford, Kelsey Grammer, Antonio Banderas, Wesley Snipes and a new crew of younger Expendables. It has gotten to the point where there are just too many damn people on the team now. I feel like I am watching some sort of live-action version of the 80s G.I. Joe cartoon and every character in the entire series was forced on screen at one time. I almost feel that with a cast that has grown to be so massive, that this would work better as a television show. Granted, I doubt any of these big stars would commit to something so time consuming and they’d actually have to write a decent plot.

And speaking of time, it feels as if each big cameo actor got flown out to an exotic location and had about one day’s worth of work to shoot their scenes – having never read the script. Nothing about this felt genuine. I’m not saying that these guys don’t enjoy meeting up every two years to hang out on a film set and blow shit up but the camaraderie that they probably have in real life, doesn’t really come through on screen.

There is nothing from this film that is memorable. Having just watched it the other night, I can’t simply recall one sequence or scene that I can pinpoint as anything worthwhile to take away from this picture. It isn’t a waste of time, I liked it overall. However, The Expendables 3 only has enough steam to get it through one initial viewing. While I would watch another sequel in two years, I’m fine never seeing this or any of the previous films again.

Rating: 6/10