Star: Anna Paquin

X-Men 3: The Last Stand (2006) – Hugh Jackman and Ian McKellen

There’s a lot of drama in this movie, and some decent action, and some intriguing aspects to the plot. Overall I rate it Bang Average on a par with the last couple of X-Men movies.

This movie is centred around the non-mutants (in this movie called ‘humans’ for some odd reason as if being a mutated human is equal to being a non-human) having found a mutant who has the ability to strip powers from any mutant who goes near him. From this ability, a ‘cure’ has been made, delivered in needle format. Magneto and friends team up against the ‘humans’, with the core team of X-Men trying to prevent a war. And the key concept that really defines this movie, aside from the ‘cure’ and Magneto’s antics, is Jean Grey coming back from the dead and having unlocked her Class 5 powers making her more powerful than anyone else – she even kills Professor X although that’s because she has a split personality between malevolent and benevolent sides, due to Professor X having repressed her powers for everyone’s protection since she was a child. Eventually, Magneto’s crew wage a siege on Alcatraz where the ‘cure’ is being made, but Magneto gets hit with the ‘cure’, then just as things are about to end amicably, the military fire on Jean Grey and this makes her angry, which is a big problem – only Logan can stop her by appealing to her heart before stabbing and killing her. What kind of culture is this movie trying to nurture with behaviour like this?

The cast is pretty much the same as usual, with Hugh Jackman playing Logan aka Wolverine, Ian McKellen playing Eric Lehnsherr aka Magneto, Patrick Stewart playing Professor Charles Xavier, Famke Janssen playing Jean Grey aka Phoenix, Halle Berry playing Ororo Munroe aka Storm, Anna Paquin playing Marie aka Rogue, James Marsden playing Scott Summers aka Cyclops, Rebecca Romijn playing Raven Darkholme aka Mystique, Shawn Ashmore as Bobby Drake aka Ice Man, Aaron Stanford as John Allerdyce aka Pyro, as well Daniel Cudmore as Peter Rasputin aka Colossus the metal man who always seems missing from the main set of credits for some odd reason.

Plus we get to see a lot more of Kelsey Grammar playing Dr Henry ‘Hank’ McCoy aka Beast, who’s involved in politics with the humans. And we get to see a bit more of Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde who can phase through walls, floors and ceilings, or people – anything really.

We also get the odd interesting new character, such as Vinnie Jones playing Juggernaut who can walk through walls and anything else – he is an unstoppable object when on the move. And Ben Foster plays a mutant with large wings like a bird, called Angel, and his father runs the lab that developed the ‘cure’, and his father wants to ‘cure’ him, but he escapes, then comes back in the end to save his father’s life, using his unique abilities.

Speaking of Ben Foster, the LGBT theme is a bit over the top in this movie, with men dressing up in women’s clothes too, and even calling themselves girls. It’s a bit weird, but that’s Hollywood for you – sometimes they can’t help themselves, and sometimes it seems like a key driver that helped get the movie sponsored.

Sequels

Now that we’ve completed the early trilogy, since Xavier died in this one, the following X-Men movies go off on a tangent to focus on the story of Logan / Wolverine, and simultaneously a few prequel general X-Men movies are made. So there’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), then X-Men First Class (2011) and it alternates back and forth between Wolverine movies and prequel movies, with releases in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, and then there’s Dark Phoenix in 2019 which very much resembles Captain Marvel from the same year (strong lead female with energy powers). By this time, Jean Grey (aka Phoenix) had been re-cast and is now played by Sophie Turner, the star of Dark Phoenix – the same Class 5 mutant that should have stole the show in X-Men 3: The Last Stand but her role as the most powerful mutant ever wasn’t properly capitalised on and most of the marketing placed more emphasis on Halle Berry (Storm) who was a big star at the time since she played the main Bond girl in Die Another Day (2002) and took the lead role in Catwoman (2004). Dare I say, there’s also been a recent X-Men spinoff in the form of the Deadpool trilogy starring Ryan Reynolds, which features Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. I’m not a big fan of that toilet humour genre myself though, so I’m not recommending those Deadpool movies – just mentioning it for completeness.

DC & Marvel Mutants

X-Men 2: X2 (2003) – Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen

This movie gets off to a better, much quicker start than the first X-Men movie, as an angry mutant storms the White House.

It’s nice to see the concepts of the school and of Cerebro being expanded upon early in this movie too, after being briefly established in the last movie but not very much capitalised on.

The action builds up to really interesting crescendo after the half hour mark, when Stryker invades the mutants’s school after Magneto’s tip-off, with only Logan and a few kids to hold down the fort against swat team style special forces operatives pouring in from helicopters. And the action gets even more interesting when Magneto makes his escape from his plastic prison, before the one hour mark.

The action in the back-end of the movie is a bit less intriguing, and a lot more chaotic with plenty of tense moments. This is a classic example of how more action doesn’t necessarily equate to a better action movie. While the quality of the first hour was on a part to be Above Average, the less pleasant second half brings down the overall rating to Bang Average in my opinion. There’s a pretty cool scene around the 2 hour mark though, as Xavier has a little word with the POTUS while making time stand still for everyone else in his office.

The cast is much the same as the last movie, with Hugh Jackman playing Logan aka the Wolverine, Patrick Stewart playing Professor Charles Xavier, Ian McKellen playing Magneto, Halle Berry as Ororo Munroe aka Storm, Famke Janssen as Jean Grey, James Marsden as Scott Summers aka Cyclops, Anna Paquin as Rogue, Rebecca Romijn as Raven Darkholme aka Mystique, Brian Cox as William Stryker, Alan Cumming as Kurt Wagner aka Nightcrawler, Aaron Stanford as Pyro, Shawn Ashmore as Ice Man, and a few more interesting characters besides them, but that covers the extended core cast pretty well already.

DC & Marvel

X-Men (2000) – Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart

The distressing opening scene that builds the backstory of this movie’s main antagonist (Magneto) consists of little more than screaming, crying and white noise sound effects. Not a good start for those who prefer smoother action hero movies while trying to steer clear of horror and unpleasant drama genres. Fortunately, this only lasts a few minutes, and then the drama scenes become increasingly interesting until we see Logan (aka the Wolverine) in an old-school no-holds-barred cage fight around 10 minutes in. That scene is still full of white noise though – not particularly pleasant on the ears. Someone needs a word with the atmospherics director, else at least the head of sound.

The real top-tier action begins at 13 minutes in, as the losing cage fighter suspects Logan of being a mutant, then tries to stab him in the back, at which point Logan then reveals his hidden weapons and his true colours.

By the end of the first hour, we’ve had a good dose of action, the sci-fi plot is quite intriguing and the drama scenes are generally quite interesting for an action movie fan. The miserable gritty stuff from early on seems well behind us now, thankfully.

Core Cast & Characters

All the main characters were quite well established in the first hour, including all the main members of the X-Men team led by Professor Charles Xavier aka Professor X, a powerful mind-reading & mind-controlling telepath played well by Patrick Stewart (perhaps best known as Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek), as well as the main antagonist (Magneto, a powerful telekinetic of metal, played equally well by Ian McKellen who looks a bit like Ron Paul), and his main accomplices.

The movie mainly follows the life of Logan aka the Wolverine, played very well by Hugh Jackman. Among his fellow X-Men, are Ororo Munroe aka Storm who has weather-control powers like wind, thunder & lighting, while occasionally displaying glowing eyes like Thor and is played adequately by Halle Berry; as well as Famke Janssen (with vibes of Jennifer Garner from Marvel’s Elektra, or Gal Gadot from DC’s Wonder Woman) who is also a telepath (called Doctor Jean Grey) but has not yet learnt to fully control and harness her powers. There’s also Cyclops who shoots a laser beam from his eye and is played adequately by James Marsden. Logan also befriends a girl called Rogue who has the ability to take people’s powers from them, and is played adequately by Anna Paquin. On the baddies’ team there’s Sabretooth who’s like a stronger but slower version of the Wolverine and is played adequately by Tyler Mane (behind heavy mask & makeup); as well as a weird shapeshifting unclothed blue woman with reptilian scales called Mystique played by Rebecca Romijn, and an equally weird leaping long-tongued creature called Toad played by Ray Park.

The X-Men vs The Avengers

This whole setup of so many people with different superpowers in one movie, reminds me of the more recent Avengers movies by Marvel, although I have to say, everyone seems a lot better co-ordinated in the X-Men movies. This is probably mostly due to there being a single clear leader in Xavier who everyone generally trusts & respects, but it may also be partly due to there being a different intention behind the script.

In the Avengers movies, Captain America tries to take the leadership role but he’s clearly one of the weaker Avengers, or at least somewhere in the middle, so it doesn’t really work, and Iron Man tends to steal the show every time although it should probably be Thor since his scenes are generally the best and he’s a practically indestructible deity, as opposed to a feeble man in a suit or an enhanced man with a shield.

But they have to downplay Thor’s abilities and role to prevent him overshadowing the other Avengers since they’re all pretty feeble in comparison. Even in his own movies he’s frequently stripped of his powers to make his dilemmas credible. I mean Thor alone is not much less powerful than Thor with all the Avengers by his side, considering how he sometimes mows down entire fields full of alien warriors with his lightning powers and his practically unstoppable weapons, so people like Captain America and Black Widow and Hawkeye by his side can’t really add much value on the battlefield unless Thor’s role & powers are heavily downplayed while the others are massively overplayed. Guys like the Hulk and Iron Man and the Scarlet Witch seem powerful enough to add value to Thor’s team, but even their powers are typically downplayed in order to allow the weaker Avengers to still look good. Why not just bunch the best ones together to form a better version of the Avengers? Because it doesn’t suit the agendas. They need Captain America as their front man at all costs, it seems, even if he’s the least interesting of all and is feeble in comparison to the likes of Iron Man, Hulk and Thor.

The second hour

The second hour of X-Men continues with a lot of scene setting still. There appears to be a lack of direction to this movie – the introduction phase seems hard to move past. But eventually we switch into a serious battle which merges into the final action scene. These final action scenes certainly have plenty of time to be delivered diligently – they’re well built, not rushed at all, and the mild drama scenes that finish off the movie are pretty well poised and well delivered too. But as a result of going from a prolonged bout of scene setting, straight into the semi-final and final action scenes, it seems like we’re missing a layer or two in the middle somewhere. This movie seems a bit one dimensional for this reason. Fortunately, it can be treated as the first movie of many in the X-Men movie series, and this is kind of its saving grace, turning it from a movie that’s too short, missing plot development in the middle, to a movie that can be treated as just the first chapter of a well developed story – not dissimilar to an old comicbook in this respect. Nevertheless, when rating this as a standalone movie, I have to acknowledge its lack of plot direction and lack of development in the middle. While the team is well coordinated, and the sides are well opposed, and the scene setting was decent, and the ending was cute and nicely multi-layered, it seems Xavier was out of action for the most part, offering no leadership of any kind in the second half of the movie. His powers are massively under-utilised and the heroes seem short of a mission, aim or direction. For these reasons I have to rate this movie just OK, but if these things were corrected it could have been rated several levels higher.

The school setup, with kids having superpowers being trained in a secret school for mutants, could have been a bigger factor in this movie too, adding plenty of value to the script, but that could have caused the main characters to lose screen time, or made the movie inappropriately long. So I don’t blame them for keeping this aspect of the plot quite simple and untapped into. Still, if I remember correctly, this school setup becomes a big thing in at least one of the future movies in the X-Men movie series, so the opportunity’s not totally wasted.

Sequels and Spin-Offs

If you enjoyed X-Men (2000) and wish to watch its immediate sequels next, check out X2 (2003) then X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) to complete the initial trilogy from the noughties.

After that, you may wish to move on to watching the spin-off Wolverine trilogy (released 2009, 2013, 2017) alongside watching the four X-Men prequels (released 2011, 2014, 2016, 2019). Since they have inter-splicing release dates they’re probably all worth watching in one long list in order of release date rather than separating them into Wolverine spin-offs and X-Men prequels.

Following all of that, you may wish to move onto the Deadpool trilogy (released 2016, 2018, 2024) where Hugh Jackman also features as Wolverine. Or if Ryan Reynolds’ toilet humour is not your cup of tea, you may wish to swerve all the Deadpool movies. Perhaps instead move on to the Fantastic Four movies from the noughties (released 2005 & 2007) starring Jessica Alba, if you haven’t already seen them recently, since they’re also based on Marvel Comics, and just like the original X-Men trilogy, were also released prior to the beginning of the modern Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) by Marvel Studios, Phase One of which officially began with Iron Man (2008) then The Incredible Hulk (2008).

There’s also been a recent Horror genre spin-off from the X-Men movie series, called The New Mutants (2020), but that’s the wrong genre for this website and for me personally, so I’ll be swerving it. It appears to lack strong cast members anyway.