The Last Straw

X-Men: The Last Stand
Brett Ratner, 2006

There is a scene toward the end of X-Men: The Last Stand where Magneto and his Brotherhood of Ill-Defined Mutants walks out on the Golden Gate bridge as the master of magnetism shoves each car out of his way. Once he is about halfway across, Magneto raises his hands in that “I’ma gonna use my powers” kind of a way and rips a whole section of the bridge from, not only it’s moorings, but from the rest of the bridge. He then flies his little piece of bridge across the water toward Alcatraz Island, new home of a hospital which has developed a mutant cure. We shift to the perspective of the soldiers stationed on the island and watch it fly toward the island. It is easily one of the goofiest, most awkward things I have ever seen in an action movie. It also doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. After all, it’s not like Magneto is taking the whole bridge or just swinging part of it around, toward the island, he’s taking a section of the bridge. That said, I’m not entirely sure how his magnetic powers allow him to wrench a solid piece of steel in half, without damaging either half, but, apparently, it does. As I was watching this, and thinking about how stupid it looked, I couldn’t help but think of the scene in X2: X-Men United when Magneto escapes from his plastic prison. He ends up flying away from his cell on a flattened disc of metal filings, his arms crossed regally and defiantly against his chest, two small metal balls swirling around him, breaking glass doors and knocking guards unconscious. The escape is elegant and simple. It is classic Magneto.

It strikes me that the differences between these two scenes pretty capably summarizes the differences between X-Men: The Last Stand and X2, the franchise’s previous entry. X2 was a really terrific piece of work, well crafted, well written, well acted, and containing a great deal of emotional character development. The Last Stand, however, is a goofy, slapdash affair. Characters act contrary to earlier development, such as when Mystique is shot by a small needle containing the mutancy cure and cured before Magneto’s eyes. Magneto’s response is rather blasé. He tells the now human looking girl that she is no longer one of them. She no longer matters. There is no rage in him, no righteous anger over the loss of his valued lieutenant, who, I should point out, he just went to some effort to rescue from imprisonment. Likewise, Wolverine cries twice in this movie. Cries. What the hell is that?

Beyond poor character work, the movie also has huge problems with pacing, excessive dialogue scenes that don’t advance anything at all, the introduction of way too damn many characters, including Beast and Angel, neither of whom get the same fleshing out that Nightcrawler did in the franchise’s previous entry, and huge logic inconsistencies, such as Angel’s ability to fly, by virtue of his own wings, from New York to San Francisco in roughly the same time it takes the X-Men’s supersonic jet.

Now, as you’ve probably figured out, the plot of this stink burger revolves around the discovery of a cure for mutants. Magneto is pissed because he thinks the government will use it to forcibly cure all mutants, a nice bit of characterization given Magneto’s imprisonment in Auswitch. Too bad the film just barely remembered to touch on that little bit of character history. Turns out, Magneto is right. The US government rather quickly weaponizes the stuff. Still, in the end, the X-Men fight with the government against Magneto. The fact of the government’s betray wholly ignored by the filmmakers. After all, should Wolverine and crew be equally pissed by this?
Meanwhile, there’s a barely comprehensible plot shoehorned into the affair revolving around Jean Gray returning from the dead as the Phoenix, an all powerful entity who turns out, by the end of the film, to pretty much just be a thug. Now, you may recall Jean Gray’s death in X2. Well handled, right? Good show. Well, here, the resurrection is barely touched on. The characters learn that it happened and largely take it in stride. You’d think Cyclops would be pretty wowed by the whole thing, but we don’t get to find out as gets killed by the returned Jean about ten minutes into the movie. Cyclops is followed in death by (MAJOR SPOILERS AFOOT) Professor Xavier, in a similarly poorly staged death scene, and Jean herself, dead again by movie’s end. My God. Not one of these deaths was any good, nor were they given the time to breathe that they needed so that both the audience and the characters could feel the loss. Remember how awesome, say, Spock’s death was in Star Trek II? Well, this is more Data’s death in Nemesis: rushed and poorly executed. As if all of that isn’t bad enough, the filmmakers (and I say filmmakers because I don’t feel like this was just director Brett Ratner’s fault) further clear the board, refusing future X movies, by curing Mystique, Rogue, and Magneto. That’s right kids. Powerless. Forever. Supposedly. But, given the end of this thing, probably. I’ve already discussed how much Mystique’s curing sucked, so let’s take a look at the other two. Now, Rogue has been a major character in this series. In many ways, she’s been our window into this strange new world. Given her mutant power renders her incapable of touching anyone, you’d think she’d want the cure and you’d be right. However, you’d also think that this would be a major plot arc in the film, all full of angst. You’d be wrong. Rogue is hardly in the film at all. When she does get cured, it’s treated as sort of a well duh, black and white moment. Of course she’d get cured, the film seems to say, why would she want any different? Ugh. As for Magneto, he gets stabbed in the chest by four or five needles at the end of the movie and then mugs for the camera. It was a pretty goofy moment, especially since you’d think the master of magnetism would have a field to repel the hundreds of flying metal needles all set up. Of course, they may have been plastic needles, but, since no one said so, I’m guessing metal. So, yeah. He mugs at the camera and I swear to God, I half expected him to shout out, “Oh, the irony! That I, Magneto, should now be human!”