Reviewers Score:
Average Overall Score:
Story LineThe scene is set 20 years ago, Jean is a young girl with extraordinary powers, a class 5 mutant and her family wants help. Professor Charles Xavier and Eric Lehnsherr arrive at the families home, the professor runs a school for mutants where they can hone their skills and learn how to control their powers properly. In order to stop Jeans dark side from becoming too powerful the Professor restrains what he calls the "Phoenix" within her mind.
Jean is back from the dead (having died in the previous movie), Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen) are in a rush to get to her. Magneto wants to use her powers to fight against a new "cure" for mutants, and Xavier wants to ensure that the Phoenix is supressed.
The new cure sees an uprising in the mutant community and Magneto finds himself with an army to fight the cause, and with the power of Phoenix at his side it would seem little could stand in their way. Enter the X-Men, Storm (Halle Berry), Wolverine (Hugh Jackson), Rogue, Iceman, colossus and Angel take on the mighty Juggernaut (Vinnie Jones), Pyro (Aaron Stanford), Phoenix, Magneto and his army.
The story centers around a small boy (Leech) whose gene is used to create the cure, any mutant that gets within a few feet of Leech loses their abilities. The climax of the film sees a battle of good vs evil as the two factions fight, one wants to protect the boy the other to destroy him.
 |
Score
The music by John Powell is powerful and atmospheric, adding greatly to this movies dramatic quality. Some of the sound effects are truely amazing helping to bring the feeling of being at the cinema to your home.
Extras
Director and Writer Commentary
Producers Commentary
Deleted Scenes
Alternate Endings
Brett Ratners Production Diary
X-Men Evolution of a Trilogy
X3: The Excitment Continues
X-Men Up Close (Short clips from the actors, plus some interests facts and statistics about the Mutants)
Anatomy of a Scene: Golden Gate Bridge
Previz Animatics
Vignettes
Blogs
Concept Art, Story Boards & Models Galleries
Character Still Galleries
Trailers (3 different movie trailers)
 |
Conclusion
This is one of those films where I got to the end and immediately wanted to watch it again. It was an enjoyable film, with some fantastic acting from a top notch cast, there was not a weak performance to be seen.
Originally a comic book story X-Men converts very well to the big screen and small. Brett Ratner has made a superb film in The Last Stand, it is visually impressive, well cast and scripted to a very high standard. Maybe not as raw as the first film, and probably not as much action but personally I found the story more engrossing. The special effects are of the highest standard and will occassionally leave you wondering how they were done, others will go unnoticed which in my opinion is always a good sign as it means they have moulded into the movie seemlessly.
As you can see from the list above, there are masses of extras that add to the value of this already excellent release, X-Men fans should without doubt own this movie, for anyone else I would whole heartedly recommend it.
This Film was kindly donated by YesAsia for review, check them out for some amazing prices on DVDs, Music and Games.