This was the second time I’ve seen it, and as with many comic book adaptations, the second viewing was superior to the first. First time around I’m too nervous to enjoy it fully, and too thrown by the changes to evaluate them properly.

Still not sure about the whole Victorian-suppressed-femininity-Phoenix, and a very disappointing range of ethnicities in the cast, but generally and OK viewing experience even for hard core fans.

I enjoyed this movie even though it was probably the worst in the trilogy. I admit I had low expectations and don’t remember the details of the first two. But I thought it was a perfectly enjoyable action comic book flick.

The very first X-Men comic book I read ever was Uncanny X-Men 201. I was 10, soon to be 11 and Storm was battling Cyclops for leadership of the team. A punk rock sista with a white mohawk putting it to the straight-laced white guy? I’m no Black nationalist or anything but I’m always going to want to see that. I can’t imagine anything cooler. We can talk about diversity in comics now, 20 years later, but in 1986, Storm was maybe the only Black character I knew who didn’t have black in her name. I wasn’t up on Luke Cage yet and every cartoon I watched on TV at that point was deficient in Black power.

Which brings us to X-Men: The Last Stand. You’ll forgive me for ruining the film if you haven’t seen it yet but if you’re a comic book geek, it isn’t worth your money. I won’t ruin the last payoff of the film that you’ll only get if you stay through the credits but I will say this – Most of the original x-men end up dead in the film. Cyclops is dead and Storm is leading the team. At least this is what Brett Ratner would lead us to believe. We never see Cyclops die and we never actually see Storm lead as she defers to Wolverine as soon as they get into battle. Look, Storm is a goddess. She controls the fucking weather. Don’t skimp out on that story. Have her take the leadership reigns from weepy Cyclops in a danger room fight. Don’t have her step behind Logan. Have Logan chomping at the bit to get in her pants because she is an African Princess that could singe his hair with a wink. You’ve got the story right there. Don’t fuck around.

But no, Ratner fucks around. He underutilizes Kelsey Grammer as Beast. I was most concerned about this casting choice but it worked really well and the plot they are working with screams for Beast to be seriously conflicted and a key part of the story but they give us all of 10 seconds of Beast desiring his humanity before he decides being blue is what’s best for him. Bullshit. That’s a serious story. We’ve got the Morlocks and the Acolytes, two completely different mutant groups with serious reasons for being involved in this story and we get no back story. The Morlocks live underground because most of them have mutations that they can’t hide. They are deformed and disfigured and look not at all human. The Acolytes celebrate their mutant superiority. They mark themselves. They are zealots. Both should have great interest in “the cure” and what it means. We should have nuanced stories and reasoning here. We get none of that.

No, we get Ian McKellan going over the top as Magneto. We get one great battle – The Jean Grey House fight rules – and we get Hugh Jackman being the only X-Man we can take seriously. After 2 movies where the source material was rarely played for camp or treated lightly because it is “comic book” stuff, we get a lame ass “comic book” movie more in-line with Daredevil than Batman Begins.

Ugh.

Go read Joss Whedon’s run on Astonishing X-Men or the entire Ultimate X-Men line instead. Leave this wack shit alone.

While the movie in enjoyable, it feels off primarily due to the X-Men 1 and 2 writer-director Bryan Singer being missing in action to make Superman Returns. Replacement director Brett Radner nearly wrecks the film, but there’s enough here to like.