So much goes on in X-Men: The Last Stand, it’s hard to know what to discuss first.

      The third entry in this lucrative movie franchise based on an acclaimed comic series begins with several short scenes designed to exhilarate the true fan but likely to be confusing to viewers with little previous knowledge of the comics.

      Rest assured, though.  If the plot and character twists get a little complicated at times, the great special effects and sustained action scenes carry even the uninitiated along.  While I knew the series’ mythology going in, my companions did not, but enjoyed themselves nonetheless.

      What is clear is that ordinary humans are not conducive to mutant security.  The film’s main action revolves around the discovery of an injection that will take away mutant powers.  The “cure” is quickly turned into a weapon, just as Magneto (Ian McKellan), the leader of the evil mutants, has predicted, setting up an apocalyptic final battle between a horde of evil mutants and a band of six X-men.

      Before that, several themes are developed, some completely, some frustratingly not. 

      There’s the tug-of-war between Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto for the allegiance of the mutant community.  Should super-powered mutants employ their talents for the benefit of ordinary humans, or band together to defend themselves against those same humans?

      This conflict primarily plays itself out in a struggle for the soul of Jean Grey – “the only Class 5 mutant ever born.” The movie opens several years earlier than the previous X-men films, as the two mutant leaders unite on a mission to a prosperous suburb to recruit the child Jean for Xavier’s training school for young mutants.  Still friends, the two already debate the relationship between mutants and the rest of humanity.

      Later, as antagonists, Xavier and Magneto struggle for the soul of the resurrected Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) – she died at the end of X-Men II – whose new, uncontrollable powers transform her into the tormented Dark Phoenix, torn between her impulses for good and evil.

      There’s the rivalry between two young mutants, Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) and Pyro (Aaron Stanford), former fellow students whose dislike is personal, not just a disagreement over strategy.  Iceman opts for the X-men, Pyro for the evil mutants, and their complementary powers – Iceman’s to freeze, Pyro’s to control fire – will inevitably clash in “the last stand.”

      Other strains from previous X-men movies receive further development. The romantic triangle between Jean Grey, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), and Cyclops (James Marden) works its way to a tragic conclusion, while the conflicted feelings of Rogue (Anna Paquin), whose lethal mutant power is to absorb energy from others, are a counterpoint to the movie’s main issue. Alas, Rogue herself – in my opinion one of the most interesting of the Marvel mutants – has a surprisingly small role to play this time around.

      As always, there is a new batch of mutants, led by blue-furred Hank McCoy (Kelsey Grammer) and the winged Angel (Ben Foster) among the “good guys” and super fighters Callisto (Dania Ramirez) and Juggernaut (Vinnie Jones) for the baddies.

      The X-Men series, both in comics and in movies, has always had an allegorical tinge. The mutants face discrimination and fear because they are “different.”  Xavier’s and Magneto’s dispute over mutant strategies echoes the conflict in the civil rights movement between Martin Luther King’s nonviolence and the anger of Black Power. 

      Then, too, there is the shadow of the Holocaust, as Magneto makes clear when asked why he doesn’t bear the tattoos most of the evil mutants favor: “I have been marked once, my dear, and let me assure you, no needle shall ever touch my skin again,” he says, revealing a concentration-camp number tattooed on his inner arm.

      So is this “the last stand” for the X-Men movie franchise?  By the end of the film, several major characters from the first two movies are dead and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants apparently tamed.  Still, there are hints that everything may not be as settled as it would appear.

     

 This review appeared in the Aberdeen American News on May 28,  2006.

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