Recently watched: X-Men – The Last Stand
We completed the trilogy of Marvell X-Men films last night. As with so many other films in our collection, X-Men – The Last Stand has sat on a shelf, un-watched for several years. Coming off our experience with the first two films in the trilogy we had strong hopes for the third.
The director for The Last Stand is new, Brent Ratner, and I do not hold him in high regard. The Rush Hour films (his career high-point) are fine for what they are but not cinematic achievements.
Most of the cast, especially the key performers (Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, etc) returned with the tradition of adding some new faces but most of the new additions fell flat. Patrick Stewart’s role was far less substantive this time around. The script is weak, dialog and emotion forced. What is present is over-the-top action set pieces, CGI-laden effects spectacles which appear as shallow window dressing.
Rhonda and I both felt that the director and screenwriters did not respect their audience. In the place of effective, intelligent dialog with varied vocabulary they utilized simple, sharply worded catch phrases and vulgarity. The Last Stand has an overarching air of being the least intelligent and sophisticated of the trilogy. The director did not respect his audience or their intelligence level. Characters, emotions dialog were cast down to the audience level, a level of a perceived least common denominator.
We were left feeling hallow, a sense of indifference when the film concludes. Emotional resonance was sorely lacking, replaced by anger and dissatisfaction of how cheep and shallow the film stood in total.
A wave of sickness swept over the Morales household this weekend. David, getting over a battle with croup cough, battled a stomach bug that Rhonda probably passed him. I was also feeling under the weather so we settled in for a long day of watching movies.
