Review #746: 'X-Men: The Last Stand' (2006)

Back in 2006, it seemed like Brett Ratner's third instalment of the X-Men saga was a textbook way to kill a lucrative franchise. The Last Stand kept the satirical undertones of the previous two, and even introduced some new, interesting ones. It also had the biggest set-pieces yet, climaxing in a mutant brawl on Alcatraz that pits the saga's big bad Magneto (Ian McKellen) and his army of cronies against an earnest and inexperienced X-Men led by Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Storm (Halle Berry). However, gone was the love injected into the franchise by Bryan Singer, and gone was any form of coherency and care. But it seems that The Last Stand was not the franchise-killer many envisioned, and, now that Days of Future Past (2014) has apparently eradicated it from the time-line, it is little but a dark blip in an overall successful series of movies.

Horrified by the announcement of a new mutant 'cure', developed from a power-draining mutant child named Jimmy (Cameron Bright), Magneto reforms his Brotherhood of Mutants and sets out kill the boy. Sensing trouble brewing, Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) enlists the help of former student and current Secretary of Mutant Affairs for the U.S. Cabinet Dr. Hank McCoy (Kelsey Grammer), also known as Beast. After disappearing at the end of the previous film, Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) resurfaces but re-born as the Phoenix, a mutant fuelled by rage and unbelievable power. When Xavier fails to subdue her mind, Jean allies herself with Magneto, whose army is growing steadily stronger.

The X-Men movies have always succeeded in channelling larger issues such as segregation and racism through the eternal battle between mutants and humans, and if The Last Stand is successful at anything at all, it's in bringing to mind the many differences people are born with, and how these 'afflictions' damage their ability to fit into regular society. Naturally, the issue will divide those affected into those who have fully accepted and embrace how they were born, and those who are eager to slot nicely into the mainstream. The cure offered in the movie also comes with a choice. Magneto sees this as an affront to mutants, who he feels are the next natural step in evolution. Yet Rogue (Anna Paquin), cursed with being unable to come into human contact with anyone, sees it as a way to finally end her pain.

But this is not enough to save The Last Stand from being a complete mess. The two previous movies managed to keep enough of a hold on it's massive ensemble to still tell a decent story. The Last Stand introduces a ridiculous amount of new mutants, from the impressive but little-seen Angel (Ben Foster), whose screen-time betrays his position on the poster, to the ridiculous abomination that is Juggernaut (Vinnie Jones), a wafer-thin villain whose induces cringing every time he opens his mouth. The plot is little more than a way to get the goodies fighting the baddies, and lazy plot-holes and inexplicable tactics on both sides riddle what is an incredibly dull and simplistic climax.

The development of Jean Grey into Phoenix, one of the key X-Men plot threads beloved to fans, admittedly allows for the odd visually spectacular set-piece, but on the whole is a massive let-down. Janssen is perfectly fine in the role, convincing as a seductive yet extremely dangerous mutant capable of God-like powers, but is seriously underwritten. And it's this aspect that really sums up The Last Stand - careless, scattershot, and insulting to its loyal fans. It seems to care far more about how much money the movie can put into it's wallet than creating anything of artistic merit. As said before, the film is such a mess that Bryan Singer had to find a way to quite rightly delete it from the X-Men timeline, and that sums up this pap better than I could ever dream of.


Directed by: Brett Ratner
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Famke Janssen, Kelsey Grammer, James Marsden, Rebecca Romijn, Anna Paquin
Country: Canada/USA/UK

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #744: 'X2' (2003)

Seemingly using the first film to practice big-budget movie-making, Bryan Singer followed the mediocre X-Men (2000) with X2 (one of many dodgy titles attributed to the film), a balls-out, mutant mash-up full of genuine characters focus, an intriguing storyline, and set-pieces worthy of the money it earned. In fact, the opening scene, which depicts newcomer Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming), a mutant with a forked tail and the ability to teleport, attack a small army of helpless government agents to get through to the President, blows anything the first film had to offer right out of the water.

With mutant antagonist Magneto (Ian McKellen) imprisoned in a plastic cell, Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) is focusing his time on helping the maturing students at his school for gifted youngsters. He has sent Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) to Alkali Lake, in the hope of helping him discover more about his past, but he finds nothing but an abandoned military base. After the attack on the President, government operative William Stryker (Brian Cox) leads an attack on the unsuspecting Xavier's school, capturing Xavier and Cyclops (James Marsden) in order to strengthen his mysterious plans.

The plot summary is as compressed as can be, as, like the first film, X2 has a lot of big personalities with big, special powers with their own individual stories to tell to cram into a two-hour film. Although there are mutants with far more interesting powers and greater physical potential, the focus remains on the fan-favourite Wolverine. It's Jackman's enigmatic performance that makes him so easily likeable, and he is finally allowed to roam free here. There are no soft fights where nobody dies as in X-Men; Wolverine massacres many of Stryker's men during the attack on the school. When he first drives his claws into an agent who makes the mistake of firing on him, it is the first of many air-punching moments throughout the film.

It's hard to fathom a threat that could actually make a dent in a race of people with such unbelievable powers, so Stryker, a man with no liking for mutants but a fascination with harnessing their powers, has found a way to subdue them. Seeing a mutant like Magneto so helpless is oddly affecting, so, after his spectacular prison break-out, he becomes a sort of anti-hero, doing the kind of dirty work Xavier would not lower himself to. But ultimately, it's the Xavier-Magneto good vs. evil fight that remains the most fascinating, and even with Stryker playing the main villain, Magneto is far from forgotten and has plans to bend Stryker's actions to his own personal gain.

It's a shame then that X2 marks the high-point of the series. There is now a remarkable 7 instalments set in the X-universe, and although X-Men: First Class (2011) injected some life back in the series, and hopes are high for the new X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), none have come close to the kind of energy and invention of this. Though you could complain about the lack of a coherent narrative, and that some of the minor characters are left out to dry, X2 is a near-perfect superhero movie, and is still Marvel's greatest achievement. And with almost 15 years of men in tights and capes, that is high praise indeed.


Directed by: Bryan Singer
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Brian Cox, Anna Paquin, Rebecca Romijn, Alan Cumming
Country: Canada/USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #743: 'X-Men' (2000)

It's hard to believe that back in 2000, Marvel's first crack at creating a superhero universe on the big screen, X-Men, was a near perfect summer movie. 14 years on, and the cracks are as clear as day in Bryan Singer's hesitant and rather tame blockbuster. Don't get me wrong, X-Men still has plenty to enjoy, but the meatier, more confident recent efforts such as Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy and Marvel's own Iron Man (2008) and Thor (2011), as well as the vastly superior sequel two years later, form a rather large shadow over Professor X and his pupils' first outing.

In the near future, evolution has taken a huge leap forward, creating 'mutants' - humans with special powers and abilities that defy anything science has seen before. Tensions between humans and mutants is at an all-time high, with the idea of mutant cataloguing being passed around by Senator Kelly (Bruce Davison), despite the efforts of telepaths Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Jean Grey (Famke Janssen). Mutant Magneto (Ian McKellen), a Holocaust survivor with the ability to control anything magnetic, has different ideas, and plans to induce mutation on world leaders gathering on Ellis Island.

As the machine, powered by magnetics, could easily kill him, Magneto seeks Rogue (Anna Paquin), a young girl with the ability to temporarily steal a mutant's power. Having just met Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), a beast of a man with a skeleton covered in an indestructible metal, which he can shoot out like claws, and an uncanny healing ability, Rogue's abduction fails and is foiled by Storm (Halle Berry) and Cyclops (James Marsden). They end up in Professor Xavier's school for gifted children, where Wolverine learns about mutant struggle and falls in love with the powerful Jean Grey.

With a film this packed with personalities and powers, it's only natural that it loses it's grip on a lot of its characters. Sensibly, the main focus is on Wolverine, who has always been the most interesting X-Man, and is perfectly played by Jackman, a performance that made him a huge star. The rest of the characters, with the exception of Professor X and Magneto, do little but fall flat. They either suffer because their powers aren't particularly interesting, or spend the duration of the film using what little dialogue they have to explain who they are and what they can do. The movie also has one of the worst lines in cinema history, uttered by Storm. You'll know it when you hear it.

For all its lack of ambition and absence of any real set-pieces, X-Men is still the first of its kind. Refusing to give in to the idea of comic books being light, colourful and mainly for kids (which was still the general idea back in 2000), the opening scene depicting a young Magneto in a concentration camp ensures this is something that should be taken seriously, yet still enjoyed. Singer grew in confidence and made X2 two years later, which is still considered by myself and many others to be one of the best superhero movies ever made. X2 showed that the vast ensemble can be given room to breathe, and had the set-pieces to match, and in hindsight, makes X-Men a much tamer, yet still very entertaining, animal.


Directed by: Bryan Singer
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Halle Berry, Anna Paquin, Bruce Davison, Rebecca Romijn
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #675: '25th Hour' (2002)

In the year following the 9/11 attacks on New York and America, film-makers and producers were still tip-toeing around the subject, even going as far as digitally removing the World Trade Centre from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trailer. Never one to shy away from confronting a controversial subject head-on, director Spike Lee made 25th Hour, a story of young Irish-American drug dealer Monty Brogan (Edward Norton) celebrating his last day of freedom before he gets banged up for 7 years. Brogan serves as a metaphor for the post-9/11 America - unsure, paranoid, angry, disillusioned. In the first scene, we see him younger, happier, and saving a dying dog with his Russian friend Kostya (Tony Siragusa), but this was before he got busted, and, presumably, before 9/11.

Lee is hardly subtle about his allegories, and the opening credits are shown over images of the beams of light shooting up in the air at Ground Zero, representing the fallen towers of the World Trade Centre. In another scene, Monty's two best friends Jacob (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Frank (Barry Pepper) discuss Monty's future once he gets out of prison. Frank's apartment overlooks Ground Zero, and Frank explains how nothing can ever be the same, both for their relationship with Monty, and for America. The presence of Ground Zero looms like some unshakeable ghost, almost serving as a character itself. Jacob and Frank's lives are hitting a sort-of midlife crisis also. Jacob is channelling his "liberal guilt" into sexually obsessing over a young student of his (Anna Paquin) and Jacob's Red Bull and stock market-fuelled existence is reaching breaking point.

Of course, this being a Spike Lee 'joint' (how I wish he'd stop calling them that), the subject of race is never far away, and Lee confronts this in a standout scene that comes out of nowhere. Monty, after a dinner with his guilt-ridden father (Brian Cox), goes into the bathroom of his father's bar for his reflection to launch into a rant about his hatred for the many ethnic groups that reside in New York. "Fuck the Sikhs and Pakistanis bombing down the avenues in their decrepit cabs, fuck the Korean grocers, fuck the Russians and the Chassidim," he shouts. He also fucks the church, the Wall Street bankers and rich trophy wives. This is a man focusing his anger at anybody, and much like Lee's masterpiece Do the Right Thing (1989), the film manages to capture what many were feeling at the time.

All allegories aside, 25th Hour holds it's own as a drama. There's no twist and turns or gunfights, and the only real tension comes from people's suspicions of Monty's girlfriend Naturelle (Rosario Dawson) being possibly the one who fingered Monty. But there's no need for it, as Lee's aim here is to create something all the more sombre and reflective. The cast are superb, especially Norton and Pepper, the latter proving that his talents have gone unrecognised for far too long with a performance of self-destructive narcissism. The social messages can be heavy-handed at times, and it goes on for far too long, but the ending provides an outstanding fantasy prologue of blind optimism. One of the most honest depictions of America ever made.


Directed by: Spike Lee
Starring: Edward Norton, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Barry Pepper, Rosario Dawson, Anna Paquin, Brian Cox
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #561: 'The Piano' (1993)

Ada (Holly Hunter) arrives at a rainy New Zealand coast to meet her new husband - the gently-spoken frontiersman Stewart (Sam Neill) - along with her precious grand piano and her illegitimate daughter Flora (Anna Paquin). Ada has been a mute since she was 6 years old, and as she explains in her narration, no-one knows why. Stewart's friend Baines (Harvey Keitel) takes an interest in the piano and offers Stewart land in exchange for it, as well as lessons from Ada, to which Stewart agrees. Offering the chance to earn her piano back, Baines wants one visit per black key on the piano from Ada, who he is seemingly infatuated with.

Australian director Jane Campion's erotically-charged gothic love story was a huge success back in 1993, winning the Best Actress Academy Award for Holly Hunter and Best Supporting Actress for Paquin, who became the second youngest recipient ever. Hunter's shadowy Ada is the backbone of The Piano, and while it may appear that it is her piano that fuels her passion, it is very much her own mind and experiences that dictate her actions. She is quite a fascinating character - not merely the put-upon mute who longs for love and her piano - she is actually rather subtly manipulative and sexually powerful, weighing up the two love interests in her life, and playing a dangerous power game with her increasingly jealous husband.

The contrast between the two men in Ada's life couldn't be any obvious - Stewart playing dutiful, business-minded and quite inept in courtship, while Baines is hulking, living out in the forest, his face spotted with native Maori tattoos - but it is quite clear as to where Campion's preferences life. Ada's scenes with Baines, in which he listens to her play, become the centrepiece for some highly erotic moments, playing out more like animal foreplay than anything human. Ada seems not to bat an eyelid when Baines lies on the floor by her feet, fingering a hole in her stocking, or simply walks around the room completely naked. While these unconventional actions are there to channel Ada's sexual repression/release and Baines' animalistic nature, these scenes often appear forced, filled with lazy or nonsensical metaphors passed of as spiritual film-making.

As with many Australian period films, The Piano looks stunning. The exotic location is not filmed through a sun-tinted lens, and nor does it capture any of the colourful wildlife (something you would expect if Terence Malick had directed it), but is grey, wet and muddy. Like Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) and Gallipoli (1981), it has that lived-in feel, with Hunter's beautiful, ghostly face evoking a 19th-century photograph, where everyone looks grim and pale, and Campion's occasionally snapshot approach captures the mundane, everyday actions of the period. The performances are a revelation, with Hunter and Paquin deserving their accolades, and Keitel proving a formidable presence (I'll not mention the accent). The Piano is personal film-making, but too often the film seems to be striving for that mystical atmosphere rather than actually capturing it, occasionally getting lost amongst Campion's obvious adoration for her protagonist.


Directed by: Jane Campion
Starring: Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, Anna Paquin
Country: Australia/New Zealand/France

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie