X-Men: The Last Stand

Let me say this about X-Men: The Last Stand": If you haven't read the comic books, you'll like this piece of fluff summer popcorn movie. I have not read the comic books, and I liked it.

This is the third (and final?) installment of the X-Men franchise. Everyone's back, although some characters are brought to the foreground, some sent to the background, and some killed outright. A "cure" for being a mutant is created, and the government is allowing mutants to "voluntarily" sign up to be cured. Of course, they are also designing weapons to use the "cure" as well...

This movie is what you expect. Don't expect high cinema. Don't expect great dialogue. Expect a visual and audio assault of explosions and action (interspersed with characters talking about stuff you don't really care about, other than to bridge the gap between ass-kickings).

There are deaths, although because I had no real emotional investment in any of the characters, their deaths didn't really shock me. One death in particular bugged me, though. An X-Man who is featured prominently in the first two films is killed off rather early in the movie - off screen!! The first time you find out the X-Man died was when a character says " 'Insert name of dead character here' is dead." That was it! I kept waiting for the big reveal, i.e. "No! 'Insert name of dead character here' isn't dead! Here (s)he is to save the day!" I was wrong. (S)he was really dead. Very odd.

Which brings me back to the comic books. A guy with whom I work read all the comic books, and refuses to see the X-Men movies because he knows that a lot has been changed. I told him this morning about the movie, and the deaths, and he responded: "This just confirms that I will never watch these movies."

I'll never understand why a studio refuses to follow a film's source material. It alienates the built-in fan base. Stupid.

Anyway, if you're in the mood for a good, PG-13 action movie with minimal blood, this could be it. Unless, of course, you're an X-Men comic book super-freak. Then you might want to sit this one out.