X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

There's a moment in X-Men: The Last Stand where you can almost see the great film it could have been. Almost. And then it trips over itself, drops something important, rushes past something else, and you're left watching a film that's simultaneously pretty good and deeply frustrating. That's the contradiction at the heart of this one, and it never quite resolves it.

Let's start with what works, because there's more of it than the film's reputation suggests. Kelsey Grammer as Beast is a genuine delight. He brings warmth and dignity to a role that could easily have been played for laughs, and every scene he's in feels grounded. Halle Berry gets more to do this time around, and while Storm as a de facto leader after Professor Xavier's death isn't explored as deeply as it deserves to be, the promise is there. And Ian McKellen, as ever, is magnetic. He could read a phone book as Magneto and make it feel like a speech about the nature of power. The concept driving the plot, a so-called "cure" for mutation, is genuinely rich territory. Questions of forced assimilation, self-acceptance, what it means to be told that who you are is something to be fixed. That's the stuff of serious science fiction, and the film knows it.

But then there's the Phoenix saga. Jean Grey's transformation into the Dark Phoenix should be the beating heart of this film. It should be devastating, operatic, the kind of arc that makes you sit forward in your seat. Instead it feels rushed and underdeveloped, like a rough cut that never made it back to the editing room for a proper pass. Famke Janssen is doing everything she can, but the script gives her almost nothing to build on. Her descent into chaos isn't earned across the running time, her power level shifts around inconsistently depending on what the scene needs, and when her story reaches its conclusion, it lands with a dull thud where it should have broken your heart. That's not a performance problem. That's a writing problem.

The new additions fare poorly too. Angel feels completely tacked on, introduced with a scene that implies he'll matter and then largely forgotten by the third act. The final battle on Alcatraz, which ought to feel like a culmination of everything the X-Men films have built, devolves into a fairly generic brawl. The visual effects haven't aged well in places either, which doesn't help.

What stings most is the comparison to what came before. X2 was a genuinely confident piece of blockbuster filmmaking, one that balanced spectacle with character and action with ideas. The Last Stand trades depth for noise. It mistakes busy-ness for momentum. Where X2 felt like it trusted the audience, this one too often grabs you by the collar and rushes you to the next set piece before you've had a chance to process what just happened. For a sense of where this franchise eventually found its feet again, I'd point you to X-Men: Days of Future Past, which manages to do the big ensemble thing with considerably more control, and Logan, which proved that there was still extraordinary dramatic potential in these characters when given the space and the courage to use it properly.

Two and a half stars feels about right. This isn't a disaster. It's too well-acted and occasionally too genuinely powerful for that. But it's a film that had all the pieces of something special and couldn't quite put them together. Watchable, occasionally stirring, and frustratingly, stubbornly uneven. You'll enjoy parts of it. You'll wince at others. And you'll spend the whole thing wondering what it might have been with another draft of the script and a bit more breathing room.

Good, yes. But also, in places, undeniably bad. Sometimes a film can be both at once, and this one wears that contradiction right on its sleeve.

Rating: ★★½  | Year: 2006  | Watched: 2025-09-23

View on Letterboxd →

Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US

Affiliate disclosure: Movies With Macca may earn a small commission on purchases or subscriptions started via these links. It costs you nothing extra.

Related on Movies With Macca

More from Brett Ratner: Rush Hour 2 (2001) · Rush Hour 3 (2007) · Rush Hour (1998)
More with Hugh Jackman: Logan (2017) · Van Helsing (2004) · X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) · The Wolverine (2013)
More from the 2000s: Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) · Daredevil (2003) · Apocalypto (2006)
More adventure: Alice in Wonderland (1951) · The Eagle (1925) · Louisiana Story (1948) · The General (1926)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)