X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
★★½ — X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
By the mid-2000s, the X-Men franchise had established itself as one of the more thoughtful corners of superhero cinema. The first two films, released in 2000 and 2003, had built a reputation for blending action with genuine social allegory, drawing on the source material's long-standing parallel with civil rights movements and questions of identity. When it came time for a third instalment, 20th Century Fox, Marvel Entertainment and The Donners' Company pushed forward with a film that promised to adapt one of the most celebrated storylines in X-Men comics history. At 104 minutes, X-Men: The Last Stand is also the shortest of the three films in the original trilogy, which tells you something about the appetite for breathing space.
Behind the camera, Brett Ratner stepped in as director, taking over from Bryan Singer who had departed for Superman Returns. Ratner was a commercially reliable choice, known primarily for fast-paced, crowd-pleasing pictures (if you want a sense of his style elsewhere, I have covered his work on Rush Hour, Rush Hour 2 and Rush Hour 3 on this blog). Polished but unremarkable as a stylist, he was capable of keeping things moving, though his instincts leaned towards spectacle over restraint. The screenplay, credited to Simon Kinberg and Zak Penn, introduced a central premise with considerable dramatic potential: a pharmaceutical company announces a so-called mutant cure, forcing every character in the film to take a position on whether their mutation is something to be fixed or something to be defended. It is the kind of question the X-Men comics had been asking for decades, and on paper it sits alongside the returning thread of Jean Grey's transformation into a far more dangerous entity.
The returning cast is genuinely formidable on paper. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen reprise their roles as the two ideological poles of the mutant world, Professor Xavier and Magneto, and Hugh Jackman's Wolverine remains the emotional anchor of the ensemble. Jackman had already shown his range with the character across the earlier films, and his work in this franchise would continue for years afterwards, most memorably in X-Men: Days of Future Past and, much later, in the stripped-back, character-driven Logan. Famke Janssen returns as Jean Grey, now carrying the weight of a storyline that the previous film had carefully set up. Halle Berry, Kelsey Grammer as the newly introduced Beast, and a host of additional mutant characters round out an ensemble that could, in theory, have carried something quite substantial.
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) is a film of contradictions. There are moments of emotional weight and visual flair buried under messy writing, rushed pacing, and a baffling number of missed opportunities. It’s good, in that it has strong performances, some solid action sequences, and genuine attempts at big themes like identity, choice, and what it means to be “cured” of who you are. But it’s also bad (often frustratingly so) because it squanders its potential at almost every turn. The return of Halle Berry as Storm as a de facto leader after Xavier’s death shows promise, and Kelsey Grammer brings dignity to Beast, even in limited screen time. Ian McKellen’s Magneto remains magnetic, and the concept of a “mutant cure” is rich with thematic depth, touching on issues of forced assimilation and self-acceptance. But then there’s the Phoenix saga (Jean Grey’s transformation into the Dark Phoenix) which should be the emotional core of the film… but feels rushed, underdeveloped, and ultimately hollow. Her descent isn’t earned, her power level is inconsistent, and her fate lands with a thud rather than a tragedy. Famke Janssen does her best, but the script gives her nothing to build on. Meanwhile, the new character Angel feels tacked on, the 3D-ish effects are dated, and the final battle devolves into a generic mutant-vs-mutant slugfest that forgets everything the series stood for. It’s not a disaster, it’s too well-acted and occasionally powerful for that, but it’s a step down from X2, trading depth for spectacle and nuance for noise. Watchable, flawed, and frustratingly uneven. A film that had the pieces of greatness but never quite assembled them. Good, yes. But also, undeniably bad in places.
What lingers for me, after everything, is a sense of what might have been. The ingredients were there: a strong cast, a premise with genuine moral texture, and a franchise with enough goodwill banked to take some risks. But risk-taking was clearly not on the agenda. If you are curious to see Jackman in a film that does take those risks, even at the cost of comfort, Logan is about as far from this as the same character can travel. The Last Stand is the kind of film you watch once, find yourself enjoying in patches, and then feel vaguely disappointed by afterwards, like a meal that looked better on the menu than it tasted on the plate.
Rating: ★★½ | Year: 2006 | Watched: 2025-09-23
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) on YouTube
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Disney Plus
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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
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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)
