Pardon me, for the duration of this posting I need to speak fluent Geek.

Wow. I can’t believe how much some folks hated X Men: The Last Stand.

  This is not a picture of reviewer and On Tap contributor Jim Geraghty. But a lot of folks have made that mistake.

I’m not saying it was a perfect movie; if you’re an X-Men purist, you probably have a lot to hate in this movie, although it’s unrealistic to expect a two-hour movie to match any of the comics in every detail. Admittedly, it’s a Brett Ratner movie, and it shows. If they had added about a half hour of “quiet scenes” — just the characters talking, interacting, reacting to the life-altering events that are occurring – then it would truly have been one of the all time greats.

As it is, X-Men: The Last Stand is the only movie that has truly depicted teams of superheroes going at it with full abandon and no limitations due to an insufficient special effects budget. Yes, for all the endless DC and Marvel superhero movies we get, we generally get solo heroes – Superman, Batman, Spider Man, Hulk, Daredevil, Electra, Ghost Rider. Okay, there’s Fantastic Four, which was “eh” at best, and even they were only taking on one villain.

Imagine if somebody said, “we’re telling the very last X-Men story.”  One where anybody could die, and anybody could lose their powers. Well, that’s was The Last Stand was, and on that level, it worked wonders. If you’re a fan of the series, you’re holding on tight, because anybody’s expendable. By the end, three major, major characters are dead and three more are de-powered.

If this movie’s got a problem, it’s that it has too many big moments in rapid succession.

(SPOILERS! Read below if you have seen the movie, or have no interest in seeing it.)
It begins with the subtle visual bang of the great de-aging technique used to make Patrick Stewart and Ian McClellan appear 20 years younger. It moves quickly to a Danger Room sequence. Lots of X-fans have been complaining that the previous films didn’t show the X-Men’s training center; I didn’t see it as a huge loss. This short sequence gives fans a glimpse of an outlandish, but legendary X-Men foe, the giant robotic Sentinels.

I’ll count the Beast as one of the characters I was hoping they would get around to, and Kelsey Grammer pretty much nails the part as seen in the comics and the Saturday morning cartoon. Grammer has only one moment where his “Frasier” persona spills out – in the middle of a massive brawl, no less.

We move on, strikingly rapidly, to the death of Cyclops. The return of Jean is no shock, but I liked that they made clear from the beginning that this was not the Jean we knew; this was someone/something different, and darker.

The whole scene at Jean’s house is where the writers just said, “the hell with it, let’s just go crazy.” And so we get not only some great fights between our heroes and villains, but the death of the professor – played to the hilt. Not even Halle Berry’s wet-noodle acting could ruin this scene.

Wolverine was Hugh Jackman’s first big part, and it was perfect to put a relative unknown into such an iconic character – from his first scene in the first movie, he wasn’t some star playing Wolverine; he was Wolverine. Really, few franchises have made such an effort to get actors who look right (Batman Begins is off to a good start); Jackman carries every scene he’s in. He’s earned his Wolverine spin-off.

The way they translated the Jean Grey/Phoenix issue from comic book to film struck me as perfect. (In the comic book it was an alien, otherworldly force; in the film, it’s an alternate personality of Jean’s that the Professor has repressed within her since she came to his school.)

From there, it’s just one big scene after another – Mystique’s rescue and subsequent “curing,” an early showdown between Iceman and Pyro, Rogue’s issues, and finally a showdown to end all showdowns. Golden Gate Bridge getting tossed around? Yup. Cars hurled through the air and ignited like grenades? Check. Every mutant using their power to the max? Got it.
 
And I cannot believe they put the Juggernaut – the biggest, meanest, hulking brute around – up against Shadowcat. The actress playing her, Ellen Page, looks about 12. (In the comic books, Kitty Pryde was the ideal girlfriend; here, Page’s pubescent looks make her character more of an ideal kid sister.)

As you can tell from this review, I collected comics in my younger years and was very much a geek in these matters. Since about, oh, Batman Returns, comic book fans have had to put up with Hollywood directors taking characters and titles with built-in audiences and fanbases and rewriting them into junk. Nipples on the Batsuit. Ben Affleck as Daredevil. Shaquile O’Neal as “Steel.” The creators of the X-Men films have done the best job so far of balancing the needs of a two-hour movie with keeping the spirit and tone of the original work. And I’ve gotten three good movies out of it.
 

Meanwhile, Cam and Marshall continue to fight the Chinese Food War, wreaking considerable havoc on the surrounding area.

Cam: I haven’t seen this movie yet, but I really want to. Unfortunately Andrew (my five-year-old) is more interested in seeing “Over the Hedge”.

I’ve said this before, but I don’t go to movies to think. I go to be entertained. 90 minutes of superheroes doing super stuff will entertain me. That’s all I’m looking for. Well, that and to see James Marsden and say “Hey, I went to school with his dorky brother!”