Dir. Brett Ratner
Writ.
Act. Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen

Boy do I love a blood bath. This is the kind of movie where no star, hero or villain, is exempt from a beating or worse, death. However, this is not a violent action movie. Much like its two predecessors', X-Men III has a story and develops different characters which makes the X-Men sequels more enjoyable than other sequels. X-Men III is hopefully the last movie because it ends nicely and is highly recommended.

This third installment of the franchise finds the United States government has found a supposed cure for mutants. Magneto, played by Ian McKellen (The DaVinci Code,) rounds up a large force of mutants to attack the compound that holds the cure and the mutant that is basis for the cure. Professor Xavier, played by Patrick Stewart (X2,) leads his band of X-Men, including Storm, played by Halle Berry (Catwoman,) and Wolverine, played by Hugh Jackman (Van Helsing,) and the remaining team against him. Meanwhile Cyclops, played by James Marsden (The Notebook,) is haunted by the death of Jean Grey, played by Famke Janssen (Eulogy) and travels out to the lake where she dies. However, once there Cyclops discovers that Jean is alive but not the same that she was and much more deadly than any one dreamed.

Like I said in the beginning, people get dropped quickly. In the first 30 minutes of the film two important characters get erased and that set a wonderful tone for the movie. After that point you never knew who was going to buy it next and it made me want to see more.

I also like how the writer brought the character of Magneto full circle. In the first X-Men movie we see that Magneto's whole belief structure is created by being in a WWII Nazi concentration camp and watching his parent's death. In this installment, Magneto has become a Hitler type leader. He uses the power of his subordinates around him until the loss their power or become useless to him and Magneto's leaves them without little though to what he means to them. There is even a classic scene where he is speaking to the masses of mutants and his speech and his mannerisms are very similar to movement that would be that of a dictator type leader. However, director Brett Ratner does go too far by having Magneto place his hand over his chest at the end of the speech which is close to a salute. I felt that the speech and McKellens performance was able to convey the transformation without the use of the salute. Another thing that made me happy in this movie is that Rogue's character was almost non-existent and I did not have to listen to Anna Paquin's (The Squid and the Whale) annoying southern accent. Her character had conflict in this movie because the mutant cure gave her the opportunity to be able to touch people with her skin without killing them. She has that conflict but nothing really develops from it and is, I thought, really inconsequential to the movie.

The special effects are great in the movie and we see it right away. The director takes us back twenty years and we see a young Professor X and Magneto and they actually used the computer to make both Stewart and McKellen look younger. I can't explain how they did it, but it did look like I was watching a Patrick Stewart that had just finished shooting Excalibur, so however they did it worked wonderfully.

I remember reading after the last X-Men movie that Halle Berry said that she wasn't sure if she would do another X-Men movie unless she was given more screen time. Normally when an actor or actress ask for this and get it, they are terrible. However, in Halle's case she did a fine job and proved that she could carry an important role and I think she has put the debacle that was the Catwoman movie behind her.

The last thing I will say is that unfortunately Ratner could not help but leave open the possibility that there will be a sequel and that is annoying. He made the ending happy which it really shouldn't have been considering the carnage in the movie but if I had to take an educated guess, they had a sad ending and it probably did not go over very well with the test audience so they had to add the happiness. I just hope that they don't make another sequel because they ended this one wonderfully and it is a good ending to a great trilogy.

Brian - the Naked Gun