I’ve been a fan of the X-Men franchise ever since I discovered its glossy colorful pages sitting on the shelves of my local comic book shop in my middle-school years.  The rich issues bursting with action, drama, lost loves, time-traveling heroes with amazing superpowers and hot babes in tight leather uniforms captured my imagination (and fantasies) right from the beginning and for four or five years of my life I traveled with those motley mutants on any adventure I could get my hands on.  Every month I’d eagerly gobble up Uncanny X-Men, X-Factor, even the limited Cable run and every other spin-off Marvel could churn out.  I was there when New Mutants ended and X-Force began, I traveled with the original team into their new simple formatted X-Men comic and bought all six original covers of the first issue, I wept and cheered for those mutants time and time again.

When the series was finally brought to the silver screen with the first movie, I was thrilled about the proper treatment it got.  I sat wide eyed in the theater watching Rogue and Wolverine discover each other in the

This past Labor Day weekend the White Witch and I eagerly snatched the first free afternoon we could and blocked out enough time for a solid viewing of X-Men 3: The Last Stand.  I had heard some distant rumblings through the internet grapevine that the film was not living up to its predecessors, but I did my best to shove aside any and all hesitancy as we pulled into the theater in the middle of a beautiful sunny afternoon.  It was 75 degrees out, not a cloud in the sky, and I was overjoyed to be fulfilling my true geek duties and spend two hours cooped up in a dark theater watching a movie.  After I killed a half hour waiting for the previous showing to get out watching the Witch go Pinball Wizard on an old Tekken machine stuffed into the corner, we found our seats and prepared for the final chapter in the X-Men movie saga.  I can honestly report that I left the theater generally pleased, but with a few mixed feelings.

First, if you haven’t already guessed, I desperately wanted to like this movie.   I held out strong hope for it after the first two.  Despite the rumors of cast and crew drama on set, and the turmoil that ensued after Brian Singer’s departure to instead helm Superman Returns, I expected the strong storyline

and well established characterizations could carry the film to its rightful place as a beauty of a series wrap-up.  My biggest fear was that X-Men 3 would suffer from the famed and rarely whispered about Trilogy Curse.  And although you may not realize it, I’m willing to bet you already know what this is. It’s coming off wild ride on The Empire Strikes Back and finding a third of Jedi taken up by… fucking Ewoks.  It’s watching Indiana Jones get all bad-ass and kick some evil cultists up and down the Brahmaputra River then watching him reduced to Nazi slapstick in The Last Crusade.  It’s seeing Sigourney Weaver shave her head for a dismal Alien 3 after the awesome military orgy of destruction in Aliens.  Oh yes, brave movie-goer, you know the trilogy curse well.  And as that familiar comic book inspired Marvel Films tag began rolling in the theater that day, I felt a twinge of fear for X-Men 3.  Could it overcome the Curse?

The answer is mostly yes.  ‘Mostly’ because of a few things I’ll get into shortly.  But before that, let me whet your appetite.  The action is positively gnarly.  Wolverine takes a beating and just continues racking up a gleefully high body count.  Magneto’s Malcolm-X-esque roll almost comes to full fruition. Storm finally gets down and dirty and does more than just move a few clouds around and throw bolts of lightning.  And the Dark Phoenix story line, although not anywhere near as focused and cool as it was in the comics, does get a decent cinematic treatment.  The story arc also does carry itself rather well.  The world, as well as our heroes, have aged and matured significantly and believably based on the events that occurred in X2.  Society is more widely aware of mutants as a whole and the government has even taken major strides in acknowledging their presence, going so far as to set up a ‘Mutant Affairs’ office (which is held by a furry blue suited Kelsey Grammar as Beast).  The action and special effects are also just a cornucopia of enjoyable eye candy.  As has been par for these films so far, they don’t let the effects get the best of them and are an enhancement to the story rather than the focus of the narrative themselves (you hear that Lucas?!?).

The second area the film fell short in was the editing and pacing.  Without giving anything major away, there are a few main character deaths (c’mon, it’s subtitled The Last Stand, you knew someone was going to die, didn’t you?).  The mourning scenes and immediate reactions to some are appropriate, yet others seem to get brushed aside in favor of other major plot developments.  I can’t help but feel (and swear I read somewhere also) that there were some key scenes cut that could have helped carry the emotions forward.  Would it have hindered the story?  Doubtful.  Another gripe about the editing was that the final climactic battle felt a little choppy.  While some parts of it worked (the individual character driven scenes) the larger ones involving greater numbers of people were just… I don’t know… almost too manufactured.  I was questioning a few late plot developments as it was, to be slightly unsure of the motivation of the good guys reason for fighting by the end kind of made it a rough climactic scene for me to swallow.  Although the final scene before the credits hit is just plain fucking cool.  And make sure you stay until after they’re done rolling as well – there’s a little bonus scene worth watching if you're patient enough to hang out.

In the end, X-Men 3: The Last Stand does deliver.  It’s got great action, some cool scenes with your favorite mutants flaunting their power (Magneto takes out an entire convoy of military vehicles with a few waves of his hand… absolutely awesome), and it does put some nice finishing touches on the story arcs we’ve been following since the first film.  Could it have been a little less cheesy and little more serious?  Yes.  But if you’re a fan of the genre, or even just the first two X-Men movies, it’s worth paying the eight bucks to see this one on the big screen.

I give this the fourth highest rating on my six slot scale: Entertaining.