At Last, Another Sequel!

1. "X-Men: The Last Stand." In this alleged conclusion to the mutant "trilogy", a cure for the mutant gene has been found, and controversy has sprung up among the mutant community about whether to become "normal". Naturally, Magneto and company is by no means in favor of this, and mounts an all-out war to obtain the "cure" and destroy it.

I haven't read an X-man comic in over a decade, but I used to be a fan, and my impression of the first film was that it was a pretty decent attempt at translating the source material to the screen. The second film, not so much. Now those films' director, Bryan Singer, has left the series to revive Superman, and legendary Hollywood hack Brett "Rush Hour" Ratner has taken the reigns. The result: a film that's way too short for the huge cast of characters it contains, that has too much in the way of fights & explosions and not enough in the way of character... but that still manages to be a step up from the second film. I wouldn't give Ratner the credit for that, though.

There's a second major storyline, as well: Jean Gray (Famke Jansen), apparently killed at the end of the second film, is back as "Dark Phoenix", with a distinctly sinister side to her personality now... and a homicidal one, even. This, combined with the whole "cure" plot and its definite parallels to efforts to "cure" gay people add a certain element of gravity that hadn't been present before and overcome some of the film's other difficulties. Many of the characters become a bit more fully-rounded and easier to sympathize and/or identify with. And as always, a film featuring both Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen is going to contain some great acting.

Then again, there's Kelsey Grammar provoking unintended laughs as The Beast, who is kind of like what a Smurf might be like if it was born and raised next to Chernobyl. There are also what appear to be significant subplots that wind up not going anywhere, and characters from previous films who appear to be in this one only because people will expect them to be, even though they have virtually nothing to do. And some of the dialogue is quite lame... I wish I could forget the "I hear you're quite an animal" bit, but it continues to haunt me. Ratner does have some powerful material to work with, but it succeeds in spite of his failings... I still have to wonder what Singer could have done with this story.

Still, overall, though this is definitely not a movie that I would recommend to those who have never been "X-Men" fans before, for followers of the team it's a fairly exciting adventure with a little more depth than we've sometimes gotten in superhero films (granted, it's no "Batman Begins"). One strong suggestion: if you do go to see it, do NOT get up to leave when the end credits begin. The film's ACTUAL last scene doesn't happen until after the very last of the end credits roll, and it's a very significant one. Of the 120 or so people in the audience when I saw the film, only five (including me) were still around for that scene... don't be one of the "left too early" crowd. And if this truly IS the last X-men group effort (there's talk of solo spin-off movies), it really wouldn't be all that bad a way for the series to say goodbye.

2. "The Break-Up". After first meeting at a Chicago Cubs game at the very beginning of the film, the couple played by Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston go through their entire courtship and relationship with no dialogue underneath the opening credits, and we pick up again after the credits as the relationship is beginning to crumble and showing us why the movie has this particular title. Most romantic comedies never show us the "happily ever after". "The Break-Up" not only shows it, but suggests that whoever came up with that name for it was out of their tiny little mind.

I'm not really qualified to make any definitive judgments on this, but it at least seems to me that this movie feels more realistic and true-to-life than most others of its type, given of course the usual exaggerations that all movies, especially comedies, always have. However, that's not necessarily enough when the film doesn't have enough funny lines or situations (this IS a comedy, folks!), and when the leading lady seems content most of the time to continue playing a variation on the same character she played on TV for a decade. And oh, yeah... there's the terrific supporting cast (Ann-Margret, Jon Favreau, and a bunch of others) who, other than the memorable John Michael Higgins as Aniston's brother, are totally wasted.

Then again, Vaughn continues to show why he has become one of the biggest names in contemporary movie comedy. The guy can take the most tedious line (and he's given his share of them here) and still manage to wring laughs out of it, and also manages to make you not hate him even while exhibiting the behavior of the ultimate male chauvanist pig. And much of the movie is essentially a love letter to the city of Chicago, a place I wouldn't mind living some day... so a lot of it looks terriffic simply because Chicago does too. The endless, tedious arguments do manage to slip in a few isolated funny lines from time to time as well. Of course, it's nearly always Vaughn who says them.

On "Rotten Tomatoes.com" (a site which compiles critics' reviews from around the country for a national average) this film is currently rated "rotten" at 32% (meaning 32% of the reviews are positive). That seems about right. I've seen much worse, and I do appreciate that the film's ending isn't the usual hollywood romantic comedy cop-out. And maybe if you've been through an experience like this recently you'd be more interested (though why would you want to re-live it?). But ultimately, if you pass over "The Break-Up", you probably won't be regretting it for the rest of your life. You won't have missed all that much.