X-Men: The Last Stand - PG-13
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Common Sense Note
Parents should know the film includes comic-bookish violence: characters are repeatedly stabbed, shot, smashed, and variously injured (bloody gashes on faces or bodies, some -- on Wolverine -- healing themselves immediately), thrown against or through walls, exploded, burned, and frozen. Vehicles and buildings explode with fiery booms, the Golden Gate Bridge is lifted and crashed into Alcatraz Island, with violent shaking of humans driving on it. Human military units shoot weapons loaded with cure-bearing darts. In a flashback, a young boy tries to cut his wings off, causing bloody wounds. A passionate kiss leads to one character's death (off-screen), another passionate embrace leads to a violent clash. Mystique's blue suit looks painted on.
Families can discuss the theme of friendship and group unity, as well as the celebration of difference: The X-Men look after one another even when they are accused of being afflicted with a "disease" and offered a "cure." How do the X-Men challenge conformity and encourage creativity, even as they learn discipline and good manners at school? How do the several generations of X-Men come together to form an alternative, supportive family?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs
Full of comic book action, rudimentary passion, and fiery tragedy, X-MEN: THE LAST STAND is also unfocused. Tying together a number of dangling plot strands, dropping in a couple of additional themes, and introducing new X-Men, this third entry in the film franchise isn't as quirky and endearing as the first two, though it does deliver the usual family melodrama and sensational finale.
The crisis this time involves a genetic "cure" for mutantism, developed by the ferociously mutant-phobic Warren Worthington II(Michael Murphy), whose son is the magnificently bewinged Angel (Ben Foster). Pressured by his father to take the injection that will make him "fit in" ("It's a better life," cajoles the dad, "The life we all want"), Angel resists, in a gigantic whoop of soaring music and white feathers, and so the battle lines seem drawn.
But not quite. While Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and the X-Men only want to be accepted for who they are (and not forcefully "cured" of their difference), the increasingly grand Magneto (Ian McKellen) dons his swirling cape and purple helmet to declare his opposition to the humans' puny plan. He gathers together an army of angry mutants (some solicited from a crowd of protestors outside a clinic where the cure is disseminated and mutants seeking it line up looking ashamed and afraid, a scene recalling abortion clinic protests). These include the dazzlingly pin-bodied Kid Omega (Ken Leung) and punky speed-demon Callisto (Dania Ramirez), who agree to fight not only the U.S. government, but also the X-Men, who now number six.
The struggle between the two bands of mutants is laid out in the story of Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), who comes back (from apparently dying in X2) as Phoenix, a Class Five mutant capable of all kinds of destruction, not to mention a complete lack of self-control. Professor X, always a great advocate of self-control, calls her "a purely instinctual creature, all desire joy and rage."
Such roiling emotion is understandable, given her continuing romantic travails with Cyclops (James Marsden) and Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), neither of whom can just give up his self-made claim to her (this plot has grown tedious, and turns deadly here). But now Professor X and Magneto are fighting over her as well, knowing that whoever controls this most powerful "creature" will run the world, of humans and mutants. By the time the Homeland Security is worrying about the mutants' threat and Magneto is making underground videotapes to disseminate dire warnings against his opponents, it's clear enough where the resolution is headed.
But the plot has never been this franchise's strong suit. Rather, The X-Men films delight in quirky, complicated, flamboyant characters, sometimes subversively funny, sometimes outrageously desirous. As Mystique (Rebecca Romijn) goes missing in the early part of the film, the next closest fun freaks are the thudding Juggernaut (Vinnie Jones, who muscled up considerably for the role) and the charming, coming-into-her-own Kitty Pryde (played this third time by Ellen Page). But their appearances are brief, as the film is crowded with other characters and plots, such that its end -- yet another celebration of diversity that remains at risk -- only seems like more of the same.
Families who like this movie should read the comic books. They might also like the first two films in the series, X-Men and X2, as well as Spider-Man and Batman.
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Sexual ContentPassionate kissing; one becomes an all-body (legs included) embrace; Rogue is visibly jealous of boyfriend's flirtation with another girl. One mutant uses her powers to undo a man's pants. Mystique is more or less naked (in a non-sexual way) at all times, though she's usually covered in blue, scaly skin. One scene shows her naked without that covering, but the crucial bits are covered. |
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ViolenceComic-booky explosions, stabbings, shootouts, and fist/kick fights; brief scene of self-mutilation and upset as young boy tries to remove his "mutant" wings; Mystique assaults her police interrogators; police/military use guns with cure-carrying darts; characters explode into bits (including paternal Professor X, which might worry young viewers who are fond of him); Magneto breaks up the Golden Gate Bridge.; showdown at film's end includes fire, walls collapsing, electrocution; Jean sucks Wolverine's skin off him in patches; up-close stabbing. |
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LanguageFairly mild: "bitch," "hell," "ass," "dick," etc. |
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Social BehaviorGood mutants encourage difference and individuality, bad mutants try to kill those who don't agree with them. |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoWolverine smokes a cigar. |
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