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There\'s more to like about the movie than you might remember.

It’s become shorthand among fans to declare X-Men: The Last Stand the worst film in the X-Men franchise, and not without reason: it’s second only to Origins: Wolverine in its blatant disregard for fanbase expectations or even remotely credible casting choices (seeing Vinnie Jones embody a half-baked Internet meme as the Juggernaut gives you an idea of this film’s sense of flare). It makes a mockery of the Dark Phoenix Saga; people infuriatingly die off-screen or without pretense; characters are introduced for the sake of novelty and never fleshed out while others disappear for long stretches, perhaps while their actors cash their checks and seek more gainful and less humiliating employment elsewhere. The point being, it doesn’t hold up well.

Except that for all the acidity foisted upon it, The Last Stand is not a film entirely devoid of quality. In fact, it manages throughout to either introduce or reintroduce themes that were not only vital to the first two films, but to the very integrity of the X-Men as a whole. That it was buried under over two hours of mindboggling insipidity is merely unfortunate happenstance, and perhaps the most atrocious part of this is that it shows the film did indeed have outstanding potential, some of which would later be capitalized on in better films.

It also bears repeating (since it is not conditioned enough) that no film is the result of one vision, and when it is presented as such, it is usually to the purpose of presenting a scapegoat for its many flaws. In this case, director Brett Ratner had to bear the brunt of fandom ire when Last Stand razed the goodwill created by Bryan Singer’s one-two punch. Although his name can be construed as symbolic of his film niche (it sounds like Jock Rodent) Ratner is not the primary culprit of the film’s shortcomings.

The truth is, the results are often born from a hive mentality where many ideas are shot down by the brass who have their own notions of what audiences desire, and it’s miraculous that anything indicative of quality appears on screen at all.

This is a list dedicated to those small obscured miracles…

In this post: featured • Features • Hugh-Jackman • Lists • X-Men-3:-The-Last-Stand

This article was first posted on September 6, 2014

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