This weekend’s big blockbuster, X-Men: The Last Stand, looks to be what we haven’t yet seen in comic book adaptations, a real knock down all-out war between opposing superforces, in this case of course, the X-Men, mutants sworn to saving humanity from those who fear them, and the scary Brotherhood of Mutants, dedicated to destroying homo sapiens to insure the survival of mutant homo superiors. The trailers and television ads show a remarkable amount of fight scenes and destruction and if this is indeed the last of three X-Men films planned, it’s going out in a big way. (Yes, there is a Wolverine film in the works but that is a return to the single hero story like the Spider-Man, Batman, and Superman films.)
From what I’ve been able to tell, the film crams an awful lot of elements that I would have expected to see spread out over two or three feature films. First, it brings back Jean Grey, the telepathic, telekinetic-powered redhead who sacrificed herself to save her teammates and returns as Phoenix, a far more powerful and eventually evil character. The Phoenix saga of the 1970s is what made X-Men the crown jewel of Marvel Comics’ many titles. Over many issues Jean Grey changed from the rather underwhelming Marvel Girl to the cosmic demi-goddess Phoenix–the humanity of Jean Grey was eventually overwhelmed by the Phoenix entity and she gave herself over to her dark side. As Dark Phoenix, she casually absorbed the power of an entire solar system, incidentally destroying a world of living beings doing so. When the powers at Marvel decreed that such a horrific act of genocide couldn’t go unpunished, the story culminated in tragedy that echoed through the X-Men stories for years. (By the way, you should be able to click on the images to open them in larger version.)
Apparently we will also see the coming of the Sentinels, the giant robots created by paranoid humans to track down and destroy all mutants. A scene from the film screened on the Tonight Show shows how Wolverine gives the younger mutants a quick lesson in how he deals with deadly flying robots.
Finally, there is the plot element of the “mutant cure” drawn from a storyline from the Astonishing X-Men title written last year by Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Serenity, et al). What if a cure for the genetic phenomenon that creates superpowered mutants could be found–who would be tempted to unburden themselves of their “condition” that draws the fear and hatred of so many humans? And who would be driven to destroy humanity for yet another assault on their unique identity?
And I won’t even go into all the new characters the film has. (Check out the official site if you have a lot of time on your hands.) So you see how loaded with these and other plot elements the film is (the current issue of Premiere has a chart showing just how many details are drawn right out of the comics.) The question of many is, can a new director, Brett Ratner, juggle all of these balls and still make a smoothly paced, coherent action film (in an hour and 44 minutes), after taking the reins once held by Brian Singer who left to take on the biggest superhero of them all in Superman Returns?
