X-Men: The Last Stand A Movie Review	MPAA Rated - PG-13 It's 1:44 Long A Review by The Dude on the Right

It seems some rich dude (Michael Murphy) isn’t too happy that his son, nicknamed Angel, is a mutant, because of his wings, and no, he didn’t get them by drinking Red Bull. Well, what is a rich dude to do? Well, he spends his dough looking for a cure, and finds it in the likes of Jimmy, a.k.a. Leech (Cameron Bright), a mutant that has the odd ability of being able to cure mutants. Said rich dude and his scientists use Leech to develop a vaccine, and it actually works. Therein lies the dilemma for a lot of mutants – are you happy and one with your mutant self, or would you rather be stripped of your mutant capabilities and go through life as a normal human being? This is really a tough choice for one of our favorite mutants, Rogue (Anna Paquin), who would really like to get down and dirty with her boyfriend Bobby "Iceman" Drake (Shawn Ashmore), but can’t, because, well, it will kill him, and not just because she would rock his world in bed. Anyway, Professor Xavier (Jean-Luc, I mean Patrick Stewart) sort of sees it as a choice a mutant will have to make, as long as the government doesn’t make it for them, but good ol’ Magneto (Ian McKellen) sees this as just another chance to rally mutants against humans and rid Earth of the rest of us. This would be a simple enough fight, but something, or rather, someone, has been thrown into the mix. That someone, Dr. Jean Grey, who, it turns out, just like the comic books, wasn’t actually dead at the bottom of that lake, just protecting herself and in turn, unlocking some hidden secrets in that mutant brain of hers making her the most powerful mutant of all, able to vaporize pretty much anything or anyone at a single desire, and now the good Doctor has taken on her alter personality, Phoenix. This is bad news for the good Professor, but great news for our Magnet-man.

As things go on it’s now Magneto and his huge band of mutants vs. the Armed Forces, with mutant vaccine in their guns, and six of our good, mutant heroes, at least I think it was six. There was Storm (Halle Berry), Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), Iceman, Beast (Kelsey Grammer), Colossus (Daniel Cudmore), and Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page). The last two, Colossus and Kitty, I’m not really sure about, so I’m sure if I’m wrong (and I would like to know if I am right), you X-Men fans will let me know. I tried to use my cunning ability of using the credits list on www.imdb.com and the X-Men section of the www.marvel.com sites, but I’m sorry, I digress. Anyway, you would think Magneto, with his huge band of mutants, wouldn’t really have a problem defeating everyone else, but Magneto overestimates his power, especially, maybe since now that airport security is so strict on all things metal, we’ve been able to convert to plastics. And I think I’ll just leave the synopsis at that.

Pretty much, for "X-Men: The Last Stand," we get all of heroes back in one capacity or another. Most of the names were listed in the synopsis above, but don’t worry, Mystique (Rebecca Rohijn-don’t add the Stomas any more) is also back, looking hot and being funnier than in the previous two films. Bummer for her, though, is that Magneto doesn’t care if you try to give your life to save him. There’s also Scott (James Marsden), who should have used drugs to stop the voices in his head, and Pyro (Aaron Stanford) still has his beef with Iceman. There are also many other new additions to the mutants we find, but the best addition for me, and not taking away from the others, was Juggernaut (Vinnie Jones), a big oaf of a dude who once he gets a head of steam, well, get the hell out of the way. I think the addition of Brett Ratner as the Director gave the movie a more action feel rather than a story feel, but I already knew the story, it was easy to follow, so it was sort of fun to just have a full-blown action fest rather than trying to set up the "this person has these issues because of this, this person isn’t sure of their mutant abilities because of this, and this love triangle continues on because of this" like in the previous two movies.  Nope, "X-Men: The Last Stand" just keeps things coming, with enough down time for you to regroup and wait for what is coming next. And it wasn’t bad almost seeing Mystique totally in the flesh, nor seeing Jean Grey/Phoenix in a scene I can now say I really wish I was Wolverine, especially if the Adamantium is attached to every bone. That’s got to be a plus in pleasing the ladies.

Look, this is an "X-Men" movie. If you aren’t/weren’t a comic book person, and you enjoyed the previous versions of the story, I don’t think you will be disappointed at all with this story, even with the more action side rather than personal side. The comic book world, though, seems a little divided, especially with the way the Phoenix aspect of the story was handled. As a sometimes geek I can understand this, because, and if they are going to now make spinoffs of the stories, Phoenix really deserved her own first before this movie was made, but don't be surprised if Wolverine gets his own flick.

I really enjoyed this movie, though not quite as much as "X2." It’s still a fun ride, and I will give you this hint if you haven’t seen the movie yet – Let the movie crew come in and start doing their job cleaning up all of the crap people left behind, but stay until the credits are over. I normally don’t, but I have to thank Howard Stern who had an early screening and told his radio listeners to stay. Stu Gotz and I stayed, and there was an added scene at the end that was a cool twist, and that’s all I will say. It’s 4 stars out of 5 for "X-Men: The Last Stand."

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!