List Price: $29.98 Our Price: $16.49YOU SAVE $13.49!
Buy it
DVD X-Men - The Last Stand (Full Screen Edition)
X-Men: The Last Stand is the third installment in the popular superhero franchise, and it's an exciting one with a splash of fresh new characters. When a scientist named Warren Worthington II announces a "cure" for mutant powers, it raises an interesting philosophical question: is mutant power a disease that needs a cure, or is it a benefit that homo superior enjoys over "normal" human beings? No surprise that Magneto (Ian McKellen) and his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants resist the idea that they need to be cured, and declare war on the human race. But it's a little tougher for the X-Men, led by Professor X (Patrick Stewart), Cyclops (James Marsden), and Storm (Halle Berry). If you're Rogue (Anna Paquin), for example, your power means you can't even touch your boyfriend, Iceman (Shawn Ashmore). To compound matters, someone previously thought dead has returned, and might be either friend or foe.
With director Bryan Singer having moved on to Superman Returns, the franchise passes to the hands of Brett Ratner (Rush Hour), whose best work is done in the big action sequences such as a showdown between mutant armies. But it's difficult to manage the sheer volume of characters when adding longtime comic-book stalwarts such as Beast (Kelsey Grammer) and Angel (Ben Foster), and one character in particular deserved better than an off-screen dismissal. And fans of the original Dark Phoenix comic book story might be underwhelmed by the movie's resolution. X-Men: The Last Stand is presumably the last film in the series, but the ambiguous ending leaves possibilities open. Look for the two writers most responsible for making the X-Men who they were, Stan Lee and Chris Claremont, in early cameos. --David Horiuchi
Review(s): DVD X-Men - The Last Stand (Full Screen Edition)
A Good Conclusion That Begs For A Sequel
If given more time, this movie would have been better than the final result, but the final result is still really good. I understood the plot and what the film was trying to tell us through symbolism the way an X-Men story should. Some characters do "die" in this movie, but in the world of the X-Men, they are always brought back. Characters have died in the comics and came back, and the small clip at the end of the credits of this movie proves that dead doesn't always mean dead.
I thought they made good use of the special effects of the film. One of the most beautiful parts of the movie was watching Angel fly over the bridge. The special effects really came in use at the exciting battle scene towards the end of the movie. You hear about the war coming in the previous two movies and now it is finally hear and it makes for a good watch that isn't boring.
The acting is also as great as in the other films as well. There are some powerful scenes such as when Logan and Storm are crying over one of their friends who had died. Overall, if you are a fan of the series, then you owe it to yourself to get the DVD. No; it isn't the best in the series, but if you love the X-Men movies and are like me, then you will probably like this as well.
X-Men: The Last Stand (2.5 stars)
Plagued with production problems since the director from the previous two X-Men chapters, Bryan Singer, said goodbye, X-Men: The Last Stand proves to be no less problematic upon its theatrical release. Hired gun Brett Ratner tries to appease fans of Singer's work while adding a plethora of geekout moments for fan-boys to eat up. The plan backfires, however, as for every one of these moments that The Last Stand gets right, it gets at least two or three things wrong in character development, plot, and overall appeal. To start with, some major cast members are killed off, and surprisingly early on, too. This would be enough to anger fans of the comics and films alike but to make things worse, just about everyone in this movie acts out of character--Wolverine becoming the team leader and Professor Xavier turning into a control freak are but a couple examples. It also doesn't help that all the main story arches that have been developed so painstakingly by Singer are mostly ignored or completely dissolved here in favor of a few flashier and far shallower characters. Though the opening scene with Angel as a child is particularly moving, his character doesn't do anything of importance for the rest of the movie. The same could be said of countless others whose sole purpose is to look cool and provide a quick fight scene or one-liner. There are so many things wrong with X-Men: The Last Stand that to put them into a list would take days to complete. The only thing that can be said for it is that Brett Ratner is able to rely on the screenwriters to add in enough action-packed effects shots to keep people off the trail of just how much is lacking here. A summer popcorn flick at best, X-Men: The Last Stand strips the series of everything that made it enduring and original and replaces it with enough tongue-in-cheek humor and whizbang effects to keep casual audiences coming back for more.
Saving the best for last
A lot of people did not seem to like this picture as much as the other two. Allow me to be a dissenter. This actually was my favorite of the three.
For those who have not read my other reviews on the X-Men movies, the theme of the series is fighting prejudice. The bad guy mutants are ready to wage war with the humans who persecute them. The good guy mutants try to live peaceably with humans and even protect them from the bad guys. This one reverses the plot from the original movie: instead of mutants trying to change humans into mutants, there is a new drug humans devised to change mutants into humans.
This movie has a parallel theme, which is the matter of choice. As a minister, I'm familiar with the debate over predestination and free will. In the story, there are humans who think mutants need to be cured, mutants who oppose this cure, and mutants who believe they don't need to be cured but will allow each individual to make up their mind of whether they want to change.
One reason I like this movie is it introduces two of my favorite X-Men comic characters that were so far absent: The Beast, one of the original X-Men (played superbly by Kelsey Grammer), and the Juggernaut (Vinnie Jones), who is a mutant in the movie though not in the comics. Another original X-Man that makes his movie debut is the Angel.
I found the ending of the first movie to be effectively symbolic, and there is an allusion to it in the ending of this movie. I enjoyed several of the little tangent stories. I didn't mind the fact that Storm got more attention than usual (and the Wolverine always dominated the stories), but many of the other characters have adequate development. The movie does seem to close up the trilogy, but I would be happy for a spin-off or a new trilogy or something like that.
Related DVD's X-Men - The Last Stand (Full Screen Edition)
Take the first Pirates of the Caribbean film, add a dash of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and a lot more rum. Shake well and you'll have something resembling Dead Man's Chest, a bombastic sequel that's enjoyable as long as you don't think too hard about it. The film opens with the interrupted wedding of Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), both of whom are arrested for aiding in the escape of Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) in the first film. Their freedom can only be obtained by getting Captain Jack's compass, which is linked to a key that's linked to a chest belonging to Davy Jones, an undead pirate with a tentacle face and in possession of a lot of people's souls. If you're already confused, don't worry--plot is definitely not the... More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 05 December 2006 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $34.99 Your Price: $19.99YOU SAVE $15!
Buy it
"Remember, remember the fifth of November," for on this day, in 2020, the minds of the masses shall be set free. So says code-name V (Hugo Weaving), a man on a mission to shake society out of its blank complacent stares in the film V for Vendetta. His tactics, however, are a bit revolutionary, to say the least. The world in which V lives is very similar to Orwell's totalitarian dystopia in 1984: after years of various wars, England is now under "big brother" Chancellor Adam Sutler (played by John Hurt, who played Winston Smith in the movie 1984), whose party uses force and fear to run the nation. After they gained power, minorities and political dissenters were rounded up and removed; artistic and unacceptable religious works were confiscated. Cameras and microphones are... More Info about this DVD Director(s): James McTeigue DVD Release Date: Released the 01 August 2006 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $26.98 Your Price: $22.99YOU SAVE $3.99!
Buy it
If Richard Donner's 1978 feature film Superman: The Movie made us believe a man could fly, Bryan Singer's 2006 follow-up, Superman Returns, lets us remember that a superhero movie can make our spirits soar. Superman (played by newcomer Brandon Routh) comes back to Earth after a futile five-year search for his destroyed home planet of Krypton. As alter ego Clark Kent, he's eager to return to his job at the Daily Planet and to see Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth). Lois, however, has moved on: she now has a fiancé (James Marsden), a son (Tristan Leabu), and a Pulitzer Prize for her article entitled "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman." On top of this emotional curveball, his old archrival Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) is plotting the biggest land grab in history.
Critics and controversy aside, The Da Vinci Code is a verifiable blockbuster. Combine the film's huge worldwide box-office take with over 100 million copies of Dan Brown's book sold, and The Da Vinci Code has clearly made the leap from pop-culture hit to a certifiable franchise. The leap for any story making the move from book to big screen, however, is always more perilous. In the case of The Da Vinci Code, the plot is concocted of such a preposterous formula of elements that you wouldn’t envy screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, the man tasked with making this story filmable. The script follows Dan Brown’s book as closely as possible while incorporating a few needed changes, including a better ending. And if you’re like most of the world, by now you’ve... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Ron Howard DVD Release Date: Released the 14 November 2006 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $29.96 Your Price: $16.99YOU SAVE $12.97!
Buy it
At the time of its release, Mission: Impossible III's box office was plagued by the publicity backlash against couch-jumping star Tom Cruise. It's too bad, because this third installment of the spy thriller franchise deserved a better reception than it got. First-time feature director J.J. Abrams (bigwig TV director/producer of Lost, Alias, & Felicity) proves more than able-bodied in creating a Mission: Impossible that's leaner and less over-stylized than John Woo's sequel and less confusing than Brian De Palma's original. Plot is still a throwaway here (Cruise's Ethan Hunt rescues his kidnapped former trainee and works to steal a device that... well, we don't really know what it does, but it's something about mass destruction that costs $850 million),... More Info about this DVD Director(s): J.J. Abrams DVD Release Date: Released the 30 October 2006 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $34.99 Your Price: $23.49YOU SAVE $11.5!
Buy it
