[loopydate]

I absolutely loved it. I'd put it a notch below X2, but on repeated viewings, it may pass it. Here come the spoilers.

"Magneto has also exhibited powers of astral projection and telepathy, though his abilities along these lines appear to be minimal." - from Marvel.com. If he has mild telepathic/telekinetic powers that aren't a part of his natural mutation (there are superpowered beings in the Marvel Universe who aren't mutants, after all), that would explain how he could manipulate the chess piece (which I was pretty sure was either plastic or wood) despite having his mutation "cured."

I was thinking that the bone-throwing guy was Random, but I'm not sure.

I was disappointed in their use of Angel and Psylocke in particular. These are two pretty interesting characters (even if Angel's powers are pretty lame), and they were reduced to the background. Angel sort of got a chance to show off at the very end, saving his dad, then soaring over now-peaceful San Fran, but the only things Psylocke does are materialize out of the shadows and...die. At least Arclight and Spike (which is who I guess they were going for with the blowfish kid) get to kill some people.

How freaking badass was Phoenix? When she evaporated Xavier, I wasn't sure how to react. It was hard, but there was also the thought "Xavier's the most powerful telepath in the world. He could survive on the Astral Plane for a while." But when she started disintegrating soldiers and Morlocks and weapons and...everything, it was damn cool.

I personally liked the way Juggernaut was defeated, for the same reasons Lara mentioned. He's not a rocket scientist, and he thinks he's invulnerable, so it's not that farfetched that he would be suckered into having his powers leeched and knocking himself out running headfirst into a wall. I would have liked to have seen more out of him, since Vinnie Jones is the man, but I thought he was a well-done character.

I didn't even really care that they ignored the fact that he's Xavier's half-brother. Sometimes, you just have to make changes. That backstory is convoluted as hell, and it's easier to make him a mutant than to have him stumble into a cave and discover the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak during the war. The audience has been built up through two movies to believe in mutation, we don't need to be adding magic to the storyline now.

I was a little disappointed that the Sentinels weren't actually real, but with the Project Wideawake tease in X2 and the fact that the President talks about "by any means necessary" to Trask in X3, there's still the possibility of them coming out in sequels.

I'm not all that shaken up by Cyclops' death. He was never really that interesting of a character, imo. I mean, he's a good leader and all, but he falls to pieces way too easy. Like, anytime anything remotely bad happens to Jean, he's absolutely worthless. Storm and Wolverine and everyone else can fight through their angst, but Cyclops runs and hides and cries about it until Jean's okay, then he's Mister Leader Guy again.

Anybody else think it'd be cool if Iceman's headbutt on Pyro wound up splitting John's head, forcing him to start wearing a half-mask in sequels?

GREAT nod to the long-time comic book fans by having Storm kill Callisto. That fight was really well-choreographed and -shot, and the ending was really satisfying. Plus, the shot of Callisto's piercing still being red-hot and smoking afterwards was awesome.

It seemed really odd to me that they got an actress of Shoreh Agdashloo's caliber and gave her such a tiny role. She was good, it just seemed like that role could have been filled by a non-Oscar-nominated actress just as well.

One thing that bugged me (just a little bit, though) is that - now that they had Xavier transfer his consciousness into the coma patient - they can't do that with Psylocke now. It'd just seem redundant.

I keep talking about sequels, even though they haven't been confirmed. I wouldn't be surprised if they did make at least one more, and I hope - if they do - that they develop a relationship between Xavier and Moira. Their son, Proteus, is one of my favorite villains ever, and he'd be more than enough for the X-Men to handle now that almost all of the villains from the first three movies are out of the picture.

On that same note, everyone's saying "But if they make another one, there aren't enough X-Men coming back," but I don't really believe that. Yes, they killed off Jean and Cyclops, Rogue got "cured," and Halle Berry says she won't do another one (I actually believe her this time. I think she's burned out on superheroes after the spectacular failure of Catwoman). But I haven't heard Hugh Jackman say that he wouldn't come back after his Wolverine spinoff. Plus there's still Beast, Iceman, Angel, Colossus, Leech, and Kitty, plus the chance to elevate one of the "background" characters from X3 (like they elevated Kitty and Colossus from their cameos in the first two) like Siryn or Jubilee. And now we know Charles isn't dead, so...

I suppose that's all that's going to pour out of me for the time being. I'm sure I'll come up with more the more I see it. In conclusion, I was more than satisfied with The Last Stand, although I still think I'd rank it just a notch below X2 (which may be my favorite superhero movie ever).