Rewatching 2006’s X-Males: The Final Stand 20 years later feels fairly unusual. Nonetheless carrying the popularity of being one of many X-Males franchise’s largest film misfires, there’s so much from Final Stand that is…not nice. Nonetheless, rewatching the film with Avengers: Doomsday on the horizon modifications some issues for me.
As messy and infrequently irritating as X-Males: The Final Stand is, I do not suppose it is fully with out worth. There are some themes and concepts I might simply see getting used for the MCU’s X-Males sooner or later, although I am desperate to see how Doomsday may present a real “Final Stand”.
With that in thoughts, listed below are a few of my largest ideas following our Tremendous Rant Rewatch of X-Males: The Final Stand on the street to Avengers: Doomsday.
The Final Stand Is The Worst Of The Authentic X-Males Trilogy (However Nonetheless Has Some Good Moments)
The Final Stand is by far the weakest of the unique trilogy, and most everybody is aware of it.
In 104 minutes, we received a rushed Darkish Phoenix Saga, beloved characters being sidelined with undercooked arcs (or reduce fully like Nightcrawler), and main gamers being killed off like Cyclops who deserved way over what they received.
These are sometimes on the prime of a for much longer listing of grievances, not counting the truth that mainly not one of the main establishment modifications truly matter by the top of the film’s credit.
That stated, there are nonetheless some Final Stand moments that genuinely work for me. Magneto rallying mutants to his trigger may be very properly finished, drawing from his personal horrific experiences as a Holocaust survivor, to not point out the objectively spectacular Golden Gate Bridge/Alcatraz maneuver (one can solely think about what Magneto’s powers will seem like 20 years later in Doomsday).
Kelsey Grammer’s Beast can be pitch-perfect casting, therefore my nice pleasure once we noticed him returning to the function within the post-credits scene for 2023’s The Marvels forward of a much bigger function alongside different OG X-Males actors in Avengers: Doomsday (Alan Cumming’s Nightcrawler is confirmed to be returning as properly).
Likewise, within the midst of a brand new mutant “treatment”, there are certainly some compelling themes about mutant id and the specter of extinction buried in Final Stand’s general chaos and poor execution, themes I would truly like to see continued when Marvel Studios reboots the X-Males post-Doomsday/Secret Wars (which might be what struck me probably the most throughout this week’s rewatch).
20 Years Later. I am So Prepared For Doomsday To Be The Fox X-Males’s TRUE Final Stand
Past all the problems, the principle factor I felt after watching was this sense of unfinished enterprise. Given all of the Fox X-Males timeline issues, modifications, and reboots that adopted, there actually wasn’t something really last about The Final Stand.
There was no strong farewell/conclusion for the core forged, lots of whom would make subsequent returns in future films culminating in Avengers: Doomsday/Secret Wars later this yr. Now, there’s an actual probability for some real finality for Fox’s model of the X-Males and its actors by no means actually had.
Think about James Marsden’s Cyclops lastly main the X-Males in a significant method, or Magneto and Professor X getting one final ideological confrontation that really breathes the best way it deserves (increasing on their dynamic in Days of Future Previous, although we’ll get to that film’s rewatch quickly sufficient).
Avengers: Doomsday has the benefit of hindsight and 20 years of superhero storytelling evolution to offer us one thing really particular for the live-action X-Males. With that in thoughts, rewatching Final Stand this week truly made me hopeful about all of the methods Doomsday might successfully redeem the 2006 movie.
Tell us your ideas within the feedback about X-Males: The Final Stand (2006), and be looking out subsequent week for our Tremendous Rant Rewatch of Iron Man (2008)! You may as well try our Tremendous Rant: Doomsday Preppers podcast on Spotify and YouTube.
- Launch Date
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Might 25, 2006
- Runtime
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104minutes
- Director
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Brett Ratner
- Writers
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Brett Ratner