X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

X-Men: The Last Stand plays like a group project somebody finished the night before it was due. It has two massive storylines and 104 minutes to cover them. The cure plot is legit interesting: what if the thing that makes you different could be wiped away with one shot, and some people actually wanted that? Then the Phoenix arc, one of the most famous stories in the comics, gets parked behind Magneto like a bodyguard with no lines. Famke Janssen does a lot of intense staring. New mutants get introduced and forgotten in the same scene. Still, Kelsey Grammer’s Beast is perfect casting, a big blue professor with flawless manners, and Ian McKellen delivers every speech like it’s Shakespeare in a cape. The bridge sequence is huge and kinda glorious. It pulled in $460.4 million worldwide on a reported $210M budget, and a 5.4 movie.guru score feels fair. A 5.1 because it’s a fun Saturday movie dressed up as a trilogy finale. $3,104 says you finish it and immediately look up how the comic did it.

What works: Kelsey Grammer’s Beast and Ian McKellen’s Magneto, plus a cure storyline that asks a real question about whether being different is something to fix.

What doesn’t: The Phoenix arc gets squeezed into the margins of a 104-minute movie that’s already juggling a second huge story and a pile of new mutants who barely get a scene.

Who it’s for: Fans who want one more round with the original trilogy cast and can forgive a finale that feels like a rough draft.