Disney Plus is adding yet another Fox Marvel movie this week. The Mouse House’s streaming service already introduced Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer to its library last Friday and now a second one is following suit.
On May 14th, 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand finds its way onto D+ in the United States. It’s not exactly the best that the X-Men franchise had to offer, but those who want a complete collection of Marvel Legacy films – as Disney wants us to call them – on the platform should be pleased about it becoming available.
As fans will know, The Last Stand was the final chapter in the original X-trilogy, as directed by Brett Ratner after Bryan Singer moved over to DC to helm the same year’s Superman Returns. Hugh Jackman reprises Wolverine alongside Patrick Stewart’s Professor X, Ian McKellen’s Magneto, Halle Berry’s Storm and the rest of the team as they face double the trouble. Following her death in X2, Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) is resurrected, but is overtaken by her superpowered alternate personality, the Phoenix. Meanwhile, a mutant cure is developed, threatening the race’s very existence.
For years, this movie was viewed as one of the worst films to have the Marvel logo in front of it, infamous for its bungling of the Dark Phoenix saga and cringeworthy moments (see: anything Vinnie Jones does as the Juggernaut). After 2019’s Dark Phoenix turned out so bad, though, maybe we can find more to appreciate about The Last Stand. There are some strong additions to the ensemble, to be sure, including Elliot Page as Kitty Pryde and Kelsey Grammer as Beast. And it features a couple of great set pieces as well, like the Sentinel-battling opening sequence.
In any case, fans have got a pretty full range of X-Men titles to stream on Disney Plus at this point, including classics like X2 and Days of Future Past, and X-Men: The Last Stand joins them from this Friday.