Back during a time when people weren't totally sure that director Brett Ratner was, indeed, a hack, there was a palpable hype for the third X-Men movie. X-Men and X-Men 2, after all, were both deemed to be a major successes. The first movie - along with the original Sam Raimi Spider-Man flick - pretty much birthed the current superhero craze, whilst X-Men 2 (or "X-2" as it is annoyingly known) is an undeniable comic book movie tour-de-force. Bryan Singer, who helmed the first two X-Men movies, decided to jump ship when it came time for the third (he was offered Superman Returns over at Warner Bros.), and so - after a long and tiring search - 20th Century Fox gave up and handed The Last Stand to Brett Ratner, a man who - by his own admittance - had no knowledge of the X-Men mythos. Was it any surprise, really, that the man behind Rush Hour 3, The Family Man and Red Dragon produced such a mediocre film? X-Men 3's subtitle - that, is "The Last Stand" - teased a flick of insanely exciting proportions, but the final product is a slapdash affair that wastes its intriguing premise, helmed - clearly - by somebody who just signed on for the money. Nowadays, of course, Ratner films don't bother to come with any hype attached.