X-Fever: Just a few hours more ...

X-Men: The Last Stand opens in just a few short hours, and no doubt many comic fans are already in line to see the latest mutant flick. The critics, of course, have already started to weigh in -- some good, some bad. MetaCritic has a collection of reviews, which they analyze and use their mutant math skills to denote that the movie ranks as a 58 out of 100, i.e. "mixed reviews," though that number may go up or down as more reviews come out.

The media, of course, is all over the film today and likely will be all weekend, so let's feed the need for more X-news ...

Turning tables
USA Today looks at the journey Brett Ratner has faced over the last couple of years, particularly in regards to how internet fans viewed the director and the movie:

Although Ratner had directed several commercial hits, including Rush Hour and Red Dragon, AintItCool.com and other movie fan sites dismissed Ratner as a Hollywood hack and proclaimed the beloved comic-book franchise dead.

But a funny thing happened on the way to this year's summer movie season. X-Men: The Last Stand, opening Friday, somehow became a must-see film for Internet and comic fans again.

According to an online survey by Yahoo, X-Men received more than 40,000 votes as the most anticipated film of May. The Da Vinci Code was second with about 19,500 votes.

"There's definitely been a change of heart," says Gitesh Pandya of boxofficeguru.com. "X-Men has to be a contender for the biggest movie of the summer."

Wouldn't that be ... Super?

Body count
Hugh Jackman talks to SciFiWire about all the bodies Wolverine leaves in his wake this time around:

Hugh Jackman, who reprises the role of Logan/Wolverine in the upcoming sequel X-Men: The Last Stand, told SCI FI Wire that he engages in more fights and kills more people in this installment than in the previous films—so many, in fact, that some of his victims got edited out of the final film. "It was fantastic, and there is a good 50 [more] on the cutting room floor, trust me," Jackman said in an interview here. "I was like, 'Where are all those other guys that I killed?'"

"It's ACTUALLY a metaphor for adolescence"
Diesel Sweeties takes a humorous look at the X-Men in their latest comic.

Watch the credit!
This is London didn't like the movie all that much, but at least they let fans know not to leave after the credits:

A short coda after the end credits suggests a further episode of one of the cinema's most popular comic-book series may be on the horizon. But it will have to be better than this slam-bang all-action effort if it's to remain credible.

Wait, you mean there's an X-Men comic, too?
Erik Sweet of the Fairfield County Weekly uses the buzz around the film to recommend Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men:

The "widescreen" comics world has come full circle back to the wide screen from whence it came. X-Men: The Last Stand lifts the "mutant cure" storyline directly from Joss Whedon's first comic-book story arc, and features the moviehouse debut of two core Astonishing team members, Beast and Kitty Pryde. Even the egregious omission of Nightcrawler from the X -book is mirrored--he's not in the new movie, either, much to the dismay of the Alan Cumming fan club.

And finally ...

Separated at birth?