All it took was a little butt-whupping from some mutants to knock that stodgy “The Da Vinci Code” out of the top box office spot.

Three cheers for Wolverine.

“X3: The Last Stand,” rumored to be the final X-Men movie, hit theaters last week and demolished the box office - thanks to two great predecessors and little to no competition. Following the laws of sequels, each new movie in the series should be bigger than the one that came before it. “The Last Stand” adheres to this principle - adding a ton of characters familiar to those who read the comics or watched the cartoon and also adding a number of big fight sequences, special-effects laden scenes and major developments in the arcs of several characters.

I won’t spoil any of them here but I will say I was surprised by several events in the film.

In the series, the human world has slowly woken up to the fact that there are mutants in the world and at the end of the last film, an accord between the two worlds was reached. “The Last Stand” begins with a man finding a cure for the mutant gene and now every mutant is faced with a decision - mutant or human. It’s a tough decision for some and for others the fact that they have to decide is a slap in the face. When the government weaponizes the cure to deal with some of the more dangerous mutants, a war breaks out and our mutant friends must now choose sides.

The other major plot point in the film is the re-emergence of Dr. Jean Grey, who appeared to die in saving her friends in the last film. She’s back, but is she the same Jean that everyone remembers or is she a more dangerous, unstable Jean bent on not being controlled anymore?

“The Last Stand” isn’t the best film in the series, but it is a worthy installment and a fitting end to the series, if it truly is the end. Hugh Jackman is once again in top form as Wolverine, Halle Berry finally gets some more to do as Storm and Ian McKellen is also very good as the nefarious Magneto. It was great to see some new mutants too, especially Ellen Page’s Kitty Pryde and Vinne Jones’ Juggernaut.

The film could have been longer and a few more battles or action scenes would have been great too, but as summer movies go, I was completely satisfied.

***1/2

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