Let's face it, the third X-Men film had some pretty big boots to fill.

With the first two movies, director Bryan Singer had managed to walk the tightrope between keeping both the rabid comic book fans and the casual cinema-goers happy and in the process created what are generally considered to be the best of the current rash of comic book movies.

So, when Singer jumped ship to make the upcoming Superman Returns and was duly replaced by Brett Ratner, many naysayers were predicting a turkey of mammoth proportions.

Fortunately, The Last Stand does a pretty good job in proving the doom-mongers wrong. While he may not have Singer's directorial chops, Ratner has produced a movie that more than does justice to the first two movies and provides us with the first bona fide crowd-pleasing flick of the summer after the misfires of The Da Vinci Code and Mission Impossible 3.

All the regulars are back although in some cases not for very long, and fans of the franchise should be aware that some long-standing characters bite the dust in this movie and are joined by some new faces. The most notable of these must be Kelsey Grammer taking the role of The Beast, and bringing a surprising amount of gravitas to the part.

In fact, if there's one criticism to be made of The Last Stand it must be that it's probably a bit too heavy on plot, with the emergence of Jean Grey's evil alter ego Dark Phoenix, a final battle instigated by Magneto between mutants and humans and the discovery of a 'cure' for mutancy all vying for attention. It's a shame that Phoenix is side-lined for much of the film as she could easily have been made the focus of the movie.

Possibly the only other criticism that can be levelled at the film is the inclusion of Vinnie Jones as Juggernaut. It will possibly come as no surprise to most people to find that he is just awful to the extent that every time he opens his mouth he all but derails the entire film.

But these complaints aside, there is much to enjoy here. The plot lines and emotional arcs established in the first two films are successfully brought to an end and there are some stunning set-pieces most notably, Magneto's uprooting of the Golden Gate Bridge.

This is ostensibly the final X-Men film although a post-credits sequence suggest that there may be life in the franchise yet but die-hard fans will be able to content themselves with the arrival of a solo outing for Jackman's Wolverine which is due in cinemas next year.

While The Last Stand may not reach the heights of its predecessors, it does offer up solid, entertaining blockbuster fare in a year that has been sadly bereft of that so far.