Mission: Hollywood - your last stand.

We know that this one has probably slipped below your multiplex radar, but X-Men: The Last Stand is opening today. Should we unleash berserker rage at Brett Ratner’s Noble But Ill-Conceived Franchise Fumble® (see: Jonathan Mostow), or has the director successfully shape-shifted into a legitimate action director with dramatic (mutton)chops?

There’s a lot of Internet noise going on out there about this one. Today’s Mission: Hollywood asks: who will you stand with?

Chris at the Movie Marketing Madness blog does his usual ultra-thorough, top-to-bottom round-up review of the various Last Stand marketing materials. Solid, informed Internet commentary from a movie fan who also happens to understand marketing beyond knee-jerk “THIS TOTALLY RAWKS” criticism.

Moviehole is reporting that Brett Ratner would like to make another movie with Sir Ian McKellen, hoping to cast the distinguished Shakespearian actor as the villain in Rush Hour 3. (and…bile in throat subsiding…) Of course we understand that McKellen is enjoying a late-career surge thanks to the gravitas and legitimacy he’s lent to a number of fanboy franchises, but we’re probably not ready yet to watch him get his ass kicked by Chris Tucker and then get burned alive and impaled - only to rise up again and then have a block of C4 stuffed down his pants as Jackie Chan slaughters a C-list screenwriter’s finest bon mot (something, oh, in the neighborhood of “I’m afraid your rush hour…has run out!“) as he’s thrown off a building and explodes into a handful of misty - yet still PG-13 - bodyparts.

We’re not sure what to think about the Professor X/Magneto-like balance of opposing X-Men reviews over at Ain’t It Cool News - Moriarty loved it; Harry, not so much. While the sweet little kid in us believes that we’re seeing the wonderfully divergent opinions of the Internet in coexistence, our bitter, sullen teenager sneers that they’re probably just pandering to everyone in their audience.

“Hey, guys? Nice job with the mattress suit, but seriously - we’re calling it ‘The Last Stand’ for a reason. Yeah, sorry. I don’t know, maybe try Peter Jackson.”

So you’re an X-Men fan? You love the X-Men? No, actually, you don’t. This guy is an X-Men fan. You are not. He owns you. You should go home. You’re pathetic.

What exactly would happen if robots and humans had romantic relationships together and if they all got excited about the impending opening of a certain new mutant movie? Yeah, it would probably look just like the last few days of the oddball comic Diesel Sweeties.

And, because no round-up is complete without a smidgen of nostalgia, the miracle of the permalink brings us Brett Ratner’s wonderful 2005 holiday card to Defamer in which he dressed up like Wolverine and posed alongside his cast in a picture jam-packed with ambiguity: ironic self-deprecation or vaguely sad fanchild wish fulfillment?

This weekend may have your answer to that very claw-stabbing probing question. Enjoy the movie, kids - and report back to Burbanked once you’ve done so.