‘X’ marks the stop

Having helmed “X-Men” and the sequel “X2: X-Men United” – two of the best comic-book-to-movie adaptations of all time – Bryan Singer could be expected to have some words of wisdom for Brett Ratner, who succeeds him as director of “X-Men: The Last Stand.”

“Bryan actually just called to congratulate me on getting the job, and to assure me he thought I was the right guy for the job,” says Ratner.

“But when I did ask him if there was anything specific he might tell me that would help me do the job, he gave the best advice I could’ve gotten. He said, ‘Stay off the Internet.’ “

Since Ratner obeyed, he remained fairly oblivious to a rash of flaming worthy of the fire-hurling X-Man known as Pyro.

One disgruntled Internet-poster compared the hiring of Ratner – whose credits include the “Rush Hour” action comedies and the Hannibal Lecter thriller “Red Dragon” – to putting the captain of the Exxon Valdez behind the wheel of a new luxury liner: “If I were the cast members, I’d be jumping overboard.”

But the primary cast members in the multifaceted saga of mutants born gifted (or cursed) with special powers all remained on deck for “Last Stand,” which opens today.

Even Halle Berry, who was on record saying she was not likely to return as the weather-controlling Storm, is back – with a substantially beefed-up role.

Alan Cumming, who was contracted to reprise his part as Nightcrawler, is missing, but co-writer Simon Kinberg says that’s because the script, crowded with mutants, did not have Nightcrawler in a significant role.

Ratner, who describes himself as “a total comics freak,” had been considered to direct the original “X-Men” but was immersed in another much-anticipated comic-book project: the revival of the Superman franchise.

He left that project because the studio would not allow him to cast an unknown actor as the Man of Steel, although, just to complicate the irony, Singer would cast a relative unknown named Brandon Routh in the same role.

According to Hugh Jackman, who plays fan favorite Wolverine, he and his co-stars did not panic when they heard the news that Singer had defected to direct “Superman Returns.”

“Obviously, Bryan is a talented fella,” Jackman says. “But as things proceeded in the sort of lumbering way these things seem to do, I think everyone felt fairly sure we could make a good movie without Bryan.

“He had left us with a pretty good legacy, you know. The second movie was far better than the first, and I think we all believed that the pieces were in place to make the third one better than the second.”

When it came to “The Last Stand,” says Jackman, “I think we all just wanted to be assured that this movie would remain rooted in the real world, or at least the world we had created in the first two movies.

“The general concern was that when you have all these colorful characters, considered by some people to be freaks, is that it could just turn into a sideshow. You know, ‘Here’s the hairy man; here’s the lizard boy; here’s the girl who reads minds!’

“The beauty of these stories is the way they accommodate all our fears and prejudices about the world. They’re allegories – allegories with some very cool action.”

“The Last Stand,” which Fox Filmed Entertainment calls “the culmination of the saga,” is about the conflict created when the United States government announces that a cure has been found that would suppress the “X” gene responsible for the mutants’ powers.

For some of the mutants, including Rogue (Anna Paquin) – who can absorb another person’s consciousness, physical strength and memory simply by touching them – this sounds like salvation. It means she will finally be able to touch the man she loves.

But other mutants, including Storm, argue that they have nothing to be cured of, that their condition is as natural as the human one. The anti-X-men brotherhood, headed by Magneto (Ian McKellen), a Holocaust survivor who has always been convinced that humanity’s real agenda is total eradication of the mutants, believes the voluntary “cure” is a sham, a political ruse that could mean the end of their kind.

“It’s such a great metaphor,” says Ratner, “because it strikes at the core of who we are, of what makes us. If you were African American and could take a pill that would turn you white, would you? If you were a parent and you were afraid your little kid was going to be gay, and you would be saving them from being ostracized, or even getting AIDS, by getting them injected, would you do that?”

As philosophical as the “X-Men” comics have always been, “The Last Stand” is hardly short on action and special effects. Ratner says his biggest contribution to the film’s shape was moving an extended battle sequence on the San Francisco Bay Bridge from the middle of the movie to its climax.

The new film also ups the special-effects ante by introducing new mutants. They include an irresistible, momentum-building force known as Juggernaut (former English soccer star Vinnie Jones); the X-Men’s feral ambassador to the humans, the Beast (Kelsey Grammer); and the Multiple Man (Eric Dane), who solves the question of how to be in more than one place at once.

Though some of these characters have only minutes of screen time, Ratner says this might not be the last sighting.

While “The Last Stand” marks the end of the X-Men trilogy – some beloved characters will meet their demise in the battle against evil – he says a new series spotlighting a different set of mutants is on the boards.

“And if they want me involved somehow, I’m there,” he adds. “This movie was like my dream come true.”