Road ends for Jackman's X-Men

The Wolverine is all over Cannes, fighting for good from every second billboard, bus stop and magazine cover. Hugh Jackman, star of the hugely successful action movie franchise X-Men, is unquestionably hot.

X-Men: The Last Stand has premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, with Jackman walking the Palais' red carpet with co-stars Halle Berry, Sir Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Famke Janssen and Anna Paquin.

It is the third and, supposedly, final film in the series.

"I have heard from people fairly high up?- I am not saying as high as Rupert Murdoch but pretty close to it?- kind of say that this is the end," Jackman said. "But if you watch it to the end of the credits, there are a few teasers there."

Jackman, 37, is in Cannes with his wife, Deborra-Lee Furness, who appears in the Australian film Jindabyne, which is screening as part of Directors' Fortnight, a separate festival program, next week. Based on a Raymond Carver short story, it tells the story of three men who find a body while fishing.

More remarkable was the fact that his wife, who had chosen to stay at home with their elder child, now six, for five years, was here in her own right. "She decides to do a movie and lo and behold, it is in the Directors' Fortnight and premiering the night after mine," said Jackman, grinning. "I don't think I could have written that script."

The last of the X-Men films, based on the Marvel series about troubled mutants with extraordinary powers, is a roller-coaster ride of special effects and battles between mutant titans. It revolves around the humans' discovery of an antidote to mutation; one shot and these differently-abled weirdos can become normal homo sapiens.

One faction of mutants, suspecting that this antidote will be used to try to wipe out mutants, declares war on humans.

Director Brett Ratner says the real subject of the film is tolerance of those who are different. McKellen said the film would be worthwhile if just one ostracised child felt better about himself.

Jackman agreed. He looked forward to the moment when his children were old enough to watch X-Men to see that even the super-powerful could feel lonely, precisely because their difference set them apart. Whether that difference could be medicated away was not merely a question for fantasy super-heroes.

"We now have an enormous control over our lives with genetic engineering," Jackman said. "My wife and I tried the IVF treatment, which some people think is unnatural." He and Furness have two adopted children.

Even if the X-Men are no more, Wolverine will go on. Jackman's production company is working on a spin-off with 20th-Century Fox. Another film based on McKellen's character is also in the pipeline. The stage also beckons: Jackman is on his way home to Australia to begin rehearsals for A Boy From Oz.