Good acting and potential that is wasted

Rating: 1/10 (5 March 2017)

I wanted to like this movie but the longer it went, the more I disliked it. I can only think how much better this movie would have been if Marvel had made it and done the story right. The good is that the acting is very good and Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart deliver great performances as you would expect from them. Stephen Merchant was great as Caliban. Dafne Keen was the true find as she did an outstanding job as Laura (X-23). Not speaking for most of the film means she had to rely on facial expression and looks and she did them with a lot of skill. Whether it was her or just great direction, the point is that she executes her role wonderfully. She has very expressive eyes and at times reminded me of a very young Sandra Bullock. I hope she has a long career.
The bad is the typical problem when Marvel isn't making the movie. Apparently the desire is to make superhero movies where the superheros detest their powers and stay far away from lame things like costumes (ie what fan like). So of course there are no costumes in this and there is a lot of complaining about having fantastic powers and everyone seems to determined use kung fu rather than actually use those powers.
At several points, it seemed that someone in Hollywood got an idea and insisted that it be included (hey let's involve border crossings, hey we need to say something about big corporations, hey let's complain about self-driving cars, etc. etc.) which all just muddle the story and add nothing in my opinion.
Although his acting was as good as always, I found Prof. X a distraction in the movie and was disappointed with his storyline. Others may disagree.
This movie is rated R. There are some bloody scenes but there are a lot of F-Bombs. Despite the rating, we had a 9 year old Wolverine fan sitting behind us constantly asking his parent what this or that means. With Wolverine being such a child-friendly character in comics and cartoons, making an R rated version was a pretty bad idea since a lot of kids are going to want to see it and give their parents plenty to have to explain. Deadpool could do it since Deadpool is not that common with kids. In fact, the best part of the movie was the preview (kind of preview) for the upcoming Deadpool sequel.
This was the 3rd movie I have seen recently in the theaters where the audience was disruptive. Talking, cell phones, etc. (one guy even taking a phone call during the film!) made it a bad experience. I love seeing movies in a theater but if people cannot learn that when in a theater they are NOT in their own den watching Netflix, I will have to seriously rethink it. Ticket prices keep going up and up and highly disruptive customers (forget poor films) make a good explanation for why people are staying away from theaters.