What were they THINKING???!!!

Rating: 4/10 (30 May 2006)

First of all, I consider myself to be a moderate X-men fan. I've seen almost every cartoon episode, and in fact, even own the majority of them. I also own and play several X-men video games. I've read my share of comic books; I also possess and watch on occasion the first two X-men movies (Which are spectacular by the way). However, this movie came as a major disappointment. A different director, and different writers worked on this film, and it's extremely noticeable. I watched this movie with my friend who knows nothing of X-men besides seeing, and loving, the first two. So there are two prime examples here with the identical opinion that this movie just was not good: my friend, someone with almost no knowledge of X-men, and then myself, someone who loves and posses a vast knowledge of X-men. The entire time we were watching this movie, the same thoughts repeatedly ran through our heads, "What were they THINKING??!! Why would you do THAT?! This SUCKS! That's STUPID!" Wolverine, Storm, Magneto, and Jean Gray/Phoenix are really the only mutants who do anything and are actually "in" the entire film. Apparently the "brilliant idea" to murder off more than half of the other popular mutants in this movie was in high demand. And those mutants who weren't killed were permanently stripped of mutant powers, so in the sense of being mutants, they were "dead." You'll read some rather simple-minded fools' opinions that the story was "good" or even "great." These are lies as well because the story is deduced within the first five minutes with no exciting twists in it. There are some disappointing attempts at "twists" which any imbecile could clearly divulge before it occurs. If Angel is a favorite mutant of anyone, don't see this movie for him. Angel seriously has about 10 minutes of screen time, five of which are wasted with him flying happily into the sunset. He fights absolutely no one in the whole movie. Rogue leaves after about 20 minutes into the movie, only to return pointlessly for the last 5 minutes of the movie. Jean Gray's alter ego, Phoenix, is portrayed pathetically "power-wise" in visual aspects. Her personality is perfect in my opinion, but her power doesn't actually arise as a fiery phoenix at all (like they left open at the end of X2). Also, she mainly just sits back and watches for the majority of the movie, only to unleash her power at completely senseless times. Juggernaut has a few quick entertaining scenes, but nothing earth-shaking. Beast is a rather dry part in this movie, with a few cool scenes at the end. They apparently tried to sell this film with a star cast and tons of special effects, without actually paying attention to a decent storyline, or to making this movie about mutants besides Wolverine, Storm, Magneto, and Jean Gray/Phoenix. This movie was painful for me to watch, and I felt like I wasted my $8.50 to see it in movie theaters. I'm not saying that you shouldn't at least go out and rent it, but please don't go see it in theaters. X-men fans, and fans of the first two glorious X-men movies will (or at least should) be disgusted with this poor excuse for trilogy end. It reminds me of the other ending trilogy flop movie, The Matrix Revolutions. And if this doesn't turn out to be the last X-men movie, the next one will surely be a disappointment because of this one.