An Incredibly Weak Portrayal of the X-Men

Rating: 3/10 (3 October 2007)

First off, I'll say that the first two X-Men movies were more or less well done considered what they had to work with: two and a half hour films and tons of characters that could've been worked into the screenplays.
Now to the garbage known as X-Men: The Last Stand.
A movie that was advertised seemingly 24/7/365 as the epic final battle of the X-Men movie series turned out to be a huge piece of crap. The writing was horrendous, jam-packed with cheesy lines to go along with weak characters, an infinite number of loose ends, a seemingly endless number of incorrectly portrayed characters, a terrible plot, and basically no ending (for a film that was supposed to be the end).
I could go on for hours so I'll specify just some of my biggest issues with the movie:
1) Although it's already been explained why, Nightcrawler was a no-show. Not cool. 2) Kitty Pryde is useless. 3) Iceman's realization of his full power is a pretty cool scene but doesn't come until the very end of the movie (the second movie that he has appeared in, mind you). Along the same lines, you'd think that by the third movie that they'd be able to develop Rogue as a viable character, but I guess I'm wrong for thinking that they actually would have put thought into this movie. Who am I trying to kid? 4) I find it hard to believe that Callisto, Arclight, Multiple Man, and Quill were the best characters the makers could manage to use as Magneto's best. 5) There was no point whatsoever to killing off Mystique. I'll take one Mystique any day over Callisto, Arclight, Multiple Man, and Quill combined. 6) Since when would The Phoenix and Juggernaut be characters who'd simply obey Magneto? Very weak writing. 7) Was it necessary to kill Cyclops, Jean, and Professor Xavier? 8) Way too many tough guy lines for Wolverine, Storm, and Beast, especially in the scene where Wolverine gives his big speech about being a team, about being X-Men. Not only was it completely out of character for him to do that, but the fact that he stressed the whole team aspect made them look like the Power Rangers, faceless and only distinguishable by their powers and costumes (laugh - don't even get me started). 9) Why even bother putting Colossus and Angel (both cool characters) in the movie if you plan to make them nothing more than a part of the scenery? 10) Lastly, why tease us with the Sentinel in the beginning of the "last movie" if you have zero intention of having the X-Men fight some bad ass Sentinels? They're obviously setting up another movie with this because they even included Trask, the guy who started the whole Sentinel project. Trask's inclusion was dumb however because he was basically a nobody in this movie while he was a major antagonist in the real story.
I don't know if Brett Ratner is at fault for any of this, but it may be more than coincidence that he didn't direct the first two, and they didn't suck. As nerdy as this may sound, this film may ruin future generations of X-Men fans. It was that bad. Grrrr. I'm done now.