Who are you, and why are you here?

Rating: 2/10 (13 October 2006)

How can I communicate all of the things that went wrong with this movie? The first two installments, while not necessarily very faithful to the comic books story lines they were supposed to reflect, told a pretty decent story from beginning to end. We knew who each character was. We knew their relationship to virtually every other character. We knew what drove them to do what they did, and with whom they were aligned.
These things, both incredibly basic and absolutely essential to screen writing, are inexcusably missing from this installment.
Juggernaut, Multiple Man, Arc Light, Callisto, Colossus, Angel, Beast... who are they?
Juggernaut is Professor X's jealous step-brother who stumbled upon an ancient magical power, and is immune to psychic attacks.
Multiple Man is a former member of a superHERO team (I forget if he was X-Factor or X-Force).
Callisto is a mutant whose power, appearance and dispostion force her into a subterrainean existence, rife with its own political implications of intra-class warfare. Arc Light, subsequently, is more or less a face in Callisto's crowd.
Colossus is a Soviet refugee who fled Russia with his sister Ilyana to find a better life for her, and finds it with Professor X.
Angel is an ORIGINAL x-man whose overbearing rich father made life a living hell for the would-be Long Island playboy. As if this isn't bad enough, he's eventually kidnapped by Apocalypse, his wings turned metal and skin turned a light blue... a reflection of the Apocalypse's evil taint.
Beast, another ORIGINAL x-man, is a former high-school football star whose desire to become human was so great that he conducted an experiment to rid himself of mutantism, only to have said experiment backfire and warp his appearance irreversibly.
There, I think I've just about covered it. Why did I do this?
Because there's absolutely NO MENTION of any of these rich and fleshed-out backstories at all in X-3, and people not familiar with the comic book would have no clue about any of this without the aforementioned crash course.
This film makes a grievous error: squeezing in a bunch of fanboy material alien to mainstream movie-going audiences, without actually following through on the development of that material, which loses the fanboy audience, too. The result? Nobody's happy but Brett "can't-find-a-style" Rattner.
My point is that every character that appeared in this movie, with maybe one or two exceptions, has a well-developed and complex story in the comic book. It's not as if there wasn't a wealth of material to draw upon.
But enough complaining, it's time to suggest what could have been done to improve this film... Drum roll... CUT HALF THE CHARACTERS OUT!!! Seriously, if you don't have the time to present all your material well, then cut some of what you decide to present!
Suggestions:
Multiple Man served one disgustingly contrived purpose: use his power to fake high numbers. CUT!
Juggernaut did nothing. Period. His purpose seemed to be attempting a lame summer-movie quote, "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" (I won't even go into why that's totally inappropriate for the character to begin with). CUT!
Angel... How to begin? There was a perfect opportunity to bring into Xavier's school. Squandered... why? CUT!
Arc Light & Callisto effectively exist so that we can see some "kewl powerz" on screen. We're supposed to ignore that Magneto never actually proves himself to them, or gives them a reason to come out of hiding.
The problem with Colossus is very basic: either expand his role (his friendship with Nightcrawler and Wolverine for example), or just let him go. The "fastball special" Colossus-Wolvie maneuver is not so groundbreaking that it warrants a completely arbitrary character.
I could continue, but I think you get the point.
Shame on you, Avi Arad. Shame on you, Brett Rattner.
And shame on any comic OR cinema fan who lets the inappropriately "dazzling" effects distract from the fact that this simply is a bad, bad movie.
The Dark Phoenix saga should not have been used to throw a bunch of meaningless, underdeveloped drivel onto the screen. If anything, this was the prime opportunity to expand on the character development begun in the first two editions.
Please... save your eyes. Avoid this movie.