Do they even care?

Rating: 5/10 (27 May 2006)

This installment was, without a doubt, the weakest in the series. The story is entirely predictable. Researchers have developed a drug that "cures" mutation by suppressing the X-gene. Magneto's mutants oppose it, as do the X-Men, but the X-Men want to be non-violent about it, whereas Magneto and company want to destroy humanity over it. Nothing new there. Magneto is the bad guy, aptly played as always by Ian McKellen. We also learn a bit more about the back-story on Jean Grey. She has a dark side, which bears a more-than-passing resemblance to Samara from The Ring.
Long-time X-Men fans may get excited about the Dark Phoenix stories at this point. Don't. While the name is the same, the story bears no resemblance to that height of X-Men storyline achievement from years ago. There's no time for such things here. It's just a movie.
So, as you might expect, the mutants fight, Jean Grey becomes Magneto's newest and most powerful secret weapon. San Francisco serves as the backdrop for most of the movie. No Nightcrawler in this one, which disappointed me a bit. We do get Juggernaut, who is apparently Australian and has an IQ of about 63. Then again, Magneto seems to be losing his edge a bit this time around and does some dumb things... like taking on an insane, uber-powerful version of Jean Grey in the first place. Come to think of it, all of the characters seem a bit less bright this time around. Maybe it was the writers? The best example of "we just don't care anymore" comes at the height of the film's big battle scene. The research facility producing the anti-X drug is located on Alcatraz, and Juggernaut doesn't swim. To get to the island, Magneto picks up a big chunk of the Golden Gate Bridge and flies it to the island. He does this in the middle of broad daylight... but when the bridge slams into the island, it's suddenly the middle of the night! Yes, that's right, Magneto is SO powerful that not only has he moved the GG Bridge, he's changed the rotation of the earth, or something. It's a pretty glaring bit of discontinuity, and why it was left in the movie that way is a puzzler. I suspect its because its more dramatic to have a bridge flying through the air in daylight but the explosions of battle look better against darkness. No doubt the director, Brett Ratner (who has generally directed a string of really bad movies, BTW) figured that if there was enough action going on, nobody would notice this amateurish and jarring, in my opinion, sleight-of-lens.
At the climax of all this, Jean Grey/Phoenix have the last great confrontation. Wolverine's regenerative powers are pushed to their limit as he struggles to reach Grey through a field of disintegrative power. When he gets there, he tells her how much he loves her... and then kills her in order to "save" her. Now, the X-Men have already gotten their hands on the source of the anti-X drug, which is a bald-headed 13 year old mutant whose power is that he can reverse mutations. So... why doesn't he just, say, knock her unconscious and then lock her in a room with the power-negating mutant boy? Why kill her? Yes, killing her is more dramatic... but completely unnecessary within the story. See? Dumb mutants.
I've also got to say that Halle Berry was really phoning it in this time around. Every time she delivered a line, I cringed a little bit. Her performance was rather stiff, and Storm came off far more one dimensional in this installment than in the last couple. So did Hugh Jackman, come to think of it. I suspect it had to do with the direction they received. Overall, there really wasn't much of a spark this time around. The explosions were quite brilliant, though.
On the plus side, there's a mutant (I don't know who she's supposed to be) who looks like Prince's long-lost sister. The audience had a laugh over it when she showed up on screen.
It does seem like there's a good chance that this will be the last movie in this franchise. Jean Grey dies (again), Cyclops dies, Rogue takes the cure and gives up her powers so she can be touchy-feely with Iceman, and Mystique gets de-mutated early in the film. It could well be the end of the line.
Then again, while we see Magneto lose his powers when Beast (aptly played by Kelsey Grammar) jabs him with syringes containing the cure, we also see him exercise just a tiny, tiny bit of power at the very end of the movie. And while Charles Xavier gets disintegrated by the Phoenix, he shows up in a new body after the credits have rolled, so he's not really dead. The door has been left open  if just a crack  for a fourth installment.
Speaking of Beast, what exactly is his mutant power? I understand that he's furry and dark blue, but aside from being an apparently capable diplomat... what is it that he actually does? I hope they don't do it. After seeing this one, I think the X-Men movies have run their course.
I give this movie a big "Eh." Great visual effects, but that's about all there is to it. It's fun enough to be worth seeing if you're willing to shell out the price of admission for what amounts to a big-budget B movie that takes itself a little too seriously. If you're not itching to see it, though, I'd recommend against it. Wait for the DVD. It just isn't very good.