Good action movie. And that's it

Rating: 6/10 (26 May 2006)

I really wanted this movie to be amazing. The trailers and promotions looked wonderful, so I saw it at midnight. And the action was good, the movie was fast-paced, but....
I love the X-men comic/cartoon/movies because there are so many fun characters with cool powers that I can identify with at least a few. Others are just fun to watch. Where this movie fails, is where it largely cuts the parts of characters who are fun, while giving larger parts to those who are just kind of OK (with the exception of Wolverine).
*Spoilers!!* The following mutants have little to no part: Cyclops, Professor X, Rogue, Mystique, Nightcrawler (not even in the movie), Colossus, and Angel, despite his large promotional campaign. I mean, Angel was all over the trailer, and he has his own poster! But he has maybe 10 lines in the movie! I don't have a problem with Cyclops' exit. He was generally dull in the movies. But the others can be amazing if used right! The mutants that have a larger part: Storm, Phoenix, Pyro, Kitty Pryde, Iceman. I left out Wolverine because he was a central character in the first and second movies, so his part may actually be slightly smaller in this one.
Storm, despite the larger part (and more powers), is kind of dull. It's kind of sad. She looks good, no doubt, but she's dull.
Phoenix could be amazing, but she too has few lines. She just kinda stood around looking wistful when she wasn't flying and obliterating things.
Pyro is decent in his teenage-induced fury. But Kitty Pryde and Iceman? Kitty Pryde has not had a large part in the old comics or cartoons, and I think it's because she's not all that exciting. I mean, I'd trade Rogue for Kitty in a split second. I can't believe that she has such a large part in this one. Plus her "romance" with Iceman looks inheritedly forced as Kitty looks like she's 10 up against Rogue's 19.
Iceman has a decent amount of appearances, but he's not very interesting. He's mostly there for his fight against Pyro.
The X-men's popularity is dependant on its characters. There are so many, and so many interesting ones. I think this movie made poor choices when it decided who to give a lot of screen time to and who not to. I'm still confused as to why Angel had such a large part in the previews and hardly anything in the movie. I've been hating the fact Gambit hasn't been in any of the movies, but I think this movie may have been much better if Bryan Singer was still behind the helm. Semi-disappointing.