Perhaps lived up to it's standards.. barely

Rating: 7/10 (26 May 2006)

I was thoroughly impressed with this movie.. although it went right off storyline and absolutely shocked me in parts. The imagery and effects really have to be seen to be believed, & the integration of popular characters from the animated series added a little bit of spice to the already tense mixture between the Brotherhood and X-Men. I found the deaths of Xavier and Cyclops to be simply dumbfounding.. it was very effective but still slightly distracting.. like these are possibly 2 of THE most important X-Men and to cut them off so abruptly is somewhat disrespectful. As I said before though.. this proved to be very effective in shocking the audience because NO-ONE saw it coming. I was very happy with the role of Beast in this movie.. I found Grammar to portray him very convincingly and his role in the fighting scene was exceptional - much like the Beast we have grown to love from the comics. Once again Magneto was amazing, and although taking up a lot of space, Storm was simply incredible to watch. Her character and powers received a lot of credit, credit which was lacking in the first 2 films. I found Phoenix to be very convincing, and the Exorcist-type costume & make-up design really emphasised her powerful & otherworldly nature. I was disappointed with Angel.. purely because he played little or no role at all in the movie. If anything he is symbolic, but such an interesting character should have served more purpose. Colossus also suffers from limited airtime, and Jubille (although appearing in the movie briefly) is given less time then an even more minor character in Kitty Pryde (it can be argued that Kitty's role in the movie is simply to provide tension between Bobby and Rogue, & to provide the basis for Rogue's taking the mutant cure). Much can be also be said for the villains of the movie, for example Juggernaught and Multiple Man. Both their roles appear to be purely comical, and although the scenes in which they appear are vital it simply was not enough airtime. The omission of Gambit purely because an actor refused to play him is ridiculous, & the omission of Nightcrawler after he played such an amazing role in the previous film is simply a crime. The actual X-Men "team" consists of Iceman, Wolverine, Storm, Beast, Colossus and Kitty Pryde, but only 2 of these take the spotlight. Gambit and Nightcrawler would have added authentication to the team & would have been welcomed by loyal X-Men fans such as myself. Overall I think the film is trying to provide for both die-hard fans and those who know very little about the X-Men, and so therefore cannot please everyone.