Rounds off the series nicely

Rating: 7/10 (23 June 2006)

I went into this movie with low expectations: I had read reviews saying that this was the worst X-men movie so far, and that Bryan Singer's talents were sorely missed. However, I actually liked this movie a lot and thought it was the best of the trilogy. OK, so the Phoenix subplot was a little weak, and many of the personalities of the new mutants were not well-developed. However, the movie was exciting, the special effects were great and it was not too long. Yes, it was a bit of a no-brainer (actually, a lot of a no-brainer), but hey, sometimes that is all that you want from a late Friday night movie (especially a super-hero movie): some nice eye-candy and big explosions. Putting too much drama into a superhero movie may not always be such a good idea: look at Ang Lee's Incredible Hulk for example. Many critics loved this movie for its "strong character development", but this was neither what I expected, nor really wanted when I paid for my movie ticket at the time.
It was great to see that Storm could hold her own in a fight. I was a little appalled in the first X-men movie when she was thrown around by that little guy with the long tongue. It was also good to see the duel between Pyro and Iceman. I've been waiting for this battle since X2! Juggernaut's costume was a little silly, but not as bad as I thought it would be having seen him on the X-men official website. His one-liners are crude and probably did not require much thought from the script-writers, but they fairly amusing. I had read about the now-infamous "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" line from some other review-websites, and at the time, thought it was really stupid. I have to say, though, I did laugh when I heard it in the movie. Perhaps you need the context for the line to have its intended effect :P As with the other X-men movies, my favorite X-man is Magneto. Sir Ian McCellan has great "screen presence" though I can't really quantify what this means, and his character is deliciously evil. I also really like how Magneto and Xavier have great respect for each other, even though they are fighting on opposite sides of the battle. Personally, I wasn't too upset with the loss of Cyclops. Even though it is widely acknowledged that Bryan Singer developed his characters really well in the first two movies, he always seemed fairly two-dimensional to me: essentially a punch-bag for the more charismatic Wolverine.
I thought final battle scene was quite exciting. The actions scenes were done very well in this movie compared to the first two. However, the final part with Jean tearing off the flesh of a constantly-healing Wolverine was a bit corny, and Phoenix looks constantly constipated for basically the whole duration of this scene. BUT at least we get to watch Magneto toss around cars as if they were chestnuts and Pyro lighting them up with his powers. Hoo-ah!
One last thing: so in the end, Rogue decided to take the cure. I think in the end, we are meant to assume that mutants have the choice to take the cure, if they want to, but that it is not forced onto them. Although the analogy is not perfect, this made me think of the Pro-choice versus Pro-life debate.