At least the special effects were impressive...

Rating: 3/10 (17 July 2006)

Occasionally, with a final episode, you get the impression the movie or TV show's makers don't actually want to generate demand for "more". They'd sooner just feed the public a half-hearted and half-baked anticlimax, than bother dealing with demand for another. This is one of those cases. "Rushed" doesn't begin to describe how poorly put together this film is.
The Phoenix saga was one of the most epic and engaging plots ever put to paper for the X-Men... and it's cinema rendition was handed to people who, I can only assume, never read it. The best part of the film is an introductory scene where Wolverine and Colossus battle a Sentinel. It is a perfunctory nod to the comic book origins of the story and its fans, and it lasts all of thirty seconds.
From there on the film descends into a puerile power-trip for Ratner and his script writers, who seem to be in competition to see who can ruin the movie most: Ratner, with his alienated cast and abysmal direction, or the script writers, who will surely be remembered as having written dialogue so wooden, do tawdry, not even Patrick Stewart and Ian Mckellen working together could save them. A definite wait for DVD moment.