X-men the last straw

Rating: 1/10 (13 October 2006)

**WARNING CONTAINS MASSIVE SPOILERS** Let me open by saying; I have been a fan of X-men for a while, I read some comics, I was an avid fan of the animated series, I had one or two minor complaints about the first two films, drastic character changes and what have you, but otherwise I throughly enjoyed them.
When my friend purchased the movie on DVD for us to watch last night, I was quite looking forward to it, I had seen the promotions and trailers and was fairly excited with the prospect of Angel and phoenix making an appearance. I was unaware that Singer had left the project however this was made abundantly aware about 20 minutes into the film.
As a movie fan my complaints would be listed as such: too much action without the occasional light relief break we had from the first two films, inconsistencies from the first two films, a poorly developed script and subplot with a string of off -shoots that were spread too sparsely.
As an X-men fan my complaints would be: Professor X died, Cyclops was killed, Mystique was robbed of her powers, Magento was also (although a tiny blink-and-you'll-miss-it hint at the end implied otherwise), Jean Gray was killed by Wolverine in an over blown action sequence that was all about CG and nothing about the film. The plot was originally supposed to be about Phoenix, the phoenix saga, is a saga it could barely be done justice in 3 films, but the whole thing was rushed and mixed together with the 'cure' plot line which was meshed together in a big mess. Death was ultimately implied for Pyro, juggarnaut, phat, spike and several others which i don't care to name.
Considering the amount of promotion involving Angel, the character was severely underused, as was phoenix who mostly just stood there and stared for the vast majority of the film. Shadowcat (Kitty Pryde) was a pointless addition to this film also, the previous films had all been about characters, this was a useless addition.
Perhaps one of my biggest complaints was Rogue having the cure and her powers taken away from her. This sends the wrong message completely and makes her character seem weak.
By the end of the film I felt like crying, because one of my favourite marvel comics had been raped by this director and turned into an all-action no-plot disappointment.
I urge any fan of the X-men to not waste either your time or your money on this film. It was a shoddy example of the previous two films.