Good movie, but not great.

Rating: 7/10 (1 June 2006)

After watching this the other day, I came away from the cinema slightly disappointed.
This is my first comment on this site, so let me try and organise my thoughts into some sort of coherent structure.
The beginning of the movie felt slightly odd to me, almost like I was watching the first movie of the series. There were lots of fresh introductions of new mutants, most of whom turned out to have very little purpose (but I'll get to that). There seemed to be too much going on and it seemed to be squeezed in too short a space of time.
Another small disappointment from the beginning was the training room sequence, where we get a very short glimpse of a Sentinal. We see a pair of eyes and a head... Wow! Considering this is supposedly the final movie in the series, it's not like they're holding back on showing the Sentinals in all their glory for another instalment (or are they). Did the budget not stretch to a full CG shot? Then we had a new selection of mutants with very little purpose, in my opinion. We have Angel who jumps out of a window, then a bit later saves his dad (who we don't really care about anyway). Some new bad guys who don't really do much, one of whom seems as if she's only there to progress the story (finding Mystique). Oh, and obviously Rogue wouldn't have been missed too much... And while we had these new mutants introduced, who we really didn't need, we lost Cyclops right at the start of the movie. He had about 5 minutes of screen time, after all that's happened in the previous movies (in which he also didn't feature too strongly, if I remember correctly) and then he's gone.
But those points aside...
The story was interesting. The idea of a mutant cure was a good one, which has many implications to all sides. The action was impressive, though nothing spectacular. I still think the best sequence of all three movies was the beginning of X2. The final half hour, where Magneto moves the entire Golden Gate Bridge was awesome and the final battle was superb, really giving us an idea of the power some of these mutants possess.
Kelsey Grammar was great as Beast, perfect for the role, I only wish were able to see more of him. Vinny Jones was also well cast as Juggernaught (thank god he didn't have too many lines though). All the regulars were as good as ever (even Halle Berry, who some people seem to have a big issue with).
In short, I believe this movie could easily have been the best of the three, but it just wasn't. It felt too muddled (kind of like my review, I guess), like it was trying to show us too much and by doing so, didn't leave enough time to show what was really important. It didn't develop any particular character as it should have, or focus on anything in particular. It WAS enjoyable. I WILL definitely watch it again, but I'd take either of the first two over this one.