What this movie had was potential... it's passed up for special effects and mediocrity.

Rating: 5/10 (28 May 2006)

With all the potential in this film: number one being Jean Grey's Phoenix split personality / a plethora of new mutant possibilities and cameos / deep cutting dialog and drama; all passed up for weak acting and some amazing special effects.
I am not panning this film - don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my short,short time in the theatre this weekend, but all I was thinking the entire way through was how much, ohh how much, better it could have been. Brett Ratner gets an A for effort - it is clear that this is the best he could have done, but his best is far lower than X-men standards. Save for one excellent sequence midway through the flick, this was a mess.
First off, the all-mighty and menacing Phoenix - Wow was this taken for granted and put into the movie as a side-story. Jean awoke as Phoenix, and save for 5 lines we don't see the old Jeany for the rest of the movie which makes one care very little about her fate. She was described as "class 5" and the only one of her kind but her performance power-wise was weak - she ashed a few people and raised some water -- no evil, fire drenched bird of death here... very, very lame.
A few main characters die here and I cared little about only one of them. Some main characters are cured and I cared about none of them. That's what this director/screen writer had wrong. No character development save for X-men and X2.
The available mutants to shove into this third installment are of endless coolness and substance but what we get are some "pawns" with powers that make you scratch your head saying "what the hell is the purpose of this guy" (ex. pointy sticks emerging from a guys wrists, Multiple Man with two lines, Wolvie cuts off a guys arms and they instantly pop back out about 12 times, and many who were just carrying rifles, I mean come on!). Beast, I must say, kicked major booty. Storm had some extra screen time but with all of H. Berry's crying about Storm's role she had no back story (you know, the claustrophobia and being a goddess and all).
The 1 hr. 40 min movie is 30 mins short of what was necessary - that's 30 mins of character development, plot expansion, and necessary X-men. Over all X3 was better than the first (not a whole lot to live up to there) and far weaker than X2 (and with the plot possibilities, III could've been miles ahead of II). A fun, action and FX packed, short and stupid movie is the diagnosis. Go see it to marvel at the screen but not at anything else. A shame really.
X2: 8 out of 10, X3: 5 or 6 out of 10.