An "OK" movie, but not for everyone

Rating: 6/10 (5 June 2006)

So it's finally here folks, X-men 3: The Last Stand. This is one of the few marvel films that I have been anticipating for awhile. With X-men being Marvel's first major franchise in the release of the new films I simply could not wait to see what happens! Sadly I was put through a roller coaster that I was eagerly getting ready to jump off of.
these sections below contain spoilers
-The Story
Wow, what do I say about it. They suddenly FOUND a cure for the mutant gene. It just seemed TOO convenient. You got to remember X-men was a comic that was written around the time of the civil rights movement in the 60s. The comic stories were powerful and seeing their struggle past the segregation of certain factions is what ultimately fueled the fire for X-men, so yes. It seemed to let me down to say "hey we found a cure". It just was never plausible to me.
-The Acting
Majority of the acting is okay, okay for an action flick. The quirky one liners make a vengeful return in X3 and is actually more memorable than the story itself. sad really. Halle Barry portrays Storm once again, but sadly her performance is STILL lacking. She is definitely more of a key player in the film but ultimately the extra 5-10 min of extra screen time does nothing for her. She's still plays a relatively WEAK Storm. Her comic counterpart was seen almost Godly. She pales in comparison to bring that to big screen. She does much of the same change the weather and shock of a couple of people.
-Errors and rewrites
Most people won't understand this section, but the fans of the comics will. The MAIN flaw to X3 is they tried too hard to meld the regular X-men universe with its "Ultimate" universe counterpart. For those not well versed in the Ultimate series allow me to give you a small run down of what it is. The Ultimate Universe takes a lot of the key characters that we know of and change and refashion their story line. Perfect example pertaining to X3, Juggernaut and Xavier are not related like in the Ultimate series. Yet it choosing to do this RATNER confuses and bewilders a lot of the hardcore fans. I expected the story to be rewritten JUST AS LONG as the story they replace it with is not something a 1st grader came up with. Funniest continuity error is when dear old magneto severs the golden gate bridge during day time. A couple of minutes later the sun is setting and night fall has arrived. Lets just be glad Magneto doesn't work for the post office otherwise we'd get our mail extremely late.
-Character Development
In choosing to do this Title Brett Ratner had a mountain of responsibility sitting on his shoulders. Yet again RATNER confuses people by introducing a wide plethora of new characters. Another main problem is all these characters are vying for screen time, but there simply is not enough time. Ratner never really elaborates on a individuals storyline. Wolverine obviously got the most exposure and still his storyline was slim to none existent. Jean Grey refits her new role as the phoenix, a darker evil split personality. In removing the cosmic fiery look of the phoenix it ultimately lessened the impact of the character. Not too mention she spends half the film standing around just staring at everyone. I could go on and on but if you're a reasonable viewer you'll catch much more problems.
-Music Score
Like most Fox titles the movie is accompanied with a beautiful orchestra, and X3 is no exception to that. Despite the problems X3 had the music was set just right. It helped build a scene and definitely distinguished when something important or climatic was happening. No problems here.
-Overall
the movie was good, but the shortened filming time definitely affected this movies story telling. They wanted a summer block buster and they got it. too bad its also a forgetful one. Its seems Ratner's main focus was for the action junkies, the extremists, those that love pointless fighting with no real storyline. If that's you're kind of cake then by all means take a slice. Personally I didn't enjoy it, there were too many things wrong with the movie to really enjoy. And no its not because it didn't follow the comics but simply because it failed to deliver as a whole movie. It almost felt as if they shot different story lines and tried to paste them all together at the last minute.
6/10
and that's the final word.