Um, different.

Rating: 7/10 (26 May 2006)

I really did enjoy this movie, but anybody who says that it's way different from the first two isn't kidding. First off, it's much, much darker--too dark for my taste. There aren't any genuine spoilers in my review here, but I do allude to a few things...so the warning's there.
Many people seemed way too out of character--not just as compared to the comic books, but as compared to the first two films. Since when was Magneto such a total jerk? (Anyone who's seen the movie already knows exactly what I'm talking about. Poor Mystique.) Sure, he's the villain, but he's not supposed to be evil. He of all people would know that you shouldn't automatically hate someone for his/her religious beliefs or race or even whether or not he/she's a mutant. He took the mutant superiority thing way too far in this film in several ways, and became sort of blindly stupid about a lot of things. Oh, and Wolverine sobbing? Yeah right.
The Phoenix was pretty well done, though the explanation of how she became who she was a little far-fetched. (And that brings us to another guy who's out-of-character--Professor Xavier wouldn't do that, would he?) X3 is definitely a thrilling movie with amazing fight scenes, but it had very little in the way of character and plot development. (And what it did do in that area fell in the realm of either the bizarre or the cliché.) Usually I'm not one to say this sort of thing, but this movie should have been a lot longer. Either that or it should have been edited much differently. There are way too many unresolved issues and way too many questions.