A guilty pleasure that is a mess of a film

Rating: 2/10 (5 March 2014)

In the year 2000, director Bryan Singer brought the Marvel superhero team the X-Men to the big screen with his film "X-Men". Later, in 2003, Singer worked as the director of the sequel, "X2: X-Men United", in my opinion the best Marvel film and one of the best superhero films to date. When the third chapter to the X-Men film trilogy was in the works, negotiations made Singer decide to sign on to the Superman reboot, "Superman Returns", and it does show. Was this film as good as the first two X-Men movies? No. Is it what you would normally expect from a third film in a trilogy of movies. Probably.
I first saw this movie with a friend when it came out in 2006 and did not think much of it. A few years later, I rented the movie and re- watched it with a mostly positive look on it. As time passed, I realized while I liked the movie, it was at best a guilty pleasure and at worse a mess of a final movie for a trilogy. It is quite sad as there was actually some good substance in the movie, but it gets bogged down with pointless characters, multiple story lines, and having more of an interest in showing action sequences than telling a good story.
Taking place once again in the "not too distant future", a businessman (Michael Murphy) has created a cure that will rid mutants of their powers. The mutant Magneto (Ian McKellen) begins to recruit other mutants to fight against the cure. At the same time, an emotionally damaged Cyclops (James Marsden) begins to hear Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) and returns to Alkali Lake where he finds her alive and well. It is revealed that Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) had to mentally block out part of Jean's brain to keep her powers in check and her alternate side is now the one in power.
This film suffers the most from having too many characters being introduced and subplots going on at the same time. In the opening of the movie, a flashback is present of the mutant Angel (Ben Foster/Cayden Boyd) whose only importance to the movie is that his father is the businessman who created the cure and is in a total of about six scenes. From the previous films, Colossus (Daniel Cudmore) and Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) are upgraded from just doing cameos to being on the team for the sole purpose of having more X-Men to fight. Kitty, along with Beast (Kelsey Grammar) are the only two new characters that actually have something to do in the movie rather than just be there to add people to the epic final battle.
The most surprising and refreshing aspect of the film was the plot line about the cure for the mutants. The film never goes explicitly into whether it is right or wrong and is just letting the characters decide for themselves. All of the characters that is except for Storm (Halle Berry) who is supporting of other mutants choices in other films but is suddenly very opinionated and reacts harshly towards it.
While there is some substance to the movie, it is covered up by all of the pointless characters, plot lines that do not add up to much, and action scenes. The acting for the most part was good and the preexisting characters were still interesting, but the story and the new characters weighed it all down. The mutant's powers were used whenever they could be and not when it would be appropriate, with the exception being at the end and when they are at Jean's home in the middle of the movie. The film is not as bad as people make it out to be, but at its best it is a guilty pleasure.