Huge disappointment

Rating: 6/10 (5 June 2006)

Despite the critics panning this movie, I was certain it couldn't be as bad as they were saying. Well not only is it every bit as bad as they said, its quite possibly even worse.
The resurrection of Jean Grey as The Phoenix seemed to be a plausible, even clever way to continue the series of movies. Unfortunately, the character is never developed. Other than being incredibly powerful, the most powerful of all mutants, the Phoenix plot goes nowhere. Why does she join Magneto? Most of the time she's with him, she's just standing there in a long, ugly dress. She has no identifiable emotion other than anger, but we're never sure what she's all twisted up about. The flashback to 20 years earlier when Xavier and Eric first meet the teenage Jean held promise, but it was all downhill after that.
The movie was a total waste of the Cyclops/Scott character. If anything, Scott's love for Jean should have been what saved her. Instead, he's killed (we assume vaporized, though its never shown) by Phoenix very early in the movie. I can't believe James Marsden agreed to do the movie after reading the script.
The same goes for Xavier's death at the hands, nay mind, of Phoenix. What was the point? We do see Xavier get vaporized, but it doesn't make any sense. Despite Magneto telling Jean to stop, he seems to easily recover from Xavier's death without much of a problem and whisks Phoenix away and into hiding. Xavier has always been the central, moral character. His loss so early on in the movie, let alone his loss at all, was foolish. He should have held a key role in the movie as to guide the other characters in how to handle the Phoenix, and further explain her torment.
Rogue has almost no role in the movie, nor does Colossus. They're there, but the characters are flat and come across as nothing more than filler for the scenery. The same can be said for all of the other mutants that join forces with Magneto.. they're just filler. The Multiple Man character could have been interesting, but I don't think he said more than ten words.
Angel seemed to be a promising character, if the movie's trailers were to be believed, but despite Angel's fantastic appearance (wings and all), nothing much comes of that character either.
Kelsey Grammar as Hank McCoy, The Beast, seemed a logical casting choice. However he comes across as nothing more than a hairy, blue guy, with nifty gymnastic abilities. The Night Crawler character in X2 was much better developed and thought out. That character had a viable part in the movie whereas Beast doesn't.
Storm is way overplayed in the movie and as a result becomes the de-facto lead character. Despite her vastly increased screen time, the Storm character should have never had this much focus. If reports are to be believed, blame Halle Berry for this. She allegedly balked at signing on to do the movie unless her character was given a key role.
Wolverine is the second lead character in the movie after Storm. If anything, Wolverine should have had a more prominent role, but the character is cliché (too cartoonish), full of one liners but not much else. I can't fault Hugh Jackman for this. If this was the script he was given, how much can be done about it?
Interesting plot turn with Mystique losing her powers to the mutant serum, and also interesting was how quickly Magneto dumped her since she was no longer "one of them". If anyone was all about being a mutant, and a great villain, it was Mystique.
I liked the Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat character and thought she added to the movie. Her chase scene with Juggernaut was one of the movies bright spots. The same goes for Bobby/Ice Man. We got to see the inevitable showdown between he and Pyro, and of course Iceman was the victor, but it was still a decent scene.
Magneto lifting the Golden Gate Bridge and moving so that the mainland connected with Alcatraz Island was a waste of special effects. Yeah, neat idea, but totally unnecessary mutant grandstanding. His loss of powers to the mutant serum was nicely played, credit Ian McKellen's acting ability to pull it off.
By the time the movie was nearing an end, which came fairly quickly, I found myself hoping that the whole thing was nothing more than an X-Men Danger Room simulation. Unfortunately, that never came to pass.
Being the X-Men universe, who knows if Jean, Scott, and Xavier really are dead. If there are plans for an X4, they had best try to bring back the dead characters right from the start with a plausible explanation and just make pretend the rest never happened. Maybe some of the script writers from Dallas who brought back Bobby can be recruited to develop ideas. Jean wakes up and goes to the shower, and there stands Scott, and we discover it was nothing more than a dream.
Its a shame that X3 is where this series ended, at least I'm assuming this was the last installment, after the first two excellent movies. It could have ended on a high point, but instead it was by far an unworthy part of an otherwise fine series.