Entertaining? Yes. Flawed? Oh yes.

Rating: 6/10 (30 May 2006)

First of all I'm not a comic fanboy, just a faithful follower of the movie series. I remember when we first saw Toad and his wicked tongue, when there was that huge mystery of Wolverine's background and when we first saw Magneto working his magic. Therefore my disappointment comes from feeling a little cheated after six years and three films.
Singer basically kick-started the comic book film again with X-Men and it was mature, intriguing and funny. Then, X2 capitalised on the plot threads with great enthusiasm. Now, it's up to Brett Ratner...
As another reviewer mentioned, you can only criticize Ratner so much. His directorial style is rather bland, for sure, but with a decent script, they can be elevated. Rush Hour was funny, Red Dragon was based on a decent story to being with. X3, however, has some truly awful dialogue and it's handling of popular (even certain unpopular) characters is disgusting.
The so-called "plot" involves a so-called "cure" this time. However, this plot device is thrown away by the end, suggesting that the cure doesn;t even work. So apart from certain deaths, the situation of many mutants seems to return to normal which only proves this is not the last stand were promised and certainly not the epic showdown we expected.
There are some juicy set-pieces, I'll tell you now. Once again, they all involve Magneto and his amazing powers which allow his to "fly" the Golden Gate bridge to Alcatraz and crush an entire motorcade effortlessly. The action sequences, or fight scenes, are less coherent and the fact that there are only a few X-Men involved at the final battle emphasises that this is not the film it should have been. Characters are killed or rendered useless, otherwise they are simply shoved to the side, to allow for the new generation of anonymous characters to show off. It angers me to see how veteran X-Men are written out-of-character and discarded so easily.
So should you see X3? Yes, for the usual mutant shenanigans, but no for seeing you favourite characters become shadows of their former selves.