Melodrama, or mellow drama? And, who cares?

Rating: 8/10 (30 May 2006)

Finally, something happens.
No, seriously. When I think about a world in which an unknown but presumably large number of mutants with these sorts of abilities are running around, I tend to expect a lot would be going on at any given time. In fact, I expect much more than what happens in the first two movies. Finally, after this movie, I wasn't left wondering where all the action was! What do you do when you are working with this many characters in a universe with so many metaphorical possibilities?? Some people seem to be expecting a character study. I argue there are far too many characters to be seen at once here in the X-men universe to accomplish that in a film. Yes, even a 3-part film. Try 40 years of various serial comics, instead.
Another approach is for the story to become larger than the characters. Instead, entire groups of characters become single conceptual characters..."good mutants", "bad mutants", "humans". A side effect of this are one-liners...you have to fill in more details of each character's feelings yourself in this condensed form. Then, a bigger story can be told. The story of good vs. evil, with a modern nihilistic twist -- which is which?! Really, X3 does the best job I can expect from a short film in trying to meet the problem somewhere in the middle (especially in a universe that begs for jaw-dropping effects). ...Making it the perfect mix for a summer blockbuster. I'll give it an 8 within its own genre because I'm not enough of an X-men fan to know if it's deserving of more but I'm enough of a film fan to know it's deserving of that much.
(But most importantly, this movie stars Captain Picard; therefore, it must be seen.)