Easily the worst of the franchise.

Rating: 5/10 (22 August 2006)

The phrase I've heard repeated, and rings most true, is "fast food" movie. This film is more like an MTV music video with gratuitous amounts of action, and an equal amount of characters thrown in for no apparent purpose but to make the audience go "Oooh - explosions." Given the rich history of the X-Men, and even the limited history presented in the first two movies, this 3rd installment fails to deliver on any meaningful level. As a casual moviegoer, it is a shallow action film by a lackluster director. As a long standing X-Men fan and reader (25 years) it was a frustrating mess of characters and alterations. Juggernaut is not a mutant, but is presented as one in the film. Callisto is unrecognizable, both in appearance and abilities. Psylocke is a cameo, and non-specific in any way. She has purple hair, therefore she is Psylocke, seems to be the amount of thought put in here.
On the plus side, Kelsey puts in an amazing performance as The Beast, and The Angel, while woefully under-used, is quite the achievement. Famke is as beautiful as ever, but her characters potential is wasted on a boring story.
One of the most uncomfortable aspects of the movie is Storm's lines. Halle wanted more screen time, but instead of expanding her role as a team leader and a strong female character, we are tortured by a hack script, and Storm acting like a five year old simply repeating other characters lines as affirmation, and to fill up screen time. Simply awful.
I give the film a 5 based pretty much on visuals alone.