No.

Rating: 4/10 (3 June 2006)

I have never expected to like any of the X-men movies. The first X-men surprised me with how willing it was to take the time to develop so many different characters, and X2 had enough good action and follow-up character development to make it surprisingly good as well. With the mixed reviews of this one, I figured I wouldn't like it at all. I liked some of it; it exceeded my expectations. But it's still highly flawed and I don't like the direction it took.
The key problem with this movie is that it makes the ultimate transition away from what the mutant's powers MEAN to focusing more on what they DO. That means while the writers and Ratner were more than willing to figure out interesting battles, they lost track of a lot of motifs and arcs that could fully encompass the general trend of the movies and make it very good. The driving force behind the franchise has always been the tension between mutants and humans and what to do with that tension, but this one seemed much more willing to give that (and any actual drama) second tier to just hurrying up and getting through all the events that it seems must take place. Unfortunately for Ratner, removing the drama and the point makes the events not matter, which means ultimately a very poor cinema experience.
For example, most of the mutants introduced are no longer introduced by how important they are to the main circle and how they help range the debate and understand this new world everyone's entering... mostly they're just introduced as a contrivance to get the plot moving along. I'm definitely not the only one who thinks Angel could have been cut completely from the movie and not changed much. Leech and Phoenix also suffer this fractured character arch, most especially represented by the completely anticlimactic and unnecessarily random ending: The driving force of involving Leech is that he can suck powers away. The driving force of involving Phoenix is that she has an excess of power. Well look at that, don't those two make a great opposites cancel out! Unfortunately, I think the writers decided not to go that route because it would be too obvious... or worse, they didn't even think of it. Whatever the case, they missed a precise and organized denouement to the proceeds, ultimately causing both threads to be mostly spectators to the events as they unfold instead of their supposed function of indicators. In fact, now that I think about it, nothing in explaining who Phoenix is explains why she'd join Magneto like that anyway.
This complete lack of functionality is further proof of the loss of focus on what the powers mean. I mean, come on... She's a phoenix, literally. Rise from the grave, more power, passionate... the openness to symbolism and the effect on the human/mutant debate is almost limitless.... did Ratner care? No, he seemed more interested in presenting situation after situation which ultimately proves that we're not even going to pretend Wolverine can die at this point.
In fact, for a movie willing to kill off very iconic characters (though, maybe, not really...), it seems unwilling to really understand what killing off those characters will ultimately mean to the remaining mutant characters. Deaths are dealt with with a quick moment of silence and then a discussion of what to do next. There is no grief, or fear, or guilt or anything. What it really feels like Ratner says to his production during these scenes is, "All right, the audience already knows what this means to the characters and stuff, no need to linger... let's move on to the next scene." Not only does that suck the drama right out of the proceeds, it also pretty much destroys its pacing.
Luckily for it, the movie has some pretty strong moments spattered here and there despite itself. The race between Juggernaut and Kitty was excellent, and for some reason I really started digging the enmity between Pyro and Bobby (even if it did feel like a cheap Star Wars rip-off from time to time). I also loved the imagery around the protesters and the people waiting for the cure, because during that time the movie alludes to famous protests from around the world.
Otherwise, the movie was just overstuffed and under-functional. Even the dialog represents that, with Wolverine officially sounding like he's trying to be James Bond, all of the good lines taken straight from different works, some rather redundant lines like "And that's why the pawns go first," and so on. I have no doubt in my mind that subsequent X-men will lose further sight of what makes the franchise good, and they're beginning their full decent here. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.
--PolarisDiB