Biggest disappointment this summer.

Rating: 4/10 (5 August 2006)

You have the A list cast back, you have a great premise, you have a budget of any high caliber summer blockbuster, you have great original material to work from, and you have one of the most anticipated movies of 2006. How was it that X3 fell short? I would argue it was the director whose vision strayed way too far from what fans would expect from the franchise.
By no means am I a huge X-men enthusiast, but I'm one who respects the original material of the great minds who started a franchise. To kill off Cyclops and professor X in the first half hour in underwhelming fashion is flatly wrong. Neither of the parties are committing self sacrifice, nor are they in any way contributing to the good of mankind, they were very simply killed.
The new characters are given little depth and the familiar characters are stripped of theirs. As a result, it feels as though the flow of the movie fluctuates just a little too much and a little too radically. Would this film hit the mark when it comes to the casual viewer looking for action and special effects? The short answer is yes; however, this movie will not sit well with fans of the franchise, nor will it satisfy those who were expecting more than cheap thrills.