My only complaint about this movie is that the whole just feels wrong. I gave this movie an honest chance, sat down and watched it without any prejudice, only to find out weeks later that I couldn't even recall the plot of the movie or any major elements.
"X3" is just a big snooze of a "blockbuster hit", there's nothing about this movie that's enjoyable to watch. The only thing this film had going was its expensive budget and high-end special effects.
The characters were shallow and poorly written:
Storm has turned into the "everything's in black and white character", unable to empathize with anyone who would ever contemplate taking the cure. Not to compare this Storm to her comic book alter ego, but Storm of all people should be the one to understand, considering she used to not be able to control her powers. Irregardless, Storm is reduced to this racist character condemns all other mutants who look to change "who they are". Well Storm, my "powers" do not define who I am, just like my skin color or my heritage, does not define who I am. Storm speaks the mind of a racist in this film, and it's sad that the writers would take her in this direction.
Magneto's another example of poor writing. Magneto and Xavier are supposed to be opposites in their vision for mutants. Essentially they are both the same compassionate individuals who feel an obligation to guide their people, they just have different viewpoints and different powers. To see Magneto abandon Mystique after turning human was another uncharacteristic turn taken by the writers.
So I don't spend this entire review talking about the characters, I'll move on.
You given almost no reason to care for any of the characters other than Jean and Wolverine. By the end of my second watch through this film, I would've preferred Jean kill everyone just so we would never have to suffer through another ill-conceived chapter of this dieing film series.
Scott's killed off before we're given a chance to care, and the writers spent so much time making Xavier out to be the bad guy that his death has almost no impact, though the effects were somewhat nice... As stated earlier, Storm's a racist and Bobby has romantic thoughts over another girl and Logan fights with Xavier at every turn at how to best handle Jean's situation. This movie was more of a fight between all the protagonists than it was the actual protagonists, and let's just say it doesn't help sale the plot.
The overarching conflict of the story is, I'm sorry to sound like an actual film critic but, wholly unoriginal. Let's look at the series as a whole: the first film is about stopping Magneto from making all humans into mutants, the second film is about stopping the genocide of either race, than the third film is about making all mutants into humans. It's the same fight over-and-over again. Within the original material there is a wealth of stories, plot and character development available to adapt into a compelling movie. Instead they give us recycled material and wasted potential as they completely destroy the Dark Phoenix Saga and what made that original story arc unique.
The production team should have remembered that they're adapting material that's already thought up for them. Instead of wasting time trying to develop their own plot that just won't properly develop in the first place, they could have spent that time and money seeing how they could adapt from what they already have. Nothing is retained and in a failed attempt to be "original" all we get is the same thing we've been given in all the previous films. Sir Ian McKellen as an utterly uncompelling villain repeatedly going after the same goals, Wolverine as the main protagonist who offers hardly anything unique to story as he was written, a useless governing body that fails to realize the consequences of their actions and how they effect other people than themselves (I guess that's more true to life than we realize), and the misuse and underdevelopment of countless characters that are introduced to the film to serve as excuses for special effects.
My suggestions:
Don't make Magneto the bad guy or main antagonist for every movie. It gets redundant after 8 years and seriously limits the amount of story opportunities.
Work off of different themes every now and again. By X2 I think it's been adequately established that mutants are an increasing minority that will never be accepted. There are a wealth of themes and plot points available in the regular continuity to choose, if not then, at least make up a new one, you can only run off the same theme for so long.
Develop the characters you introduce. Over the past 3 films, Wolverine is the only character to undergo any serious (or even marginal) development. The other characters are there as support and really never learn anything nor grow from the experiences of the story. If a series is to work, the characters need to be shown growing and developing.
Being an adaptive work, take more from the original material. Whether or not X-Men copies the comics exactly doesn't determine whether the film is good, but who says it wouldn't help make it better? There is so much that's already been done for them, that if they followed it instead of ignoring it, they could bring characters to the big screen that people love. When you ignore Rogue's backstory completely, you change the character that she was and the reasons why people are her fans. Rogue was a (literally) strong female character with southern background and hidden isolation issues. The Rogue on-screen is a borderline emo character that serves as only another weak character that serves almost no purpose on screen. There is a reason why X-Men was famous before the film franchise, stick those reasons instead of ignoring them, and you've got a reason for more people to enjoy the film.
I'm a true X-Men fan, I unfortunately missed the comics run of the 60s to late 80s, but was fortunate enough to experience the 90s FOX cartoon and the later story arcs. Personally, the Dark Phoenix Saga is my favorite story arc of all time in the X-Men. I'm overall disappointed to see the direction Bryan Singer took the franchise overall, but seeing Bryan Singer actually depict Jean's fire bird got me anxious to see how he would depict the Phoenix.
The franchise overall is a good example of the production staff thinking their idea is better than the original material. As a fan of the original material, that's insulting, and the franchise has suffered for it, overall.
