*Spoilers ahead!* (As if we weren't the last people on earth to see this movie.)

Well, the latest X-Men movie wasn't as bad as everyone said it was, but it wasn't great either. None of them have been great (the second one was the best).

I've never liked the Phoenix Force concept or the cosmic elements that surrounded it (rephrase: i like the stories Claremont wrote, but they have nothing to do with the X-Men theme and i think by doing generic space opera stories in the X-Men you lose the focus on what's special about them. Plus i hate the Shi'ar.). I think the movie did a good job of using the Phoenix as an "out of control mutant" concept without getting into all the cosmic crap. (At least to start with... i think once the mutant was out of control and ultra powerful, they weren't quite sure what to do with her.)

I also really liked the performances of Magneto and Wolverine, and I liked that Storm has finally been given a role in the movies. I like the hard choices / dark side of Professor X that was displayed with regards to his mind-blocks on the Phoenix and his dismissal of Wolverine ("I don't have to justify myself to you of all people.").

I thought the intro was really cool, with the flashback to Xavier and Magneto still working together, and then the scene with Angel, and then (what i thought) was a Days of Futures Past shot (it worked as a Danger Room scenario too, but i was definitely a little disappointed). From there the energy of the movie definitely declined, but i thought it was still a good movie. Decent action, good special effects, the interesting "mutant cure" plot used recently by Joss Whedon in Astonishing, and a glimpse of a slightly less negative future than we are used to seeing.

Of course there was plenty of sucking going on as well. The Beast looked absolutely terrible. Ter-ri-ble. And Jean Grey stood around and did nothing the whole movie, killing any mileage they might have gotten out of the Phoenix half of the plot. The ending was a little happy-pappy. And the Juggernaut sucked, which we all suspected would be the case. And there were of course other things i could gripe about from a fanboy perspective (for example, min is very disappointed about the treatment, or lack thereof, that Psylocke received in this film, but i'll let her speak to that), but overall as a movie that's supposed to take the core concepts of the X-Men and put them up on the big screen for a mainstream audience and provide plenty of cool action sequences and cool inside bits for the comic fans, i think it worked just fine. A solid "B".

I look for something a little more from the X-Men in terms of subtext. The X-Men have in the past been used as a metaphor for discrimination, but it's always hard to make that point when the people you are discriminating against have massive amounts of power at their disposal (This is why the Civil War plot works also as a story where each side has a valid point). I don't feel like this movie actually managed to say anything profound with these (or any) themes which is why it's a B and not an A movie, and i think that's a little disappointing because it sort of reinforces the idea that comics are a source of dumb action and not necessarily anything more that that.

But overall i really don't see what people are complaining about.

BTW the best part of the movie was when Magneto lifted up that first car and Pyro set it on fire before it got tossed at the army, and min jumped up in the movie theater and shouted "COMBO!".

Update: This is our 500th entry. Gods, if we don't do our best to keep you entertained/informed/enlightened while you are bored at work, i don't know what will.

they hate that actor they picked to play cyclops. they really must. cause they killed the poor guy off in the first 10 minutes of the movie. now, i'm the first to agree that he sucked. i just don't know if the actor sucks or the scripting from the first movie was just so bad that he didn't have much to work with. also, i don't buy him as the leader of the x-men. the actor doesn't have that "leader" quality that you expect from cyclops. also, he's way too young for the actress playing jean grey (who i wish would get a frickin' super hero name that doesn't suck) which added to the whole lack of chemistry between two people who are supposedly in love with each other. Cyclops is supposed to be a stiff character, not a non-existent one. his appearances decreased exponentially with each succeeding movie.

i feel sorry for the guy. he signed up for 3 movies as cyclops, leader of the x-men. he ends up getting shunted off to be one step above an extra.

what good is rogue without the powers of ms. marvel? i mean in a fight with giant robots and laser cannons. the movie opens with storm and wolverine training colossus (who was neither Russian nor looking for his sister), shadowcat, iceman, and rogue in the danger room. all rogue can do at this point is absorb other people's powers. that really doesn't help in a fight against sentinels. so what exactly is she being trained for during these sessions? duck and cover? and what about the other kids in the school? cause in the end of the movie when it came time to suit up and fight, they only had those students, minus rogue, to join them. you're telling me there were no other students trained? did they have powers useless for combat? they definitely had telekinetics at the school. they would have been useful in that last fight. as a side note, i very much enjoyed colossus turning to metal, iceman being iceman and not just a kid with ice powers, and the fastball special.

i can't stand that wolverine always ends up as the star. admittedly, he's a better actor than cyclops. the question is did they revise the story because of this or did they always intend to make wolverine the star, thus cashing in on the popularity of the wolverine character? but i would rather a more team oriented movie as opposed to wolverine and the xmen. the other actors can definitely hold their own. so why make it so wolverine focused?

blech. they're already doing a wolverine movie. couldn't they wait til then to make him center stage?

psylocke. i didn't even know that was supposed to be psylocke until rod told me later. she had purple hair. i think she might have been asian. it was hard to deduce in the 30 seconds of screen time she accumulated throughout the movie. the only other thing that marked her as psylocke was that we had heard they were giving psylocke invisibility powers and this chick was invisible for about half a second. must be her. explain to me why they would use a fairly major character for such a throwaway part? they have no problems making up plots and changing things (such as Juggernaut being a mutant) so why not just make up a character for that part? they don't even say her name so they wouldn't have to wrack their brains to come up with something clever. mutant chick #3 would do. not only that. they killed her off. they killed off psylocke without even giving her a real role to play. jerks. is it so much to ask for a little psyblade ninja action? i think not. plus, if they could have managed to write cyclops in, there could have been a little cyclops/psylocke action going on as a parallel to all the jean grey/wolverine stuff they've been heaping on for the last 2 movies. i think i would have enjoyed that. cyclops is a big slut, btw. SLUT.

like rod, i very much enjoyed the fact that they gave storm a real role to play in the movie. no "my powers don't work that way" nonsense like we got in x-men 1. tank goff. in the first movie everyone barely used any of their powers. mostly, they stood around and looked surprised. still, i'd like to see more than a team of 2 (i'm not counting the students who join them in the last fight as they are just kids in the movie). too bad they killed off one and made the other crazy within the first 10 minutes.

magneto should have killed mystique when she got 'cured'. i think he would have. he had no problems abandoning her. he had no problems with xavier getting killed except to mention his "regret" that it had to be. so why leave her alive to tell the government all the secrets of your organization?

what happened to night crawler? i guess you can't have more than 1 blue good guy at a time.

overall, i was expecting a really really bad movie. i felt they had once again overreached themselves. the phoenix saga in itself is enough to make a story out of. the mutant cure is another huge plot by itself. but they wanted to do both and introduce a slew of mutant characters. no way could they make it work. i expected them to churn out something along the lines of Batman & Robin. as it was, they basically sidelined the phoenix to just be a superpowered insane mutant who stands around and glares which left them plenty of time to focus mainly on the mutant cure angle. i personally would have just dropped the phoenix subplot entirely since it really added very little overall. but i can live with what they've done. imo, it's better than 1. not sure if it's better or worse than 2 since i don't remember 2 all that well. but it's most definitely better than the "bad" marvel movies (daredevil, the hulk, elektra, and FF - which we haven't actually seen yet but is most likely doggie doo). i would put it solidly in the "good" marvel movies category. i won't grade it, though. i'm told i'm too harsh.

also, i'm a member of stars.

after reading rod's i had not enough energy to read min's. but i thought the ending was dumb. I mean really, if the wolverine loved phoenix so much. one would just pick up them anti-mutant needles and poke her ass. Anyway just my two cents. and if min had covered this point i apologize.

Wei... you're... you're absolutely right. You really are.

also towards the end when all those mutants were charging the installation, how come none of them used their powers? that made no sense. i mean if you're gonna have an advantage use it to cheat. intead they all ran at the guns.

i did not make this point, but wei's right. alas, they used all 4 on magneto and by the time wolverine fought his way to jean, as his flesh was repeatedly singed off (here's another peeve - wolverine's healing factor should not be instantaneous), he couldn't very well ask her to wait while he searched the rubble for another batch of needles.

one would think they would plan better. they knew this cure existed. plus they kept on saying "you know what you have to do, are you ready for it?" beast is smart and one of them should of said "hey instead of killing her we could just cure her" cause no matter what he had to be close to her to do it. why not just throw the antimutating kid at her. that woulda worked. also what was annoying was that she should have abused her powers and taken over the world for herself. but that's just me rambling on about world domination and would have made no sense for the movie. and can she really die? she is the phoenix. you people are making me realized this movie is suckier than i first thought. grrr

wei asked me to come and complain. so ok. i also thought it was better than i expected. mostly if i didnt think about what was actually happening. i just thought phoenix really spent a lot of time standing there just staring off into space. for a super powerful mutant and one with lots of issues, she didn't really express much emotion. and really. what happened to ALL those students. all of a sudden everyone is too young and inexperienced? havn't some of those kids been at the school since it started? shouldn't some of them have learned something? the guy who plays cyclops. im pretty sure he wasn't a good actor to begin with.

that's a very good point. i mean even the avengers have the young avengers that can do stuff. what's the point of having a war school if none can fight. in the emergency they should have been used.

you guys wrote a lot. and now that ive read most of it. it appears i reiterated a point that min made about the students. sorry! someone tell me why they needed to spend thousands on angel's character? i mean it looked cool. but what was the point?