There are some comic book movies that just make me angry, taking wonderful universes built upon years of great writing and artistry and dragging them through the pointless muck that is hollywood film-making at its worst. This is one of those movies.
The first two X-men movies were quite good, thanks largely it would seem to director Bryan Singer, who did not direct the latest episode. While they had faults, the first two moview had some semblance of a story, character arcs with some direction, and a basic understanding of the importance of inter-team dynamics to the appeal of the X universe. All of these get lost in the latest disaster, which was more boring and amateurish than most episodes of Power Rangers.
It's hard to know where to begin. I think the major dilemma was that they tried to take two major storylines, the classic Dark Phoenix story, and the Mutant "cure" arc from more recent comics, and jam them together, to the disservice of both. Dealing with the Phoenix story well would require a mini-series, and certainly depends upon getting the Jean and Scott dynamic right. The whole thing is terribly botched here with Scott basically out of the movie in like 2 minutes. While the Phoenix's powers are demonstrated with some interesting yet confusing special effects (phoenix apparently is all about disintegrating things now into lots of little pieces) you really don't care about her as a character or worry much about the fate of the world. Her powers don't rise to the cosmic levels that made the comic books so compelling. The lesson seems to be don't invite her to your house rather than something more menacing about her collapsing the universe.
On the mutant cure front, we have Beast and Rogue, both of whom should have tremendous conflict about the whole thing, and instead of delving into any kind of complexity of character, the film gives us a movie of the week type take on the issues. Rogue wants to hold her boyfriend's hand. Wow, that's deep. Beast doesn't like being blue (but doesn't really wallow in the indecision we saw him in during the last few years that this storyline was in the books). After a while you just wish there was some kind of cure you could take to get yourself out of this lousy picture.
And let's talk about major letdowns. There is a Sentinel in the movie. Kick-@ss you think, yet, no, you never see the body of the thing and only see it's lame head cut off tumbling out of a fog. What a lame cop out. Juggernaut is in the movie. Awesome you'd think, yet no. He looks more like the guy from He Man with the battle helmet on (the one with the spring legs that was like the battering ram guy) mixed with the artistic touch of the prop department of your local high school (no offense to most high schools who would have done a better job I'm sure) and you end up with someone you just want to see run away, rather than running through walls clobbering people. Angel is turned into a nonsense teen character who needs to reconcile his mutanthood with his dad (lifetime will love this movie). The multiple man is in it for like two minutes and not used to good effect. Way to take a bunch of great stuff and cover it in toilet water guys!
Rumor has it Halle Barry wanted a more significant role in this film and I guess she got it, yet probably not in the manner she desired. Every two minutes you get to watch her put her head back and have her eyes become completely white before some lame weather special effect kicks in. I always thought of Storm as sexy (especially in her mohawk queen of the morlocks phase) and they manage to make her in this film into a revolting white eyed thing you just want to stop seeing on film.
In short, this movie is terrible. There is no reason to see it in the theaters, and even when it comes out on video, wait till you can get it on a two for 1 day. I hope this is the last movie this bad hollywood cranks out for the X franchise as I certainly couldn't stand any more.