The third act of this tragedy or drama is this time bringing the fight within the mutant community. The President of the USA, with his Secretary to Mutant Affairs who is not even informed, let alone associated, to the President's decisions on such a matter, has paid for the invention or devising of a special genetic vaccine to "cure" the mutants of their mutant-ness. This gives the opportunity to the bad mutants to gather some groups and even crowds and to start some terrorist action against this cure in the name that mutant-ness is not a disease. The final battle in order to destroy the research center that devised the "cure" and the scientist who is behind the discovery is spectacular with a bridge rotated in order to tie up San Francisco to Alcatraz by way of the Golden Gate Bridge. This time the battle will bring the bad mutants down once and for all. The leader of them, a certain Magneto, will be injected four doses of the "cure", the winged son of the President of the USA will save the scientist, and Wolverine, the man with metal bones and claws on his hands will get rid of the too famous Jean who had gone wild and evil after her resurrection from the water catastrophe in the previous film. Then peace and safety are finally assured and men and mutants can live happily together thereafter and have many children. Such films are definitely naive as for the meaning but they are saved by the special effects and are entertaining after all. We could of course compare this trilogy with the Aliens first three films, or with the Terminator trilogy, or the two Star Wars trilogies. We would always find somewhere the belief that the future is not so grim as it may look and that good will always get over evil. Then the differences are in the surviving or winning models. From the Genesis or Ragnarok model of Terminator, to the bi-partisan peace of this X-Men trilogy, to the never ending resurrection of the Aliens in the Aliens series, to the democratic victory of the two Star Wars trilogies, we can write volumes on the persistence and return of such ideological, supposedly religious or philosophical models, but the best novel ever written on that subject remains Stephen King's The Stand.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

This was an excellent ending to a terrific series, and worthy of all the hype it's generated so far. Hugh Jackman and Ian McKellan put forth strong performances as Wolverine and Magneto, and the rest of the performers, with the exception of the actors playing Cyclops and Rogue, are believable in spite of the roles they are playing. The time passes quickly in the movie, and it is well-worth a second viewing. There are a lot of intense scenes, and some gruesome deaths.

First of all, I think this is a movie you have to watch two or three times to actually appreciate, since a lot of your experience the first time you watch it is "BANG! BOOM! CRASH!" In other words, this is an ACTION movie first and foremost, which means there isn't a lot of character development to speak of. Well, except for two specific characters. But I'll get to that in a minute.

Now for what I LIKED about X3:
-As screwed up as this version of Phoenix is, the Phoenix is my favorite X-Men villain, and I like the way it's been turned into an alternate personality of Jean's - it works, for the film. My personal favorite parts were seeing her pupils dilate so much that her eyes were completely black (just an AWESOME touch, as far as I'm concerned) and the way you could kind of see a firey outline around her hair when she was backlit - it's probably an accident, but I like the subtle touch that only a diehard geek would get.
-I really enjoy Shadowcat's character. In my first viewing I had no idea who she was, but then I found out more about her and now she's one of my favorite characters. Ellen Page played this version of her with a great mix of snarkiness and sensitivity.
-Angel and Beast. Just seeing them onscreen, even with virtually no backstory, is cool.
-Iceman iced up, an iconic moment. Let's hope in any future X-Men movies he'll do it again.
-The Pyro vs. Iceman fight is a great bit, particularly since Iceman wins. (I've never been a big fan of Pyro, especially movie-Pyro, although I'll concede Aaron Stanford did a great job with the character.)
-The big battle at the end is really great, visually.
-FASTBALL SPECIAL. Even though it didn't look quite right since Hugh Jackman is too tall. But still, `nuff said.
-The Danger Room is just cool-looking. And I loved the wink-wink-nudge-nudge reference to the Days of Future Past storyline.
-About the only part that I liked of the Scott-Jean scene was when Jean held back Scott's optic blasts with her telekinesis. Another iconic moment from the comics, though naturally twisted to suit movie purposes.

And what I DIDN'T like:
-Storm's hair. I really don't get what they thought they were doing there. I mean, Storm doesn't have SHORT hair. She had a mohawk back in the 80's, but it's not the same thing.
-I don't appreciate Kitty being shoved aside to be used mostly as the third part of a stupid love triangle that was basically pointless.
-Colossus kind of didn't do anything except punch people and lug a big-screen TV around. He had more lines in X2, for crying out loud!
-The Logan/Jean "romance" is played up WAY too much. I speak as a fan who hates that particular pairing, since I'm more of a traditionalist (IE Scott/Jean), but honestly. Watching them suck face in the medical ward is just awkward.
-Mystique, who's never been my favorite but is a fascinating character, got depowered. Honestly, what was wrong with the screenwriters? They've just lost the appeal of half their male audience!
...being serious now, I think they'll have a hard time doing X4 and beyond without Mystique in Magneto's group. And I was nursing a secret hope they'd do a reveal to Nightcrawler about who his mother REALLY is...
-Lack of character development. Essentially, all we know about Beast is that he's blue and a government official. Not a good start, if you ask me. Angel is a little better, with the opening scene showing him as a young child trying to remove his wings before his disapproving father discovers them, but still lacking in dimension. And there's NO hint of Shadowcat's genius-level intelligence, other than a short conversation she has with Professor Xavier in the classroom early on, and you wouldn't pick that up unless you were looking for it.

And what I absolutely HATED:
-Jean's killing Scott. Why is this necessary? IT ISN'T. Now, I speak as a biased fan of Cyclops, even movie-Cyclops, who is less than stellar as far as his role goes. But this 15-minute role just makes me very angry. I understand James Marsden had little time to devote to this movie on account of filming Superman Returns simultaneously, but honestly, killing off the supposed leader of the X-Men in the first half-hour is just not something you do. I wish, at least, they'd had some sort of memorial for him, even a small MENTION of him during the Professor's funeral. But no. He just disappears from everyone's minds. This is an example of bad storytelling, children. I mean, what did the Phoenix do, EAT him??
-Jean's killing the Professor. Now, I know he's not *really* dead, but I thought it was almost as stupid as killing off Scott. Honestly, in this movie THREE of the original X-Men characters, from the original team, are killed off. THREE. This, in my opinion, is inexcusable. And I don't just say that because the funeral makes me bawl like a baby every time I watch this movie either.
-Rogue's dismissal from the script. No, seriously, they gave her about 15 lines, I think. Being the character who interested me in these stories in the first place, I'm extremely irritated that she got so little screentime. And THEN she got depowered. This angers me so much that I refuse to watch the original ending, where she returns depowered, and instead opt for the deleted scene where she still has her power. I understand where the writers and director were coming from with their decision to have her take the Cure - after all, she's essentially isolated from all physical contact - but I think it was one of the stupidest moves they could have made. How will they justify her staying at the Institute in future movies if she's powerless? Or will they just have the Cure stop working, like it appeared to with Magneto in the end, which will render her choice meaningless? Or will they just kick her out and have her leave, making it less likely that some fans will go see the movies because she's not in them? (I admit, I'll be one of those fans.) There is a very simple, temporary solution to Rogue's powers: LEECH. One of the producers talks about a scene that possibly would've been included in the movie had they chosen to have Rogue keep her powers, in which we see Rogue return and kiss Bobby, and then reveal Leech sitting outside the door with a Gameboy. I think this would've been a much better way of solving Rogue's problem while still keeping her powers for combat situations. But, no, apparently a depowered Rogue is a good Rogue.
-The explanation for the lack of character development: this became "The Wolverine and Jean Show" (as opposed to "The Wolverine and Rogue Show" that was the first two movies). Roughly 85% of the screentime was devoted to Wolverine, and Jean, or Wolverine AND Jean, which annoyed me. The title is X-MEN, not LOGAN AND JEAN. Meaning the movies are supposed to be about a GROUP. But, no, they decided to focus on those two instead and move everybody else to the backburner.

Overall, I watch this movie for the excellent special effects and action sequences, but I can't recommend it to a diehard fan of the comics on basis of the deaths of three pivotal characters (as well as two others being depowered) and lack of character development. But it's a great wiz-bang action flick, if you like that sort of thing. I really think they should've just filmed Chris Claremont's novelization of X3 instead, because it would've been about 10 times better.

One more thing: Stick around for the end of the credits. You might see something important.

X-men 3 was plagued with obstacles during its making: several director switches, ridiculous time restraints, etc. But it truly shows how amazing X-men is that, despite all of the troubles to get it made, it is a FANTASTIC movie. It is very emotional and exciting. It is actually geared toward the GENERAL movie population, and much less toward comic followers. Comic followers will love it too if they just keep an open mind. The only problems with the movie are that #1 it is too short, and doesn't give the audience much time to rest after significant events, and #2 there a few missed opportunities for developing characters. However- #1 results in the movie being better for repeated viewings. The movie is better the second time, because u are able to soak in everything AS it happens instead of lingering on surprises. And #2 is only a problem for the fans, as everyone else will know only what they see, which is gREAT.

BUY ITT!!!

AND PRAY FOR AN XMEN 4!!

Like many have already pointed out, this one falls short of the first two films, having seen the original years ago, I just today rewatched it & for the first time saw X2 & X3, & felt that X2 was on par with the first film, I never really kept up with the comics, but really did like the second film as a sequel, but I was really disappointed with this third film, as many have pointed out, the themes of the other two seem to get lost here, for instance Cyclops, who is by far a fun character with awesome powers gets shafted in the first 10 minutes, of course I knew why, the actor James Marsedan went with Bryan Singer to do "Superman Returns" which I hate to admit was probably a smart move seeing that X3 fails as a sequel, also Patrick Stewart's Xavier is killed off, which really sucked, imagine Yoda being killed off in "Star Wars" Ep III", then Rebecca Romajn as Mystique is done away with, the only saving grace here is seeing her real nakedness breifly, & the one thing that always irks me is when fashion idiots think they should make over the actors, both Halle Berry & Famke Jansen get unattractive makeovers, & speaking of Jansen, was it necessary to bring her back?, & I won't even get started on Anna Paquin's Roque being shafted here, in the first film she was an integral part of the story, here she is just in the background, at least she didn't get a screwy makeover, only Hugh Jackman & Ian McKellan are the same as before, but they both just didn't seem to be into it this time around, Jackman had just done "Van Helsing" & seemed bored with "Wolverine" & McKellan had just scored with "LOTR" so he looked bored in his role too, also as one reviewer noted, there are shades of "Matrix" & "Terminator", I could go on & on, but clearly this one failed to grab me like the first two did, I call it laziness on the part of the writers & studios!