stop bitching about people dieing.
Xavier obviously isn't dead, Jean is obviously gonna still be alive (refer to comics.... anywhere with the phoenix) and Cyclop's body was not found and there is enough cloning and time manipulation to resurrect him someway or another.

This movie reeked of being built around special effects, at the expense of everything else. It's like they made the movie by saying "oh that would look so cool...let's put that in." After they'd had enough scenes to "wow" the audience then they put in everything else built around that. And boy did it show...everything else fell completely by the wayside...character development, plot, dialogue, editing, pacing, even music. Whenever I was paying attention to the music I was thinking, "What the heck is this? This sounds totally banal and is adding absolutely nothing to the experience." There's only one time the music struck me as being good and fitting, I'm not sure exactly where but it was a sad theme, perhaps for Xavier's funeral.

X-Men 1 began centered around Wolverine and Rogue. Rogue virtually disappears in this movie. Wolverine's still around plenty, but clearly the movie is pushing Storm as the lead X-Man now, maybe due to Halle Berry's strongarming. The scene where Mystique loses her powers was horrifyingly idiotic and mishandled, mainly because Magneto is SO abruptly out of character it was laughable, considering their relationship in the previous 2 movies and Mystique's role in those films. In a scene maybe a minute long Brett managed to basically say "die k thx bye!" to her character and everything the first 2 films built for her, and we don't see her again except for a few seconds later helping out the good guys. The sheer audacity with which he just dismisses already well-developed characters left and right while adding new ones which are pathetically underdeveloped is ...well, not good.

Jean Gray/Phoenix -- holy crap, I swear there was more time showing her just STANDING AROUND than anything else. "Oh I'm just going to stand here. Then I'll finally decide I want to start wreaking havoc at the appropriate time when the movie needs a really fancy SFX scene to bring the movie to a climax." Dark Phoenix looked more like an undead creature. Certainly creepy, but not very phoenix-y to me.

Geez, so many things were just so poorly handled and seemed like afterthought. The Iceman/Pyro duel lasted what, a minute or less? Angel has about 3 minutes of screen time. Juggernaut is an absolute joke. Colossus' main role in this movie is to throw Wolverine.

The dialogue was cheesy/poor probably more of the time than it was not, all of the emotional moments seemed to ring false.

How did Magneto manage to appear on TV making a terrorist threat against the nation, do all of what he did, and then he's suddenly in a park with lots of people at the end of the movie and nobody seems to even know who he is? Wouldn't there be like, a massive manhunt going on for him?

What's even more stupid is how by the end of the film, Ratner is basically trying to say "ok maybe I really didn't want to do that" -- he leaves the door open for all of the "deaths" to turn out otherwise. We don't REALLY see Cyclops die. Jean is the "phoenix" who can rise again if she wants to. The scene after the credits shows Xavier's mind in another body. He doesn't even have the guts to really make those deaths a certainty.

The sole good I find here is in Beast, who is a new character who at least gets enough screen time and development to work reasonably well.

Apparently, the scriptwriters removed their names from the script (they're not listed on the movie's imdb page anymore). Maybe Ratner departed from it so much that they were disgusted and didn't feel like it was the movie they wrote.

This doesn't feel like it's even in the same league as the first two movies. Oh well. Unfortunately eye candy is all a lot of people want out of their movies these days if the opening day gross says anything.

What I really liked was the scene where Jean (Dark Phoenix) put her house to pieces along with Xavier.

I thought Angel was gonna play some super huge part in the movie with the way he was publicized by some of those crappy entertainment shows (as if they should really be listened to). He sparked some important things, the reason for making the cure and I suppose the idea to keep the school open, but didn't do much of anything otherwise. I was kind of expecting him to fight along side the X-Men. Not that big of a deal, I guess. By the same token, I was sad that Colossus didn't do much except throw Wolverine around.

Cyclops goes really early...especially for someone that I've always perceived as a huge part of the whole Phoenix thing in the first place. I started chuckling because the scene where Jean is seducing Wolverine reminded me of Famke playing Xenia Onatopp.

There was the Iceman/Rogue/Kitty love triangle...despite the fact that one side of the triangle was practically missing the entire time. I know Rogue had the whole first movie to play a key part, but she did little to nothing in this movie and she was always my favorite character from the cartoon. I've got nothing against Shadowcat/Kitty Pryde (I was getting really annoyed with some people sitting behind me who kept saying shit like "she looks like she's 10!"), she had that cute comeback against da Jugganaut, bitch. But it just seemed like she completely replaced Rogue which annoyed me. Then again, Rogue seems kind of useless without the powers she got from Ms. Marvel, and with what happened to her at the end...well at least it doesn't seem to be permanent.

I was kind of surprised with Xavier. Just the way he talked to Wolverine rather venomously at points shocked me since I never really knew an incarnation of Xavier that was ...well...mean. Not that it really bothered me, just something that stuck with me when I saw it because I didn't expect it.

I felt sad for Magneto at the end. Just because he looked so sad. I was surprised that he just abandoned Mystique like that. After the way they worked together in the other two movies, I would think he'd at least...I dunno...give her some clothes or something.

it was only 3 notable people, and one of them comes back in the end.

Psylocke. As if it wasn't lame enough that they made her a bad guy, she doesn't even do anything notable. What a complete waste of a well-known character, they should have saved her for a fight with the Shadow King.

He's not really out of character, it just seems he developed but we missed a lot of it, along with the rest of the cast. We saw glimpses of his human emotions, particularly when Xavier's death was concerned (he calls our "Charles!" when he melts, and gives Pyro a good shutting-down), but the fact that war was upon them meant he couldn't very likely be namby-pamby about his treatment of the enemy. Didn't he practically strangle that guy in the chains at the end of X2 (forgive me for forgetting names)? He has to show strength as the leader of the Brotherhood, so I thought most of his behaviour was well justified. The Mystique thing was jarring though. I won't deny that, but I don't think she betrayed Magneto in return at all; didn't the information she provided lead to the "fake" camp, with the guy who duplicates himself? Or maybe they were initially there, but moved for that purpose. Who knows?
Magneto's "death" scene was appropriately dramatic. I liked it a lot. Very theatrical. As opposed to Wolverine's "no!!". Okay, he's upset, but he can hardly yell out no when he was the one to do it, for the greater good of all.

Xavier, Xavier, Xavier. He was a right bastard when it came to Jean and the "barriers", and Wolverine apparently waking her up (and here I thought she did so of her own accord). Hypocritical, too, after the whole ethics class. Still, it wouldn't have been so bad if he had developed and saw what he did (messing with her mind) was wrong, despite the best intentions. It just seemed he was crabby in this film, and a little too self-righteous, and that we missed a bit between films.

Ack, I keep remembering more problems now. How the hell did Jean awake? Cyclops' beam hitting the water? It was a little contrived he decided to ride all the way out to the lake again for no particular reason, and beam the water in anger. Also, it was a bit rich that Storm had her speech at Xavier's funeral about his teachings living on through them and the school but five minutes later doubting whether to keep the school open purely for a "subtly dramatic/tense" scene, with entrance by Angel and resolution of the issue resolved within a minute. I won't even go into Rogue's mess of a storyline. Her problem was solved before it really began. Is she as useless in the comic books? I was looking forward to her using her powers against the Brotherhood in the last battle but was sorely disappointed. It seems they just left her power as a burden. Then again, it did set up for a legitimate reason for a cure. Not everyone has cool abilities like telekinesis and magnetism so it's understandable she'd want to be normal if it meant human contact.

Yeah, especially when he said to Wolverine, "I don't have to explain myself. Least of all to you." Ouch.

He did kill that one guy pretty hard in X2 by pulling out all the excess iron Mystique put in him.