Otherwise known as X3 during our time, this is the third installment of the X-Men franchise and supposedly the last (?) if sequels were talked about. Franchises then always "end" on the third movie and we thought this was it for the X-Men then.
Movie starts off with Professor Charles Xavier (played by Patrick Stewart) and Erik Lehnsherr aka Magneto (played by Ian McKellen) meeting the young Jean Grey hoping to invite her to join the school Charles established. She joins them and the scene shifts to a boy with wings, who's the son to a rich tycoon. Then it stops there, the boy with the wings, we get back to him later.
Fast forward to the present, that rich tycoon who owns Worthington Labs finally announces that they have developed a vaccine or drug that suppresses the mutant gene. It inhibits the mutant abilities and thereby they become normal, a "cure" they call it for those mutants who wish to be normal again. The so called cure is harnessed from a genome of another mutant who suppresses other mutant's powers when they are near him. But the cure has its critics and Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants is against it, as they feel they don't have a disease thus the need for that cure. As of then, the cure is administered among mutants who volunteers, but the Brotherhood feels otherwise. The so called cure will be used to eradicate the mutant race by forcing it on them.
To combat this threat, Magneto rescues Mystique (played by Rebecca Romjin) from prison and they attacked the mobile prison where she was being kept. In their escape, Mystique was shot with an dart gun containing the "cure" and she transformed to being a normal person, Magneto had to choice but to leave her behind.
During this time, Scott Summers aka Cyclops (played by James Marsden) still grieving over the loss of Jean Grey (played by Famke Jannsen) at Alkali Lake then finds Jean Grey alive and well there. As they hug and kiss, Jean kills him. Professor X senses danger in Alkali Lake, sends Logan aka Wolverine (played by Hugh Jackman) and Storm (played by Halle Berry) to investigate. They found Jean Grey at the lake unconscious. The brought her back to the X Mansion to be checked.
During her recovery, Professor X explains to Logan and Storm that in Jean's efforts to save them in X2, she somehow released the "phoenix", a powerful alternate personality that Professor X tried to contain. Indeed the phoenix has taken over and she went to her childhood home where Professor X pursued her. Magneto was also there but with another purpose, he wanted Jean to join him in the Brotherhood. In the process of talking to Jean, the Phoenix kills the professor and she leaves with Magneto thereafter.
With Jean at his side, Magneto proceeds to attack Worthington Labs to kill and eradicate the cure. The rest of the X-Men then tries to stop the advancing Brotherhood. In the melee, Magneto was injected with the "cure" and he lost all his powers. It was now up to Jean Grey to finish what Magneto started and now its up to Logan to stop her.
With his speedy recuperating powers, Logan was able to withstand all the phoenix's attacks on him until he was able to kill Jean Grey. Logan mourns for her death.
What happened next is the opening of Professor Xavier's school with Storm as its head and Hank McCoy (played by Kelsey Grammer) was appointed as ambassador to the United Nations. Magneto was relegated to being human again however he was able to slightly move a metal chess piece, suggesting that the cure was just temporary. The last scene shows a comatose patient wakes up and greets with Professor Xavier's voice.
Now that's the movie. We love the X-Men and X2, then we get this. Well, it wasn't a good sequel as we hoped it would be. The first half was full of drama and story complete with witty dialogues then comes the other half that full of action and we see a little bit of the story. What was frustrating for us was the fact that the latter half for us negates all the memories and stories we had from the first two films.
Magneto issues one liners, there's a jealous Rogue which we felt was overboard as we know already Rogue was frustrated already that she can't hold or touch his boyfriend, we saw a very different Jean Grey, it's because of the phoenix, and the whole action thing in the end was too long for our taste. And the new mutants Magneto hired? We didn't like them. End of that story.
It's still watchable though thanks to the superb acting of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. We love Hugh Jackman and Famke Jannsen here. In fact a lot of them performed well but the story line is a bit sketchy for us. The 25th Century Fox rendition of the Marvel characters we kinda agree has been confusing at best when continuity is in focus. It all started here and then the succeeding films didn't help at all.
To its credit, we liked this one better than the X-Men Dark Phoenix so rest assured this is watchable. Catch this movie on Netflix (as of this writing).
