X-Men 3 (2006) Rewatch and Thoughts

[Castle]

Obviously its been years, I was still left with this movie feeling mixed to negative after 15 years. Some thoughts about the movie are good. Kesley Grammer as Beast and Hugh Jackman perhaps never gave a bad Wolverine performance.

When Bryan Singer exited to do Superman Returns ,Brett Ratner was the wrong choice to replace him. Brett Ratner was known more as an action guy and while I loved his Rush Hour movies, he was unsuited to do an X-Men movie especially with the two stories, which leads me to the second issue, they chose two of the thickest and over-layered x-men story and quashed it to a 95 minute movie that was never going to work.



Some positives of the film.

The cast is great as usual. Ian Mckellen, Kesley Grammer, Ellen Page, Hugh Jackman, Famke Jameson and Patrick Stewart. Kesley and Ellen made the prefect Beast and Kitty Pryde.

The cure storyline had some meaning and nailed some of the right themes that was written in the Joss Whedon Astonishing X-men run but it would have been better if this was the only main plot of the film.

VFX was good, maybe even better for a 2006 movie compared to what we see now, although it lacked the creative stand out artistry from the previous movie. case in example Nightcrawler storms the Whitehouse in X2.

A genuine darker superhero tone, although this is common with a lot of x-men movies

In 2021, X-Men 3 had Good Cinematography for a comic book movie

ArcAngel's story was the best of the bunch.

Storm and Wolverine as co-leaders. I think Halle was underrated here but Jackman does suck a lot of air because he has too much of a presence and Wolverine is ....whatever

A plausible -passable finale to end the Humans vs Mutants storyline on if or not they can get along without trying to kill eachother.



And now the negatives

Too much action, never works in any xmen movie.

The director is not the best story teller, he stops many plot lines to develop action scenes that takes more time than the plot.

Too little time, too much baggage to carry for many characters.

The director and writer did not understand what and who Dark Phoenix is

Film is very scattered and all over the place, too much going on, probably the worst weakness of the film. X1 and X2 were very neatly structured.

Cyclops should have been replaced with another actor.

Wtf was the Pryo and Bobby fight??? this was almost gag reel level of awful

Grand action driven finale????? although not on wreck city levels.


So my feelings are still the same and the movie deserved the mixed reception it got. I think critics and fans were spot on with the mixed reactions to the film.

Bryan Singer did leave this movie to do Superman Returns , which was by far the much superior film at least from a film making experience POV.

its ironic that both films had some mirrored main flaws. Superman Returns needed less drama and talk and more action while X-men 3 needed more drama and talk with less action.

[Mutant 77]

Nothing wrong with the Pyro/Iceman fight, it's superb and played SERIOUS.

My judgement:

It's a bleak and brilliant superhero movie, featuring a different take on the "Phoenix". Nice team work, the one most resembling to the comic book X-Men.
It's an excellent superhero movie, the criticism is truly beyond me.

[Castle]

Nothing wrong with the Pyro/Iceman fight, it's superb and played SERIOUS.

My judgement:

It's a bleak and brilliant superhero movie, featuring a different take on the "Phoenix". Nice team work, the one most resembling to the comic book X-Men..

It felt as if the entire movie stopped itself so they just could fight. the flow of the fight in the movie was poor.

It's an excellent superhero movie, the criticism is truly beyond me

well, you are talking about 2000s comic movie, this movie had a brilliant sequel that should not even be called a comic book in 2021, Batman Begins had just come out a year before and Spiderman 2004 a year before that. the standard back then was very high. the divided reaction was earned.

[AnakinFlair]

The problem with X3 is that Singer had wanted to tell one story (Dark Phoenix), and the studio wanted to tell another story (The Cure). Then Singer bounced to do Superman, and Ratner had to come in and try to merge the two stories. And it just didn't work as well as they wanted.

I remember liking it well enough, but I wanted a straight Dark Phoenix story, and so did a lot of other people.

[sunofdarkchild]

X-3 is 2 movies shoved together awkwardly. One of those movies is brilliant, the other is horrible. The cure storyline is really well done when it's the focus. The ethical dilemmas it raises are real and compelling and it gives great material for Magneto to work with. The problem is that because it's one of 2 main plots it's underdeveloped. The Phoenix storyline is awful from start to finish. To be fair to Ratner, the setup he was given from X-2 was not the way Phoenix is supposed to be from the comics in that it's not a cosmic entity that merges with Jean and whose power gradually corrupts her. It's some vague powerup she gets for no reason. It also doesn't help that none of the movies ever really made Jean or Cyclops compelling characters who the audience could relate or root for to before or after X-3. The whole plotline should have been dropped and the movie would have been better for it.

[WebLurker]

It has a good cast, but bad direction and smashing the two stories together does not do it any favors. I will watch it when watching the rest of the movies, but I can't say I think it's a good movie on any level. That said, it did do the Dark Phoenix story better then the actual Dark Phoenix movie when it was trying to do it.

[Castle]

X-3 is 2 movies shoved together awkwardly. One of those movies is brilliant, the other is horrible. The cure storyline is really well done when it's the focus. The ethical dilemmas it raises are real and compelling and it gives great material for Magneto to work with. The problem is that because it's one of 2 main plots it's underdeveloped. The Phoenix storyline is awful from start to finish. To be fair to Ratner, the setup he was given from X-2 was not the way Phoenix is supposed to be from the comics in that it's not a cosmic entity that merges with Jean and whose power gradually corrupts her. It's some vague powerup she gets for no reason. It also doesn't help that none of the movies ever really made Jean or Cyclops compelling characters who the audience could relate or root for to before or after X-3. The whole plotline should have been dropped and the movie would have been better for it.

The Phoenix story was treated too much as a plan b. some kind of bad love story for wolverine and jean unlike the comics that the story was centre to the entire x-men.

I also liked how things ended for Magneto in the movie, it was fitting to the character, but like I said, the story wrapped the Humans vs Mutants battle in a satisfying way. Magneto got demoted, Beast got promoted. maybe things cooled off a bit until DOFP.

The problem with X3 is that Singer had wanted to tell one story (Dark Phoenix), and the studio wanted to tell another story (The Cure). Then Singer bounced to do Superman, and Ratner had to come in and try to merge the two stories. And it just didn't work as well as they wanted.

I remember liking it well enough, but I wanted a straight Dark Phoenix story, and so did a lot of other people.

That would make sense, I never knew the deep details about the pre-production of X3 though I now recall X2 hinted Phoenix in the end,

Either way if Singer had directed X-Men 3 Phoenix or X-men 3 Cure, it would have been good and he would have done a better job at mashing both stories than Ratner though both stories deserves its own film

[Ikari]

The director and writer did not understand what and who Dark Phoenix is

This is biggest problem of the movie. I went in expecting a Dark Phoenix movie and instead it was 75% about the Cure with Dark Phoenix spending her time as a background character who didn't seem to understand why she was there (very meta, that). Back then I wasn't in touch with the comic at all and didn't know about the cure beforehand. In retrospect, if you remove the Dark Phoenix entirely from the movie and only concentrate on the Cure, it's okay. Not great, still too much silliness and contrivance, but watchable. It has some good scenes and the budget really allows Magneto to operate on full power level, compared to previous movies.

Design of the Dark Phoenix was absolutely awful with no resemblance on the comic character. Phoenix is a being of power, majesty, beauty and temptation. Dark Phoenix of X3 was ugly and seemed confused and purposeless. She had a weird, un-canonical sucking ability (see previous joke about metacommentary). Although the actual Dark Phoenix movie was pretty bad, in terms of Phoenix design it had at least little bit of what comic Phoenix has going on.
What they should have done was to do the movie around Cure and just drop tiny bits of hints about Jean returning as a Phoenix, and leave that story for the sequel which hopefully would have been written by someone else.

[Triniking1234]

Design of the Dark Phoenix was absolutely awful with no resemblance on the comic character. Phoenix is a being of power, majesty, beauty and temptation. Dark Phoenix of X3 was ugly and seemed confused and purposeless. She had a weird, un-canonical sucking ability (see previous joke about metacommentary). Although the actual Dark Phoenix movie was pretty bad, in terms of Phoenix design it had at least little bit of what comic Phoenix has going on.
What they should have done was to do the movie around Cure and just drop tiny bits of hints about Jean returning as a Phoenix, and leave that story for the sequel which hopefully would have been written by someone else.

X3's Dark Phoenix and her joining Magneto just felt like Bryne's Evil Scarlet Witch story from West Coast Avengers.

[Frontier]

X3's Dark Phoenix and her joining Magneto just felt like Bryne's Evil Scarlet Witch story from West Coast Avengers.

She even dressed like Wanda.

It's a shame that neither Dark Phoenix story actually tried to properly adapt the Phoenix costume.

[Maestro 216]

This is biggest problem of the movie. I went in expecting a Dark Phoenix movie and instead it was 75% about the Cure with Dark Phoenix spending her time as a background character who didn't seem to understand why she was there (very meta, that). Back then I wasn't in touch with the comic at all and didn't know about the cure beforehand. In retrospect, if you remove the Dark Phoenix entirely from the movie and only concentrate on the Cure, it's okay. Not great, still too much silliness and contrivance, but watchable. It has some good scenes and the budget really allows Magneto to operate on full power level, compared to previous movies.

Design of the Dark Phoenix was absolutely awful with no resemblance on the comic character. Phoenix is a being of power, majesty, beauty and temptation. Dark Phoenix of X3 was ugly and seemed confused and purposeless. She had a weird, un-canonical sucking ability (see previous joke about metacommentary). Although the actual Dark Phoenix movie was pretty bad, in terms of Phoenix design it had at least little bit of what comic Phoenix has going on.
What they should have done was to do the movie around Cure and just drop tiny bits of hints about Jean returning as a Phoenix, and leave that story for the sequel which hopefully would have been written by someone else.

Yeah Fox loves making lackluster outfits like seriously who puts one if the most visually striking female characters in a damn coat? TWICE?!

[Castle]

Yeah Fox loves making lackluster outfits like seriously who puts one if the most visually striking female characters in a damn coat? TWICE?!

Well, didn't some people get their wish about mutants finally wearing costumes.



Outfits like this should be in the books. they should not be putting this theme park stuff in movies

She even dressed like Wanda.

It's a shame that neither Dark Phoenix story actually tried to properly adapt the Phoenix costume.

Or Wanda dressed like her, Movie was in 2006.

I hope the ''superheroes must wear the exact costume'' from the comics debate fades away permanently after Wonder Woman 1984

[Ikari]

Or Wanda dressed like her, Movie was in 2006.

I hope the ''superheroes must wear the exact costume'' from the comics debate fades away permanently after Wonder Woman 1984

It's one thing not to wear same outfit as in the comics, and wholly another to wear something which is just plain terrible looking. Both the effects and costume of Dark Phoenix in X3 were awful.

[Castle]

It's one thing not to wear same outfit as in the comics, and wholly another to wear something which is just plain terrible looking. Both the effects and costume of Dark Phoenix

most and if not all costumes look awful in movies. they tend to strip the movie of any realism and don't blend well with the movie's photography even Avengers 2012 as colourful and cartoony as that movie was, captain America's costume still looked bad, The costumes thing just need to be done in superhero movies.

in X3 were awful.

Didn't X3 use the same ''costumes'' from the first 2 films? I am not the biggest fan of the black leather , however If i had to choose that and the costumes from comics, I will choose that. That fits the more grounded world xmen movies work better in.

[Havok83]

Or Wanda dressed like her, Movie was in 2006.

Or Wanda dressed like Jean. Her look was very reminiscent of Wanda's look from X-men Evolution which debuted in 2000

Its Dark Phoenix not some Hot Topic clothing. How are you supposed to be impressed and terrified of Jean Grey when she looked like that?

Where you impressed and terrified of Jean in her trench coat? I think an adaptation of the DP look would have worked. It would have stressed that she was different and not normal compared to everyone else around her. It would have been relatively over the top for that universe which would have worked for how far gone she had become



There's any number of good cosplays out there which envision it. Heck this one even utilizes the black that Fox seemed to love