So after a three year wait, the supposed final chapter of the X-Men movie series was released. Had I not been spending midnight in the hospital on the day of its release, I would've seen the first showing. But the girlfriend, Greg and I agreed on Friday night. Now you can read my non-fanboy review on my site, but this is my "omg I luv X-Men xInfinity!!" side coming out.

Most sequels that are helmed by different production crews/directors have fallen prey to the director changing the tone of the film ( the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" sequels), casts ("Batman and Robin") or just squeezing what's left of the franchise ("Blade:Trilogy"). Hence the speculation of the switch from acclaimed "Usual Suspects" director Bryan Singer who directed the first two films to the man who oversaw the buddy-comedy "Rush Hour" films and fresh from the Pierce Bronsan dud "After The Sun.

Ratner is known best for making easy-on-the-brain films with little-to-no character development ("Rush Hour 1 & 2", "Money Talks") or halfhearted attempts at something deeper ("Family Man", "Red Dragon").

Sadly, "X-Men III" is no different. For an action film, it's probably one of the best ones released this year. As a whole, it's a mess.

The first two "X-Men" films were successes because they reached across the barriers of fanboys and people who were new to the series. They weren't overwrought or extra flashy like the "Batman" series had become after Joel Schumacher took over and took its source material seriously.

"The Last Stand" is everything the first two films weren't. After Singer left, so did original writers David Hayter, Dan Harris and Michael Dougherty. Behind the story this time is "xXx" and "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" writer Simon Kinberg and "X-Men 2" story writer Zak Penn. The shift is glaring. Instead of well-written dialouge that is based more on development of characters and story, the film shoots for bad one-liners such as "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" and sample dialouge such as:

Warren Worthington, Sr.: Warren, it's a better life. It's what we all want.
Warren Worthington III: No, it's what you want.

and other similar quotes:

John Allerdyce: You should have stayed in the school.
Bobby Drake: You never should have left.

Then there's far too many characters who have nothing to do.

See this guy. His name is Angel. You won't know that by seeing the movie though. Logic would tell you that a character featured in the movie posters and trailers would have a large role. He's in the movie a maximum of 5 minutes.

The same goes as well for Rogue. I personally never cared for her because I don't think Anna Paquin was right for the part. Her accent fades in and out worse than Kevin Costner's in "Robin Hood" and her character has never been given anything to do in the previous two films. This is no different, she's part of a pseudo-love-triangle-maybe-we're-not-sure-because-it-never-goes-anywhere. Once again, no real point to her being there as anything that was built up with her character and relationship with another mutant- Iceman - in the other installments are treated with anymore respect than just some bad subplot fodder.

This is the main villain - outside of Magneto - Phoenix a.k.a. Jean Gray. She's crazy. She kills characters you probably wouldn't expect to die. She's going to kill alot more people. Wolverine loves her. That's pretty much all you are given about her in "X3". But, that's really all you need. No real development with her and why she is so evil as an entire series of comic books was devoted to that. But in order to adapt that, the film would be longer than "Braveheart."

Then there's the rest - Iceman, Collosus, and Kitty Pryde excluded because combined screen time between the three equals around 15 minutes. Halle Berry threatened not to sign on to a third X-Men film unless she was given more screen time and "development" - because clearly "Catwoman" and "Gothika" showed her demand for deep, thought-provoking characters. She's given it and to little chagrin. Storm and Wolverine lead the pack but neither garner much interest outside of what was already estalished in the previous films. Beast - I assume - takes the place of Nightcrawler as the interesting new character and voice of reason. Due to the film's incredibly short running time and lengthy speeches given by Storm and Wolverine, Beast's character is introduced and then pushed to the side immediatley. But, at least he's given some screen time to establish himself.

And the story itself. There's a cure for mutants, but most mutants don't feel they need a cure. Inevitably, the government decides that they will administer it through guns. The militant Magneto and his new group of villains who look to be coming straight from a Misfits concert initiate a war by fighting back. I won't give anymore away.

The sets and action scenes are dazzling and, by far, the best part of the movie. Sure, you may not care about who's getting killed or what character is on the brink of death, but you get the action you were looking for.

And that seems to be the Ratner way of doing things. Conduct a bunch of action scenes and string along with something that resembles human emotion.

"X3" can best be summed up by Beast. During the Mutant-Human war Beast attempts to justify fighting in it by quoting a scholar whose name I can't remember but halfway through he gives up by saying "Ahhh...you get the point!" Yes, we get the point, it's just how we were told that was wrong.

Grade - B-