The first X-Men movie came out in mid-July with little hype, and since it did better than expected both critically and commercially, X2 got a more prime piece of release date real estate, kicking off the summer movie season in early May. The second movie did even better–at the box office and with superhero movie fans–so now the third one, X-Men: The Last Stand, gets the choicest date on the summer movie calendar, Memorial Day weekend. Some claim that release dates don't matter like they used to, but a 100 million dollar opening weekend doesn't lie. It's a simple equation: People looking for something to do + A movie people are genuinely interested in seeing = Money money money.
I'll be honest: X-Men: The Last Stand is one of the few movies I've had circled on my inner summer blockbuster calendar. I'm no great Bret Ratner fan, but I'm a comic book geek and I've liked this franchise so far, so I was counting on Ratner's baseline competence with action sequences to compensate for his lack of style or vision. And to an extent, Ratner delivers. The big climactic mutant-a-mutant clash at Alcatraz has a real sense of sweep and drama, and the opening action sequence had me gasping in awe, if only because it hit so many X-Men fanboy buttons: The Danger Room! Sentinels! A "Fastball Special!"
It's what happens between those two action sequences that makes X3 kind of a mixed bag (even though it's really the first blockbuster this summer to feel like a blockbuster, and not an overblown plugger). First off, as has been mentioned in almost every review, the huge cast throws the storytelling out of whack, making a good third of the movie play like an extended DVD extra. (Should've-Been-Deleted Scene #4: "Bobby comforts Kitty.") There's too many people we're supposed to care about, and the ones we end up spending the most time with are the ones played by actors likely to raise a stink if their lines get cut. It's an unexpectedly Storm-centric movie, is what I'm saying. And Wolverine-centric too, but while that's not as unexpected, at least one major plot twist seems designed exclusively to clear more space for the kid with the claws.
Ratner doesn't exactly control his actors or his pace, either. There's a lot of popped-vein scenery-chewing going on, and a lot of moments where the music swells dramatically, only to fade into another scene where people stand around and talk. The best blockbuster action movies build steadily, cutting between their different arenas before hitting a mass crescendo at the end. X3 peaks, troughs, and peaks again. (With a final peak after the closing credits, though I'd guessed what the surprise was going to be long before it rolled around.)