The other movie I saw this weekend was X-Men 3: The Last Stand. This movie fit the X-Men formula to a T. Well, sort of.

I don't want to spoil it, but the basic premise is that Jean Grey has come back to life as The Phoenix. The Phoenix, as comic book readers know, is the most powerful mutant yet. The problem is that she has anger issues, and so she is not on the side of our heroes. She falls prey to the sweet-talking Magneto to help him fight against humans.

In X-Men 2, the death of Jean Grey was used in the same way the death of Data in Star Trek: Nemesis was. Script writers are by-and-large a lazy bunch, and killing off a major character gives them 10 minutes of easy-to-write dialog, if you include the touching funeral and all. Well, I guess if you read the comic you would have seen it coming, but still....

In X-Men 3, the writers go ballistic with this idea. Let's see... 3 major mutant characters are killed (I mean characters from pervious X-Men movies, not new characters for this film), and 3 lose their powers permanently. The movie actors have been doing interviews around the talk show circuit claiming this is the last X-Men movie. But this movie does leave the door wide open for a sequel. Or at least a bunch of spin-offs with perhaps a Wolverine movie, or a X-Men Students, Starring Noone Famous edition.

I left the theater feeling satisfied. I saw what I was expecting to see. Either you like comic-book movies like The X-Men (in which case you will like this too) or you don't. I do, generally speaking. So X-Men 3 gets a thumbs up from me. Be sure and stay in your seats during the credits to see the small scene at the end. If the last 1 minute of the movie left the door open a crack, the scene after the credits blasts the door off its hinges.

It looks like the summer blockbuster season has kicked off in earnest. X-Men 3 is here. Superman is coming. There looks to be some good comedies on the horizon (My Super Ex-Girlfriend, and The Devil Wears Prada). Should be a good summer.