I thought the guy who played Angel was quite pretty, myself. Wish we'd seen more of him. I did appreciate that both he and Wolverine had shirtless scenes, even if Wolverine's was while being basically skinned alive. Agree that Hugh Jackman's face looked haggard. I thought Famke Janssen looked fabulous (and I WANT her hair).

Okay, in the very last shot, did Magneto make the chess piece move with his mind? My friend and I had differing takes on that scene. I thought it showed him finally having to come to terms with the loss of his power, and having to move the piece physically with his hand. My friend thought his hand was hovering above the piece and that scene was meant to indicate that he was regaining a tiny bit of his power because the piece moved without him actually touching it. Thoughts?

I thought it was touching, Kate, but the people I've spoken to since then thought it wasn't.

Who is Jamie Madrox?

I, too, was hoping for pants-less Wolverine. Alas, it was not to be. I also thought that the porcupine mutant boy was a very tasty treat. Easy on the eyes.

I thought Halle looked like hell. She borrowed Famke's unfortunate flippy -do from the last movie. And what was up with the skunk stripes? And, she really can't act. At all. Even a little. The scene where she's comforting Wolverine after Xavier's death? Painful.

Neither Bobby nor Pyro looked all that good. Time has not been kind. Thought Anna Paquin looked good, though. But I'm still bothered by her decision to take the cure. It seemed out of character. I can see Rogue being conflicted, but ultimately I didn't think that she'd actually go through with it.

Kate, it seemed that almost everyone in my theater today read that last shot as Magneto moving the piece with his mind. I think it could've gone either way.

I read it the way everyone in your theater did. Especially given the Xavier's Not Dead (which was totally a gun on the wall moment, given that Phoenix wasn't an external entity)

I was irritated by the sheer number of character introduced seemingly just so that they could use their powers in a (note the "a") scene later.

And really disturbed by the wanton death of everyone

Huh. Actually, I tend to think the early Rogue character would have leaped at the chance of a mutancy cure.

I was not at all happy with the storyline of the movie, though as others have said it's always a pleasure to see McKellen and Stewart acting.

I also really liked Kelsey Grammar (Grammer?). I thought he pulled that character off very well. Although I found the Wolverine/Beast exchanges some of the more poorly written scenes in the movie. Hardly witty repartee.

I was irritated by [whitefont]

Yeah, me too. During the climactic battle scene, I kept thinking, so basically, the point of introducing all these characters was to invent new and unusual ways to kill people or blow shit up.

I couldn't agree more. It really bugged me when that mutant who could sniff out other mutants powers was having her climactic battle with Storm. Was I supposed to care? Did anyone ever call her by name throughout the whole movie? Or any of the other tatooed mutants for that matter? The only one I can recall was Shockwave and that's because Magneto used her to destroy the plastic cure guns while I was wondering why he didn't just unleash Phoenix on them and have done with it. I would much rather have spent time with characters that I knew from the first two movies.

Watching Magneto roll up and have his minions, and then his inner circle, and then HIM defeated without so much as yelling "Hey! Jean! Help me out, will you?" was more than dumb. Even if she didn't because she was conflicted or distracted. Because, really, why was she there?

Not to mention the implication that the X-Men a) don't mind killing willy nilly (dude, that's Wolverine's job--what he does isn't very nice, remember?) and b) think that killing Jean is a better solution than curing her, or at least cuffing her to Leech makes them almost as narrowminded as Magneto ditching Mystique. That was a tip of the hat to canon that didn't make sense in the movie.

Wolverine was Wolverine, though. I think he was played well. Which reminds me, why did Storm have her knickers in a twist about the fastball special? Just because he didn't let the kids beat the Sentinel? I also thought it was weird to throw a bone to the fanboys and then proceed to beat them about the head with pointless inconsistencies later.

Oh, that wasn't Shockwave. She was Arclight. And I think in the comics Arclight hit the ground to make stuff happen, but I don't rightly recall. She was HIDEOUS.

See! Even the ones I think I know, I don't know. Therein lies the problem.

The last stand part of X Men: The Last Stand was problematic on a lot of levels.

So the X Men generally not being down with the killing was the reason that Bobby didn't kill Pyro during their battle? Because that also was not so much with the sense making. As a general rule when someone is trying to fry you, it's ok in my book to take them out. Maybe it's just me.