I have heard some unflattering things said about X3: The Last Stand. True, it was from only one person so far, but that doesn't make it right. What I mean to say is, "I disagree."

I think it was made by some very brave people. But it didn't follow the story! Tough. They made it clear from the first movie that they weren't following the comics, or the television series based on the comics, or any other formulaic X:Men let's-make-more-money copouts.

No, in this movie series each individual story arc was never meant to become some trivial piece of the past, which ultimately leads back up to the present in which everybody's all trained and battle-ready on the off chance somebody might realize that there's villiany afoot. I'll be honest, I was expecting everything to turn out alright for everybody in the end. When I go to a movie expecting something and what I get is totally different, one of two things happen: I'm irritated, like when Gwynneth Paltrow's character in Sky Captain couldn't use simple math (Six scientists... Five are gone... You're the last one... They'll be after who, again?) or I'll be impressed and entertained, like when I thought Event Horizon was gonna have cool CG space battles and it turned out to be a suspense thriller. (I don't always read the backs. Oh, like you do!)

No, most of the stuff in this movie took me totally off guard. For example: after watching Fraser for a few years, I expected Kelsey Grammar to have been a little too identifiable as his TV character to be able to play Beast. Yes, I saw periscope down too, but his role in that was not to play an intellectual. Remove any chance of his face being recognizable, though, and you can actually forget that you've watched him goof off for years. I enjoyed the little tease, too. It was wrapped up in an important moment for the character. I'll bet his favorite part was getting to run around beating people up. That's a scene you won't find in Fraser reruns.

I'm trying my best not to make this a spoiler review, so I'll just say this: They do some things they can't undo, and unless some jackass has seen the movie and revealed all its secrets to you, you don't see them coming. Actually, most of the movie was filled with those moments for me. It's a great example of when movie makers say, "You know what? Let's take the gloves off. Let's not play safe. This is our story. They may not be our characters, it may not be our concept, but gosh darn, (I'm pretty sure it's a PG flick) this is our story, and we're going to tell our story!"

It was missing one element, and that was the ethical dilemma for Magneto. On the other hand, he did have quite enough on his mind, what with all that stuff happening.

Okay, I've been lying to you this whole time. It was really a great big ball of formula. Bad guys wanted to do something evil because that's what bad guys do, and good guys wanted to stop them because that's what good guys do. There, you have your spoiler. Don't need to spent the $11 now, do you?

Yeah, I thought so. Go see the movie.