XMen 3

Without giving away details, great movie! And worth staying up for the midnight showing. I'm inclined to say it's not quite as good as X2, but still, very enjoyable, well-written, and well produced. The characters' struggles seemed quite genuine, making the story seem real, even if it is Sci-Fi. Everyone faced some very difficult and real emotional challenges, but it was scripted authentically, allowing the audience to feel the characters' pains alongside.

My movie watching experience would have been greatly improved had the people sitting next to me not been making comments and obnoxious gasping noises throughout the film the whole thing. And then there was the guy in front of me who answered his phone in the middle! At least he was relatively quiet about it, but still, people astonish me.

Skipping to the end, the people seated in front of me made a number of comments that the chess scene immediately preceding the credit roll is a perfect setup for the producers to make another sequel.

I disagree: Hollywood does setups like this all the time to keep the audience hanging, especially after finishing a trilogy - It's more just a gift to the audience, letting them make up their own continuations in their minds. The actual sequel never happens.

HOWEVER, after the credit roll, there is a scene that quite solidly set the stage for another film. While the chess scene wasn't compelling enough for me to have high hopes for more X movies, this final cliffhanger is definitely worthy of a sequel.

It was a pleasant, unique experience for me to see so many audience members stay to watch the entire credit roll - they must have known to expect something at the very end. Because I do work in the film industry, I now always stay to watch the credits, but I'm normally used to being the last one out of the theatre. It was nice that so many others got to stay to enjoy the names of the people who worked so hard to bring us this film, even if the ulterior motive was simply the special scene afterward.