I'm starting to think the movies-versus-comics perspective might be a big factor here. It's not so much that the movie is at all faithful to the comics and their continuity - unlike the previous two, it draws heavily on the past couple dozen years' worth of comics plotlines, but then it puts them all in a blender and transforms them into a kind of wacko remix, so I imagine that diehard comics buffs would find a lot to complain about as well.
But one very major plot point - the idea that Xavier had originally "fixed" Jean to limit her powers and keep her under control - is taken directly from the comics, which have never treated it with anything like the moral seriousness it deserves. In this movie, though, the juxtaposition of Xavier's "fixing" of Jean with Angel's gruesome attempt to "fix" his wings makes it clear that Xavier is making a really dubious ethical call, and I think it's strongly implied that this played a significant role in his parting of ways with Magneto. The comics are filled with cases of Xavier meddling with people's minds for what he claims is their own good, and he's never ever been called to account for it, so I was delighted to see it taking center stage here.
Unfortunately, turning Jean into the object of a philosophical tug-of-war between Xavier and Magneto pretty much reduces her to a pawn, which is a real step backwards from the strong, determined, self-motivated hero we saw in the previous movies. The Xavier/Magneto rivalry itself seems like a plausible extension of the previous movies, and I thought they brought it to a satisfying conclusion here, but they did it by more or less erasing Jean as a character. Even the good, heroic Jean we knew from the previous movies now seems retroactively like a fraud, a perfect little surrogate daughter molded in Xavier's image. Although the story itself at least acknowledges how creepy that is - especially with Jean's suggestion that he's done the same thing to the now suspiciously domesticated Wolverine - that doesn't really make it all better.
Oh, and speaking of ill-served characters... :-)
I thought what they did with Rogue made sense from a character standpoint, but I agree it's kind of an anticlimax for someone who'd been such a major character up to that point. I was amused that Kitty, the Little Miss Perfect beloved of all comics fanboys, appears here as a pouty homewrecker, but I guess it didn't occur to me that they were replacing one with the other because in the comics they're both important and popular characters.
Scott's off-camera death, I suspect, was left unconfirmed until midway through the movie partly to stop the plot from dragging to a halt for yet another maudlin funeral sequence. They can't really be expected to mourn him until they know he's dead, but I appreciated Wolverine's pre- and post-mortem concern for his longtime rival.
Still, I can't disagree with your list of criticisms. Halle Berry still can't act, Bobby's a creep, Callisto and friends being Evil Goths was just as cliched as it was in the comics, and the movieverse president seems to be all over the map when it comes to his mutant-related policymaking. I guess it's just that, for me, the silly bits pale by comparison to the skillful use of elements from the comics - which I thought improved on the original versions pretty much across the board - and what I felt was a satisfying and, gosh, even intelligent resolution to Xavier's and Magneto's long-running debate over the responsible use of power. I could ramble on about that last point in more detail, but I've already been going on for ages as it is. :-)
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But one very major plot point - the idea that Xavier had originally "fixed" Jean to limit her powers and keep her under control - is taken directly from the comics, which have never treated it with anything like the moral seriousness it deserves. In this movie, though, the juxtaposition of Xavier's "fixing" of Jean with Angel's gruesome attempt to "fix" his wings makes it clear that Xavier is making a really dubious ethical call, and I think it's strongly implied that this played a significant role in his parting of ways with Magneto. The comics are filled with cases of Xavier meddling with people's minds for what he claims is their own good, and he's never ever been called to account for it, so I was delighted to see it taking center stage here.
Unfortunately, turning Jean into the object of a philosophical tug-of-war between Xavier and Magneto pretty much reduces her to a pawn, which is a real step backwards from the strong, determined, self-motivated hero we saw in the previous movies. The Xavier/Magneto rivalry itself seems like a plausible extension of the previous movies, and I thought they brought it to a satisfying conclusion here, but they did it by more or less erasing Jean as a character. Even the good, heroic Jean we knew from the previous movies now seems retroactively like a fraud, a perfect little surrogate daughter molded in Xavier's image. Although the story itself at least acknowledges how creepy that is - especially with Jean's suggestion that he's done the same thing to the now suspiciously domesticated Wolverine - that doesn't really make it all better.
Oh, and speaking of ill-served characters... :-)
I thought what they did with Rogue made sense from a character standpoint, but I agree it's kind of an anticlimax for someone who'd been such a major character up to that point. I was amused that Kitty, the Little Miss Perfect beloved of all comics fanboys, appears here as a pouty homewrecker, but I guess it didn't occur to me that they were replacing one with the other because in the comics they're both important and popular characters.
Scott's off-camera death, I suspect, was left unconfirmed until midway through the movie partly to stop the plot from dragging to a halt for yet another maudlin funeral sequence. They can't really be expected to mourn him until they know he's dead, but I appreciated Wolverine's pre- and post-mortem concern for his longtime rival.
Still, I can't disagree with your list of criticisms. Halle Berry still can't act, Bobby's a creep, Callisto and friends being Evil Goths was just as cliched as it was in the comics, and the movieverse president seems to be all over the map when it comes to his mutant-related policymaking. I guess it's just that, for me, the silly bits pale by comparison to the skillful use of elements from the comics - which I thought improved on the original versions pretty much across the board - and what I felt was a satisfying and, gosh, even intelligent resolution to Xavier's and Magneto's long-running debate over the responsible use of power. I could ramble on about that last point in more detail, but I've already been going on for ages as it is. :-)