By now, just about everyone on the board who have read some of my posts should have some inkling that i´m a comic book nerd

, so i´ll write my general meaning and thought of the film in the top, and a lot of nerdy knowledge/spoilers at the end. I´ll warn you in due time when it gets spoily/nerdy...
The movie as a whole :
While i still think that no. 2 is the better in the entire "trilogy"

i think that X-Men was a pretty decent action flick. Hallle Berry is
for once believable as Storm, and Hugh Jackman (Wolverine) Patrick Steward (Xavier) and Ian McKellan (Magneto) Famke Jansen (Jean Grey) got their character nailed spot on (as they have done in all movies. Magneto has gotten a darker, more sinister side about spending lives of devoted followers, but what´s to be expected when he´s had his schemes foiled in the two other movies?
Kelsey Grammar (Beast ) is spot on as well. I was sad to see that nightcrawler from no. 2 was missing but the X-men universe is so biiig that i can accept it , if they want to show more mutants on the expense of ohters.
Juggernaut (Vinnie Jones) is spot on as well. (yes, he is that stupid in the comics as well) and the same goes for Jamie Madroxx (played by whats-his-name)
I gladly (but not highly) recommend it to fans of comics turned movies, but the best movie of the year is so far is still V for Vendetta, due to more than a few bumbles in the movie, but i´ll get to that in the nerdy part of my post.
x-MEN 2 IS STILL THE BEST, BUT I GUESS THAT 3 DIRECTORS ON THE SAME MOVIE IS SOMEWHAT OF A PROBLEM...
NERDY AND SPOILER PART The story : The whole Angel/father-looking for-cure plot is superficial and shallow, all angel does is saving his father who found the cure for mutation during the final fight. X men 3 has received a lot of fan bashing for this, and this is one thing i can agree on.
Changing of characters : what has been changed about the comic book characters, is beneath me. They have taken "small" characters, and "geared" them up.
In the comic, Callisto is the leader of an underground movement of mutants that live in the sewers called the morlocks. Morlocks is a term from H.G. Wells book The time maschine, and seeing as hollywood probably don't want to pay Wells idiotic siblings any royalties (especially for the F*** up of a classic a few years back with the movie of the same name) that´s understandable. In the comic Callisto has an eye patch and a 80ies spiky hair and no super speed. For all the fans who bang about it, i´ll just say GET ON WITH THE PROGRAM! Bryan Singer reinvented the genre by bringing old story lines up to date, which includes new outfits, hence the remark in x-men 1 when cyclops says
what would you prefer, yellow spandex
to wolverine. (wolverine wears a yellow/black striped spandex in the comics)

and the other directors try to stay true to his vision.
The mutant with the bones shooting out from his arms who fights wolverine in the woods, is in the comis a small teenage girl named Marrow. An insignificant character that should be dumped at the bottom of the ocean. i got no problem with the changing (and death) of that character.
The Phoenix story : While phoenix doesn't kill cyclops ::)in the original story, the powered-down phoenix is acceptable. in the original story, the phoenix hungers for power and essence, so she flies out into the universe, to another galaxy, and drains the power form a sun, causing a supernova that destroys the other galaxy

so guess why i consider the story acceptable (comic book style, that is...) that sort of powermonging is just laughable, and is only used to show her like a bad guy...
Trilogy Schmrilogy...
Nothing happened in the movie that cant be undone for a fourth installment of the x-men saga (not counting the up comming wolverine movie) All the mutants is going to get their powers back, mystique is probably going to turn into a good guy (as she does in the comic) Xavier sends his essence into another body, as he mentions is doable in the start of the movie (that´s hollywoods way of saying that we´ll get another (cheaper) actor to play Xavier in the future.
Magneto might turn into a good guy as well, and come looking for a job at the school (as he has done in the comic as well

) Finally, Jean Grey is the character that has died/resurrected most times in the entire x-men universe, and you don't get to see cyclops´s body, so he may be out there somewhere. If he has in fact died, a possible future mutant villain called Apocalypse (think of him as a mix of Darth Vader and Imhotep from the mummy movies) has certain interests in the Scott summers/jean grey relationship.
I wont get into details about that character. My brain hurts, just to think about all that idiocy that´s behind him...