Saw this over the weekend after the rewatch of the latest Xmen reboot films (First Class, DOFP, and of course the eyesore that was Apocalypse) and wow....once again the iron strikes the underwhelmingness of a final film in a series. This felt NOTHING like a finale for these characters whatsoever with the exception only being maybe the last scene of the whole film, but even that felt loosely shoehorned in there just so they can say "ok this is it for these folks."
While I appreciated that they expanded upon the Jean Grey Phoenix story for this, wow this just felt rushed and scattered. I think the other part that annoyed me was the lack of coherance and tying into the events of the previous film more. In some ways, it felt like that film was supposed to be forgotten on some level in the storylines but there was directions they were certainly teasing in that one that I figured had to be followed up in this (ie Quicksilver/Magneto connection and the scene after the credits of Apocalypse too as two of many examples).
Ultimately, just like most 3rd parts of trilogies or final films in a franchise, this just did not knock it out of the park, in fact it barely made a single. I was pretty let down at a lack of arcs for the majority of the characters, and in fact it felt terribly forgotten and unfocused in many cases for many characters. They made a mistake not having Vaughn helm this one (he did great with First Class) as it showed having a new director and writer handle this. I'm blown away that this guy totally failed on Fantastic Four for FOX and they still went with him for this one, not just as a writer but director? Talk about setting a film up to fail!
Another sign of the times for this franchise and the state of film in general is that I went to the only 3D showing of this locally yesterday (one time daily and the 3D was NOT worth the upcharge) and I was the only one in the theater. Did not expect that.