How come X-men: The Last Stand is so unliked, compared to the others?

I actually think it's the best one, and has the best ideas in it for an X-men movie.

SPOILER

The idea that the humans invented a cure for mutation and whether or not mutants want the cure, raises a lot of great ideological questions for an X-men movie. I feel that it was the best executed movie out of them all, but for some reason, it seems to be credited as the one that ruined the series, leading to rebooting it with First Class. But why is that, or what's so bad about it?

The cure was good dramatically wasn't it? Especially for Rogue.

At the time what got on my nerves was the newfound emphasis on Storm as a joint lead with Wolverine. Previously it was much more an ensemble, albeit with Wolverine as the audience's way in to the X-Men's world. This has been flipped on its head recently with Jennifer Lawrence looking as though she didn't want to be there, yet with her status pushing Mystique more to the fore — really not enjoyable to watch.

The new Last Stand characters other than Beast were very weak too.

Do you mean the Beast in The Last Stand or the newer beast?

Also, I didn't really see Storm as being more of a joint lead, but maybe.

People dislike The Last Stand because it seems to do a very gutsy, dramatic thing (with the cure), and then just walks it back so it actually meant nothing. It's the same kind of reaction people have when a movie or show skills a character for dramatic effect and then revives them in some cheap way.

Beast in The Last Stand (I've amended the earlier post). New Beast is alright I suppose apart from the terrible, obvious wire work.

Oh okay, which characters were weak would you say?

But when did it mean nothing? I thought it carried the plot through, I didn't think it meant nothing in the end, and I like how they used the idea on Magneto's demise.

I just think it was a poor film generally, however you see the cure being handled. Good new characters really help – in X2 Nightcrawler brought so much energy and looked so good too.

I'm saying nothing .

There are two weaknesses in the movie, I can think of off the top of my head. The opening flashback with X and Grey, didn't really add anything, and I think we could have understood the story without that. And the fight between Bobby and Pyro, came off as too cheerleader-ish or too "penis-ish measuring" , the way it was done, unless that is just me? But other than that, I thought it was pretty good.

Phoenix
Storm
Juggernaut
Angel
And all the Omegas

Well the thing is, is that those characters aside from Phoenix, are supporting characters, at least in this movie, so I feel that they didn't need to have arcs, if that is what you were looking for?

I think whether they had arcs or not it was really difficult to find any interest in them at all. Too many characters maybe as well? For instance it wasn't the only reason that Days of Future Past completely turned me off but it was certainly one of them.

Oh okay. When it comes to the Angel character, even though the movie doesn't spend a lot of time on him, I felt that his subplot was more about the situation than the character. The scene when his father wants him to undergo the cure, I thought was actually a powerful scene that gets you thinking about the X-men themes. So I felt that was the reason why the Angel subplot worked perhaps.

As for Juggernaut, he is just a henchman so does he really need to be that interesting, other than being tough? Like in James Bond for example, henchmen such as Jaws or Oddjob, or not that interesting as characters, and are their to be physical threats, so wasn't Juggernaut, just good enough as a physical threat?

I thought the Omegas were fine cause they gave Magneto the excuse to build a bigger army, which is fine. Again with James Bond, do we really need to know why a bunch of men have joined the villain's take over the world scheme, really?

Phoenix I agree with, and that plot needed more time perhaps. As for Storm, what was wrong with her exactly? Just cause she plays a more main role?

Magneto gets cured against his will, and then at the end of the movie you see his power isn't gone.

How carefully are you watching movies in general? Most of the questions you ask are clearly answered in the movies themselves.

Oh I didn't think that his power wasn't gone. I just thought he had a very little tiny bit left, but only enough for him to miss it. Like he can only move metal, 0.001% percent compared to before, and he is now cursed without ever getting the rest back now. Or that is how I saw it. I thought I watched it clearly enough. Maybe I didn't see the problems with this movie, that others did?

I can't speak for anyone but myself but a lot of the original trailer clips had me expecting very specific things. Juggernaut was support the way Boba Fett was support, yet was still perceived as a silent badass. Stepping out with rubber arms and a large foam helmet declaring, "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch." was a weak attempt at fan service conceit. My eyes still involuntarily roll just thinking about it. The casting didn't help at the time either.

Secondly, I never cared for the casting of storm. The character felt goofy, always off by a beat, and burdened with more importance than either she was actually written for or than Halle Berry could deliver. The 90's cartoon had more grounded leadership in voice acting alone. Could just be Berry exhaustion, but I honestly thought her character was weak compared the new spotlights given her.

Finally, Pheonix was a let down. I, and many friends, were expecting to see the Phoenix released and characterized with the trailers' staging of it as a potential climax, especially with how we were teased at the end of X2. yet all of what came after was still Jean being Jean only bad Jean.

Finally finally, fight sequences were mostly weightless with very silly-looking leaps and flights.

All my subjective judgments of course, but you need to view the reactions through the audience's perspective during release and whatever other cinematic contexts and attitudes might have existed at that time. Watching it today I may have no problem with it. I doubt it, but possible.

Maybe it's like eating pizza three days in a row then on day four, you're presented with ....another pizza. Only this time it's more mediocre than the first three so you swear off pizza never again. Pizza is alright. Even really mediocre pizza is acceptable now and I'll eat it without complaint. But in that specific moment, I simply wanted to throw up just thinking about another crappy pizza.

I can see that maybe. Perhaps if I were to watch the first 3 X-men's in a row, I might see the third as just another pizza. That's what I felt like when First Class came out though, was that it was just more pizza. It's the first 3 X-mens all over again, and not really bringing much new to the table.

But how come audiences found that one to be more refreshing, when it was kind of just been there seen that, compared to the 3rd one?

Trying to fit in two big storylines when one would have sufficed left fans with half baked attempts and lost ideas.

I've never understood the hate for The Last Stand either, it's one of my favorite X-Men movies still.

I also think it's not as bad as its reputation. But I didn't follow the X-Men comics and have heard it (and it's two predecessors) were not faithful to the comics. That usually bothers me when it happens with comics or books that I have read, so I understand the complaints.
It also tends to place action over character so we don't see much of the characters reacting to the cure (aside from Rogue) or the deaths of two major characters.

Oh I see thought there was plenty of time for characters to react to the cure, I don't know how much more there could have been that would have been better, but maybe... The scenes when Magneto and Mystique react to the cure I thought were good. I also didn't mind how they handled the deaths of two major characters as well.

Almost all comic book movies of today, don't even have the guts to kill off any major characters compared to back then.