X-men (2000) - Quite good... for its time

‘X-men’ was the long-awaited ‘comic book to film’ adaptation of the popular superheroes of the same name.  For years fanboys debated who should play the iconic roles of the mutants (superheroes), therefore, when it finally came to production, casting was always going to be an issue.  As a so-so fan of the source material, I can’t really say how well ALL the mutants were transferred, but most of them seemed pretty faithful – most.

However, what let it down for me was the fact that it’s called ‘X-men’ – i.e. plural.  There are numerous mutants – some fighting for the noble Charles Xavier (the X-men themselves) and those fighting for the dastardly Magneto, known as the ‘Brotherhood.’ Therefore, because there are multiple stars in a ninety minute movie, you can’t really give them all the screen time they deserve. ‘Wolverine’ (Hugh Jackman) is arguably the fans’ favourite, so he gets much of the screen time.  The others are just kind of there for him to bounce off of.

Basically, it’s good superheroes versus bad superheroes.  So if you generally like your superhero movies then you should get something out of this.

Of course it was made a fair few years before ‘Marvel’ superhero movies really took off, therefore it does feel a little dated compared to today’s modern Thor, Iron Man and Avengers films.

I have my own grips with X-men – I never approved as Sir Ian McKellen as the villain ‘Magneto.’ I always thought the baddie should have the body of Arnold Schwarzenegger and the face/temperament of Al Pacino’s Scarface.  Having an ‘English nobleman’ as the supervillian just didn’t seem to work for me – he wasn’t physically intimidating for me (sorry, Sir Ian!).

But, overall, most people liked it and it spawned numerous sequels and spin-offs.  I can watch it every now and again.  It’s not too long and it fills a void if I’m in the mood for something light.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that