X-Men (2000)

20th Century Fox

Nowadays, films based on super heroes get churned out every year. Most are very good and only a few are awful (here's looking at you Ghost Rider). Back in 2000, this wasn't the case. For every good one, there were five that were a complete misfire. Then came Bryan Singers take on X-Men and things started to change.

It wasn't without it's issues, but the movie still holds up as a pretty good comic book adaptation. The biggest problems were the misuse of a few characters (which would tend to be the problem in all of the X-Men movies, outside of First Class). Cyclops, the leader of the team in the comics, is a joke, he gets to do a little bit in this movie, but you never really feel like he's as strong as he was in the books. His screen time would be lessened in each subsequent film until he was mercifully killed off in The Last Stand, but more on that later. Halle Berry was pretty hit or miss as Storm, but I feel she got better as the series went on. The rest of the X-Men were all pretty good, with Wolverine, Professor X and Jean Grey being the stand outs. It's pretty much their series, especially Wolverine, but as Andy put it to me "Hugh Jackman was so good as Wolverine they had no other choice." It's hard to disagree with that.

Aside from Mystique and Magneto, the villains are all pretty worthless. Toad and Sabretooth are pretty worthless, constantly messing up everything they attempt to do. They're never shown on the same level as anyone they're fighting against. Which is odd, consider how bad ass Sabretooth was in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The helplessness of these two villains is made up for by how great Ian McKellen is as Magneto, he would go on to be the strong point of every film he was involved in, in both this series, but in just about everything else he's ever been in.

Despite the fact that comic book films have come a long way since 2000, X-Men still holds up pretty well. The story is basic and pretty intriguing early on, but it does lose a bit of it's momentum and tumbles towards a dull finish. It's not entirely perfect film but it's definitely a good start for the series.

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