X-Men Movie Marathon: Episode 2: X-Men

    The X-Men movie marathon continues, this time with the first well-known X-Men movie. This is X-Men!

    X-Men can very well be seen as the film that kicked off the popularity of comic-book movies, but does it still hold up? After all, this came out when being a film connected to a comic book was still a "bad thing". Add on the fact that it is now over ten years old and it wouldn't be all that surprising if this film did hold up. But the fact it does is awesome.
    In the film, The X-Men, made up of Cyclops (James Marsden), Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) and Storm (Halle Berry) rescue runaway Rouge (Anna Paquin) and amnesiac Logan AKA Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) from Magneto's (Ian McKellen) Brotherhood, made up of Mystique (Rebecca Romijn), Toad (Ray Park) and Sabertooth (Tyler Mane). They are taken to the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters and meet Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) himself. Together, they try to stop Magneto from turning every human into a mutant. 

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     For being a little over 12 years old, the film is still pretty good. For a movie that could have gone for the very campy road, it's nice to see that here the source material is treated with respect. The actors they have chosen to play the roles are all perfect. Hell, it would be hard to find anyone that would say that Patrick Stewart isn't the perfect Xavier. Or that Hugh Jackman's Wolverine isn't one of the most iconic comic book portrayals ever. Everyone else is pretty good to. McKellen is as good as he always is. Paquin shows why she's as big a star as she is here with a great performance as the teenage Rouge. The only ones that aren't fantastic are Mane as Sabertooth and Marsden as Cyclops. They're not bad. They just good. And when everyone else is great, that's just not enough.
    The effect hold up very well and look like they aren't more than a few years old. I mean, this film has better Wolverine claws than Wolverine had, in his own film, just over 3 years ago. The story is a little weak, but the prejudice theme plays out very well here, as it does in most of the X-Men films. The whole films is very good, but is missing that, ahem, X-Factor. You know. The one that makes me give movies the full 6 stars out of 6. That thing that makes me feel like the film deserves it. Unfortunately, this X-Men film doesn't have it. Still, very good though.

"Honk..."

     X-Men holds up a helluva lot better than Generation X did. But that's mostly because X-Men was a good movie right from the start. The cast is about as perfect as it could get, the effects are still good and the story interesting enough. Overall, a good way to kick off the series. X-Men gets 5 stars out of 6.