This movie is as near to perfect as any superhero movie ever gets. Perfect casting, great direction, excellent script, and of course, incredible special effects. X-Men is the most enjoyable movie I have seen in a really, really long time.
For those of you who aren't members of the faithful, allow me to set up the premise. The X-Men are a band of mutants, all with unique special abilities, struggling to fit in with society, cope with the problems of having super-powers, and kick ass all at the same time. In this movie specifically, they are fighting Magneto, an incredibly powerful mutant with the ability to control magnetic waves, in an attempt to stop him from destroying mankind.
The plot is almost secondary; however, what has always made the X-Men so great and so popular is the characters. And the writers and the director of this movie have wisely played up this aspect. First, by having an absolute dream cast, and second, by staying true to their characters as set up in the long running comic book series.
And although this isn't a Merchant/Ivory film, the actors themselves do a great job. They stay true to the spirit of the film, playing it serious and straight. This movie isn't without humor though. Hugh Jackman, as Wolverine, has some particularly funny lines, and nearly steals the movie. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen play off each other well as old friends, now antagonists. The entire cast is good, so good that you wish you could see more of each character, but the action keeps ticking along and you are left hungry for more.
My only tiny complaint, and it is so tiny that it shouldn't detract from my overwhelming enthusiasm for this movie, is the lack of real violence by the villains. They are supposed to be incredibly evil, and yet there are hardly any corpses to be seen in this movie. They remain sophisticated the entire time, even the ferocious Sabretooth. Not that the fight scenes are cartoonish in any way. They are staged realistically and there are some tense moments. I just feel that for a town notorious for too much bloody violence in movies, Hollywood was remarkably tame with this one.
The only other movie based on a comic book that comes close to being as faithful to its original as X-Men is Christopher Reeve's Superman. And it's a mark of just how far special effects have come since that movie was made, that while then we all 'Believed a Man can Fly', now we believe he can fly, control the weather, fire beams from his eyes, and bend metal with his mind. In fact, special effects are so commonplace now that we often take them for granted. They are seamlessly blended into the movie so we barely notice them. This is how it should be, and so it is with this movie. They are there, they are great, but they stay out of the way of the plot and the characters.
Being a longtime X-Men fan, I can't really say how well non X-Men fans will like this movie. I hope enough people new to the series will go and see it, because I have to tell you, I can't wait for the sequel. Since it might be a while until that happens, I guess I will have to settle for seeing this one four or five more times.
