For fanboys and regular homo-sapiens alike.

Rating: 9/10 (14 July 2000)

Yes, I'll admit it. I read comic books. And yes, I've read the X-Men comic books. In fact, I started reading XMEN when I was about thirteen, and got quickly hooked.
For those of you who don't know, (as if the media juggernaut for this movie hasn't run you over yet) the X-Men are mutants. They're born with genetic abnormalities which give them super powers. These powers usually manifest around puberty. Mutants, in general, are feared and hated by the rest of humanity.
Is it any wonder teenagers eat this stuff up?
Well, we all grow up. I still read X-MEN from time to time, but not with the fanatical devotion of my teenage years (at one point I was reading "X-Men," "X-Factor," "eXcalibur," "X-Force" and "Wolverine," much to the detriment of my savings account). Now, maybe I'm just being an old fart, but I SWEAR the comics had better quality when I was younger. The thing that always drew me to the book (well, aside from the adolescent male power fantasies) was that, unlike many super-team funnybooks, X-MEN was character driven. Most of the heroes had major flaws, and the villains weren't really evil, they just saw the world with a different set of ethics. Best of all, their super-powers were often as much a curse as a blessing.
Recently, the writer who brought comicsdom its best X-MEN stories (and characters such as Wolverine, Storm and Rogue) has come back to the title--which is good, because recently, X-MEN has been all about a bunch of super-powered, spandex-clad yahoos who go out and beat up on the bad guys.
Now, I was afraid that X-MEN might be like THAT. Fortunately, it's not.
Okay, much as director Bryan Singer (THE USUAL SUSPECTS) has denied it, X-MEN is an action movie. But it's most decidedly NOT a children's film. The PG-13 is there for a reason--don't bring your eight year old, assuming it's just a comic book movie. You'll scare him. He also won't be able to follow it.
I'll admit, I was rooting for this film. I wanted it to be good. Well, it met my expectations and exceeded them.
First point: you don't have to read a single X-MEN comic book to enjoy this film. It actually opens in Poland, 1944, in order to explain the motivations of its villain. That, from the get-go, let me know that they'd done this movie right. Any movie which uses its opening sequence to humanize the bad guy (ESPECIALLY a summer special-effects blockbuster) gets major props in my book. Next, we see the harrowing trauma one young girl goes through when her powers manifest. In fact, we don't really see an action sequence until about 20 minutes in, when we're introduced to Wolverine (Hugh Jackman).
You're gonna be seeing more of this Hugh Jackman guy. Mark my words. In fact, unlike MOST comic-book adaptations, the producers of X-MEN went out and found themselves actors who could actually ACT. One big fanboy complaint has been the casting of Anna Paquin as Rogue. Now, in the comic-books, Rogue is a incredibly well-endowed babe. Anna Paquin... well, she's cute and all, but no one would call her the comic-book model of babeitude. Well, lemme tell ya--Rogue was NOT an easy role. A lesser actress would have come off as a whiny, annoying, self-pitying ass--kind of like Lacey Chabert in... well, in anything. Fanboys everywhere should thank their lucky stars that the producers didn't listen to them.
Second point: if you've read the comic books, you'll especially like the metallic "clang" when Wolverine hits a guy. You'll also like the cameos (such as Shadowcat, Iceman, Jubilee, and even Pyro). But especially, you'll like that Bryan Singer and writers Tom DeSanto (APT PUPIL) and David Hayter do justice to the characters. They're also smart enough to keep the story focused on the more interesting characters, (Wolverine and Rogue) while giving the more two-dimensional characters (Cyclops and Jean Grey) a backseat.
Anyway, if you like action movies, run right out and see this sucker. If you're not a big action movie fan but you find yourself sucked into seeing them (by family or friends), then you could do a whole lot worse than X-MEN.
Like any Jerry Bruckheimer movie, for example.
X-Men gets 4.87632 out of 5 Woobs. Just about perfect for its genre.