Disappointing

Rating: Null/10 (19 July 2000)

I've been waiting for this movie for a long time. The casting was good, the director was good - I honestly thought this would be a great flick.
I'm up to seeing M:I-2 again and skipping going to X-Men a second time.
Bryan Singer drops the ball royally on this one - this movie lacks any knowledge or forethought of the subject. I honestly think he did a major disservice to the X-Men. He had a chance to clean the mythos up and give us something more compact and streamlined.
I would rather read post-Claremont issues than think this was a good representation of the X-Men. My issues are (SPOILER ALERT):
1) Kelly and Gyrich are dead - and we see Gyrich for a whole twenty seconds. One of the better X-Men antagonists, and Singer dumps him. All the hype about Kelly is useless - Singer goes nowhere with Kelly and doesn't leave him for future projects.
2) Cyclops is like cardboard on a stick, and just as painful to look at. He was horribly represented.
3) Would Storm freak out due to a human being turning into water? No, I think not. Her character was not pulled off very well at all - I think Storm would be much more graceful.
4) Iceman is a teenager? Why? What possible good did that do? His character could have just as easily been Sunspot or Cannonball or Jubilee or some off-the-shelf kid. They wasted Iceman.
5) Why did Toad have to do the Darth Maul move? Sure, it's cute, but was it really needed? Why not just decapitate him while on a horse while we're at it? I lost any interest in him at that point...
6) Obviously Sabretooth is not the foe we would expect for Wolverine. I wanted some idea that Creed knew who Logan was - and I got nothing. He was about as useful as Bane in Batman and Robin.
I could go on, but I won't. Needless to say, if you need to see this movie, wait until it hits the $1.00 theater.
Now I'm off to see Chicken Run again.