Great adaptation of the comic book

Rating: 8/10 (20 July 2000)

While some may fault this movie for not being 100% faithful to the continuity of the comic book, it is without a doubt the best adaptation to film of any comic, including Tim Burton's Batman movies. Fast-paced yet remarkably easy to follow, even for non-comic fans, the movie conveys all the information necessary to understand the who and the what without becoming bogged down in exposition.
Casting in this film was well-done, with a few strokes of luck (in particular, having Hugh Jackman take the place of Dougray Scott actually worked out for the better, given Scott's performance in M:I-2) Patrick Stewart was perfect as Professor Xavier, as was Ian McKellan as Magneto. What I particularly enjoyed was the on-screen relationship between these two former-friends-now-enemies, which was carried off beautifully by these two fine actors.
The rest of the cast performed well, and the cameos by various other mutants at Xavier's school ("Mutant High") was fun. From a continuity perspective, several things about the school didn't make much sense -- Bobby "Iceman" Drake was far too young, and Xavier listing Storm as one of his original recruits was also incorrect (the original team consisted of Iceman, Cyclops, Jean Grey, the Beast, and Angel, whereas Storm didn't join the team until the revamp that added Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Colossus and others in the late 70's, in Giant-sized X-men #1.) However, this is a minor nit to pick, one that would not be noticed by most non-fans and which does not detract from the movie in the least.
The door is obviously left open for more stories, and hopefully the movie will be successful enough to justify more.
My one quibble is that the movie seemed a little on the short side (running time was 95 minutes.) Several scenes felt rushed, in particular Jean Gray's speech at the beginning. However, more exposition might have slowed down the movie too much, which would also have generated complaints. As it is, we have a fine action film which serves to introduce the X-men to the non-comic-fan audience, and that's a very good thing indeed.
Rating: 8 out of 10