X-cellent!

Rating: Null/10 (27 June 2002)

This film is absolutely brilliant. Bryan Singer has done an excellent job, remaining respectful to the original material but still managing to give the story and the characters a unique flavour.
Singer puts together an amazing cast, led by two British greats. Patrick Stewart plays Prof. Charles Xavier, teacher and leader of the X-Men. Sir Ian McKellen plays Prof. X's alter-ego, the master of magnetism, Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto. They are joined by Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Famke Janssen as Dr. Jean Grey, and Halle Berry as Storm. The good thing about the casting in this film though is that it also includes relative unknowns such as James Marsden (Cyclops) and Tyler Mane (Sabretooth). Singer employs Ray Park, the stuntman who found fame as Darth Maul in "Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace" and later as the Headless Horseman in Tim Burton's "Sleepy Hollow", as Toad, the model Rebecca Romijn-Stamos as Mystique, and the largely underrated Bruce Davidson as Senator Robert Kelly.
The storyline is brilliant and believable. Singer has managed to make a film that is really entertaining and which includes all the best Marvel traditions, with amazing special effects, dazzling locations and a witty script, as well as creating a story that is thought-provoking and quite intellectual. McKellen's Magneto almost becomes an anti-hero (as the beginning shows him as a young boy in Auswitz, watching his parents being carted off to the gas chambers. Obviously this sets a mind-set within Lehnsherr's psyche, which drives him to desperate measures when he sees the kind of prejudice directed against mutants (of course, he's a mutant as well as a Jew) by people such as Sen. Kelly.
The extreme nature of Magneto's beliefs are illustrated by the opposing view of Lehnsherr's old friend, Prof. Xavier. The storyline tells us (and anyone familiar with the comic will know) how Xavier and Lehnsherr were once close friends but were pushed apart by their increasingly differing views on how to approach the hostility towards mutants.
The story is well crafted and the script clever. The characters are well-rounded and interesting and Singer draws well from the Marvel comics, remaining very true to the essence of the characters.
All in all, this is an excellent film and I highly recommend it.
8/10