Less than stellar , but still nice

Rating: 6/10 (11 August 2013)

"X-men" offers the viewer good special effects , nice action and decent story . The movie suffers from the fact that this is kinda origin story, yet there is too little time to explore the X-men universe . In comic books there is endless time to explore characters and introduce them to reader . Here we get to know only about the few of them – Xavier , Magneto , Wolverine and Rogue. Others like Cyclops or Jean Grey are barely introduced . Some are just instrumental characters like Sabertooth or Storm . The characters aren't too complex , because time doesn't allows for that . Yet , thanks to the actors their likable and memorable. With the exception of Halle Berry as Storm (she seems too young and not too charismatic ) the casting is top notch . Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen seem to be born to play Wolverine , Xavier and Magneto.
There is nice love triangle here and good friendship/rivalry relationship between Wolverine/Cyclops/Jean Grey . Some things were changed here compared to the comic books. Still , the changes were good and logical (such as with the costumes).
The special effects are unfortunately quite outdated by today standards. The whole movie feels like a TV episode - pilot for a TV series instead of epic science fiction action movie. The action is nice , but nothing really spectacular. It feels like Bryan Singer (famous for "Usual suspects") doesn't feels confident with them. The story is rather thin and the whole movie really feels more like an introduction to the world of Xmen than anything else. Thankfully , in the sequel the action , story and special effects were improved.
It's one of the first of new wave of comic book movies. It's not one of the best , but not one of the worst either. I give it 6/10.