A new benchmark for films on comics...

Rating: 8/10 (10 July 2000)

I needed something to take the foul taste that Mission Impossible II left in my mouth and glory be to Bryan Singer for doing all that and more.

Beautifully crafted, and shined oh-so-close to perfection this is surely as good as they get. Fans of the story will catch the odd inside joke here and there but with it's great CG, and intense (but not overdone) action sequences this a film for one and for all.
However, where this movie really made my cup of tea was the interaction between the characters. All are woven into the story so appropriately and so well that the director seems to rarely miss a hit with the audience with the emotion he seeks to draw.
Though this isn't possible without the talent to carry it off, there's no evidence of miscasts here. Special mention to Hugh Jackman as Logan, making what may have just been a good show a great one. Along with none other than Dune's Gurney Halleck, Star Trek's Jean Luc, who else more appropriate to cast as the charismatic, noble and fatherly Charles Francis Xavier than Patrick Stewart. A sin it would be not to mention the gorgeous icing upon the cake in the form of Netherlands's Famke Janssen as Dr Jean Grey, combining a sense of professionalism and underlying vulnerability (with those sultry eyes) to ooze femininity over the screen. (Angelina Jolie has a lot of work to do in Tomb Raider to top this act).
The only drawback of this film? It makes you scream for more, more, particularly between the characters, though sequels have tainted reputations of being unable to live up to their predecessors. But in my mind Bryan Singer can do no wrong, as I await the next chapter with baited breath.