Good the First Time Around

Rating: 8/10 (16 January 2001)

Marching orders for the director: Make an entertaining, action-heavy live-action version of the X-Men comic book. Spend a lot of money on costumes, make-up, and even more on special effects. Be true to the comic book as much as possible. And above all, take it seriously.
What's really amazing is that director Bryan Singer succeeds, but the movie is still not the A+ adaptation that was possible. "Batman" gave us the kind of re-invented, action-packed movie we were really after. And X-Men, while a very, very good film, is by no means a GREAT film. The only reason I can conceive of is just that Singer is no better than his script. The screenplay for "The Usual Suspects" won an Oscar, and it was a great film. The screenplay for "Apt Pupil" was amateurish and not at all thought out or researched, and the result was a below average film. "Public Access" made little sense to me, either.
Future generations may have their own opinion of this movie (or none at all), but it's nice to see someone made a decent movie out of these historical characters. Considering the alternative ("Spawn"-- whoops), I've gotta give these guys an A for effort, but their movie's a B.
8/10