pretty good if it was a made for tv flick

Rating: Null/10 (22 July 2000)

I was not an active reader of the X men comic, and I am no expert on the characters. I found the movie to be more enjoyable than I expected, but it lacked the epic quality one associates with these types of films. For example: the scenes at the Statue of Liberty were very modest--not as spectacular as they could have or should have been. It was very claustrophobic--much like a tv movie of the week on Fox.
In fact--that is what this movie seemed to be: made for television. It is unfortunate that Fox not only slashed the budget on this film, but also forced the filmmakers into a summer rather than Xmas release.
As for the plot, without revealing too much, I will only say that the threat of mutant registration came across as rather lame. Could this idea have come about because of the budget restrictions? I would have preferred something more grand--like legislation to allow the military to use a virus to seek out and neutralize mutants. Now that would have been a threat--and Magneto's response in the film would have been more understandable. Furthermore--the Nazis are featured early in the film. This sequence was truly dead weight. It was jarring and not as relevant to the story as some may suggest. It would have been cheaper and more effective to have Magneto talk about his childhood when he is facing Xavier--or Senator Kelly.
On the plus side--Sterwart and Mclellan did the best they could with their roles, but the real stars were Jackman and Paquin. They brought some emotional power to this flick--while the rest of the cast were not well developed.
I understand that there were scenes removed from this film to cut the running time down--perhaps they would have improved the film, but not enough I suspect. I certainly did not find this film to be as disappointing as Batman, but it didnt soar like Superman either.