This review is going to be a bit all over the place - sorry.

Rating: Null/10 (18 January 2001)

The film was very good for what it was - a comic book adaption, which has been proved many times to be a risky business (e.g. Batman and Robin). One of the major problems is
"How do you create an hour and a half long movie, which has to incorporate about 30 years of comic book characters, making it all understandable to people who have never heard of the X-men, but keeping it true to the comics, all the while having an interesting plot line ???????"
Somehow this got done. Admittedly if you are a massive fan of the comics, some of the introduction is just repitition to what you already know, but this can't be avoided. There are a few references to the comics ("what would you prefer - yellow spandex?") refers to the comic book costume, but this doesn't take anything away from the movie if you've never seen a comic book before.
The actual casting is terrific. It does seem that Halle Berry who plays Storm is just in the movie so X-men lovers don't complain "where's torm" - She doesn't actutally have a lot to do, and what she does do in the movie could easily have been given to another character.
Framke Janssen does very well in portraying her relationships with her teacher (Prof X), her lover (Cyclops) and her ...... well whatever Wolverine is to her. Interesting to note nothing mentioned about Phoenix - possibly setting up for a future part in a sequel.
Speaking of which, it seems very likely that a sequel will be done, and after using this film to set up all the characters, hopefully a more established plot can be made.
Anyway, well worth seeing unless you hate sci-fi / fantasy / action films, or if you love the comics so much you'll hate seeing Rogue as a young girl instead of a woman.