Entertaining, but nothing extraordinary about it.

Rating: Null/10 (15 July 2000)

There was so much pre-release buzz surrounding this movie. As a result, I think that going into the theater I expected too much from this movie. I thought this was going to be a movie that would rival "The Matrix". I thought that I was going to walk out of the theater feeling so inspired by the movie that I'd want to go to a store and purchase X-Men action figures (and I'm 25 years old). Well, I wasn't disappointed. It just wasn't as good a movie as I had hoped it would be. What can I say about Hugh Jackman as Wolverine? He did a great job, he was excellent in that role. I liked seeing Ian McKellen as Magneto. It was great to see him play a villain. I also liked seeing Patrick Stewart as Dr. Charles Xavier. They both were perfectly cast. I especially liked their chess-playing scene together. I didn't like Halle Berry as Storm though. She had little screen time and ANY attractive black actress could've played that character. I didn't like the Mystique character all that much either (and why cast Rebecca Romijn in the role?). Although she kicked some butt, she was just basically there to be looked at and to wiggle her nicely-shaped body. I wish Anna Paquin's character, Rogue, would've been given SOMETHING to do; all she did was spend her time moping. I would've liked to see her extract the energy from one of the villains. But I liked seeing Anna all grown up. She has come a long way from the cartwheeling little girl in "The Piano". I also think that the Jean Gray character should've been given a lot more to do with her telekenesis (but I certainly enjoyed seeing the very beautiful Famke Janssen in that role). Much was said about this movie's special effects prior to the movie's release. I found the visual effects to be rather fake-looking. They were certainly disappointing--nothing that we haven't seen before. In fact, the fight sequences themselves (the moves that the characters had) were a lot more notable than the visual effects. The movie's biggest plus? That for an action movie, it actually had a story, and that the director focused on the story. I thought that the ending was very interesting, and so was the music that accompanied the final scene. Overall, "X-Men" is good as a summer movie, and it's a good way to spend two hours. It did rekindle my interest in comic books (reading them, not collecting them). Hopefully the sequel will be much better. I would like to see a different set of "mutants" with superhuman abilities that are even more amazing. It's going to take a lot to top "The Matrix".