Marvel finally gets it right

Rating: 7/10 (16 July 2000)

I really went into this movie prepared for the worst. As a lifelong comic fan, I had found the X-Men and its family of titles were becoming practically unreadable. The unrelenting hype surrounding this film screamed "flop" - as if Marvel were trying to milk everything they could out of it. Anyone who has been into comics for more than 3 years knows that this would be standard operating procedure. Not to mention their abysmal parade of cinematic failures (Blade would be the exception, but then again, it hardly resembled the comic character.)
Thankfully, they got this one right. The opening scene made me sit up and take notice, and they held me throughout most of the remainder of the movie. The first half in particular was perhaps the best adaptation of a comic I have ever seen. It did a great job of highlighting the characters, and setting up the conflict. I am not particularly fond of the comic version of Wolverine, but they hit a home run with this one. He looks great - rough, tough, and ready to rumble without being a complete psycho.
Needless to say, the effects were great. Magneto, in particular, has some spectacular scenes. I did find the fight scenes to be a little cartoonish, however. Wolverine-Sabretooth promised to be the all-time heavyweight championship match, but it didn't deliver a knockout. Hopefully, they'll work on their choreography next time (Ray Park is tragically underused in this one!)
After the well-conceived and -executed first half, the film slowly grinds to the finish line. It wasn't a total letdown, but I really expected more. Of course, they had to leave a few threads dangling; these will no doubt be tied up in the sequel(s).
All in all, I came out of X-Men very satisfied. This is a very promising start to what will (hopefully) be a series of quality movies based on Marvel Comics. The high points of this movie more than balance out its flaws. I guess the best comment I can make is that it made me a fan of the X-Men again.