Excellent movie.

Rating: 9/10 (16 June 2011)

Now I'm sure everyone knows who the X-Men are and know about this movie. The trailer really didn't look impressive at all and if I wasn't such a huge Michael Fassbender fan, I probably would have waited to see this movie on DVD. I saw this the day it was released but my computer got a virus so I haven't been able to get a review out until now.
Keep in mind I'm a little biased since my favorite actor plays Magneto but I absolutely loved this movie. Sure this isn't about the original X-Men but I feel like movies and comic books are two different entities and if you like one and not the other then that's fine. I used to get upset about stuff not being faithful adaptations but now I don't care since all it does is help people find out about something and they hopefully want to find out more about it and find the original material.
The thing that makes this movie so great is that it's not really a superhero movie. I mean sure there are mutants with powers but this movie puts way more emphasis on the story and the main characters as opposed to nonstop action or way to many mutants with powers like in X-Men The Last Stand. This movie is basically a drama with superheroes in it. They utilized Fassbender and McAvoy to a great extent and Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique) and Kevin Bacon (Sebastian Shaw) did great as well.
I liked that they made the movie very dark (as dark as they could make it for PG13) much like The Dark Knight but added in a fair amount of light hearted moments. Magneto was a dark serious person while Professor X was more of an easy going guy. I thought it was a nice touch in seeing how he acted when he was young.
Of course there are a couple of nit picks I have with the movie. The kids weren't really given enough screen time but I guess it gave you just enough for the first movie and hopefully we get to see more of them in sequels. Also I liked January Jones in Mad Men but she really does not do any good as Emma Frost. Sure she's good to look at but she's given most of the screen time out of Kevin Bacons henchmen which is weird since she can't really act well. Also I don't think Azazel and Riptide even talk at all during the movie.
Overall this has been my favorite movie so far this year. I plan on seeing Super 8 this week so we'll see if that can top this movie. 9/10