1/2 Great Film, 1/2 Average Film

Rating: 7/10 (16 June 2011)

This film could've been amazing. The characters of Magneto and Xavier bring a new energy to the series. As a fan of the animated cartoon, I never got to see either of these characters fully fleshed out with their backgrounds (there was one episode of a flashback, I believe).
While the first half is excellent, the last thirty minutes or so are just okay. This is mainly because the focus is mainly on Magneto, Xavier, and MacTaggert. The last thirty minutes deals with training the students of Xavier and an epic battle. The problem is that none of his students (except for Beast or Mystique) are layered-characters and that they are all b-side characters. There is no reason to care about them.
Regarding the final battle, the only entertaining parts involve Magneto and Xavier. The other parts involve the b-side x-men battling the b-side villains. The worst of the latter is the battle between Angel and Banshee. It's just plain cheesy and unnecessarily dull (almost cringe-worthy). In fact, the whole character of Angel, along with her super powers, is lame (along with Havok too, who is just a sub-par version of Cyclops).
The film could've worked without the inclusion of any of the b-side x-men. Xavier, in theory, could take out any of the villains, but Singer and Vaughn must have felt that it was necessary to have some more x-men we hadn't seen before. It's just really too bad that there aren't any good ones to really choose from that we haven't seen before.