Not gripping at all.

Rating: 5/10 (6 June 2011)

Set in time years before the start of the first film this prequel shows the younger years of two of the more known mutants - Professor X and Magneto. Mankind does not yet know the mutants exist - and the mutants are doing their best to keep it that way by sticking to hiding.
The trouble with prequels is that the ending is already known. Normally that wouldn't make for so much of a problem (it's the how you get somewhere that counts, not the where you get) but in this film it is. From the very start of the film it becomes clear that this film is going to have to bend the rules of the continuity of the series (or even break them) to work out and that point becomes painfully clear later in the film.
What follows is a series of events that fits the theme in behaviour and speed (although the beginning was too slow to my liking) and since it is known where everyone is going in the end it just doesn't matter - it's a pointless recap of what might have happened in the past of the players in the other films but that can't really have happened because the rules had already been laid out differently.
So, all in all, the film fails pretty hard. The action sequences are more of the same, the story is mediocre at best, and although the acting is pretty decent that alone is not enough to save it.
5 out of 10 mutants better removed from the gene pool