Meh...

Rating: 5/10 (2 June 2011)

Bryan Singer needs to stop destroying the X-Men franchise.
It's bad enough that this movie throws continuity out the window (well, the previous X-Men movies already did that so it's not like its a new thing...) but what's even worse is that it recycles the EXACT SAME MESSAGE that occurred in the first three X-Men movies: yes, we know mutants are different, yes we know mutants have dangerous powers, yes we know there are good and bad mutants but... ENOUGH ALREADY!!! People are sick and tired of being pounded over the head with the same theme; this one-trick pony has had it's day. If you look at the X-Men comic books they fought a wide variety of villains, each with their own different agenda- unfortunately in this movie every villain has the same agenda just as before- destroy the human race- like, how many times has that been done? Why not just watch the first 3 X-Men movies? Why bother with this?
Prof X (James McAvoy) now is younger, can walk and has hair and is a free-loving hipster in the 60's while Magneto (Michael Fassbender) is a suave, James Bond-like assassin. Director Matt Vaughn tries a new retro look for a 60's era reboot of the franchise but unfortunately it falls back to the same clichés that screwed up the franchise in the first place- namely that the movies are totally different than the comic books they are based on. If you look at the best comic book movie adaptations such as Raimi's Spider Man or Nolan's Batman movies they are very faithful to the source material.
The X-Men franchise is almost totally different from its roots: with the exception of Beast this X-Men team is completely different from the X-Men's first class of the comic books (Havok is supposed to be Cyclop's younger brother but here it seems he is more like his father and his powers are completely different- and inexplicable and not to mention that his back story is never revealed so you don't even know how he fits in to all of it)- there are even massive logic gaps in continuity (in one scene the entire US government knows about the existence of Xavier and his mutants and towards the ending it seems only one CIA agent is aware of it and in another scene a secret agent spies on a mutant telepath in the other room and the mutant is completely unaware of it even though she's suppose to be able to read minds). With the exception of Xavier, Magneto, Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) and Beast (Nicholas Hoult) all the other characters in the movie are nothing more than plot pieces and exist solely as gimmicks. This points out to another weakness in the franchise: too many mutant characters and not enough script to develop their personalities so this means you hardly notice or care about them if they die.
Sure, the 60's retro look set pieces are nice and the special effects are up to par but the rest of it just isn't there.