X-citing?

X-Men (2000)

Director Bryan Singer brings together a large cast of this adaptation of Marvel's comic book franchise. People with mutations that give them special powers try to find their place in a largely distrustful and unforgiving world.

Maybe the biggest thing about this film is that it really kicked off the super hero film revolution, particularly for Marvel, after being the highest grossing film of 2000. What X-Men did was show a cinema going audience that you can use super heroes to tell grown up stories about things like minority rights. It also had the good fortune to come along at a time when technology is making it more and more possible to film fantastical stories such as super hero films at lower budgets with more believability.

While some characters are given little screen time there is good depth given to the right characters, Magneto is not just a generic bad guy and has real reasons for his actions for example which is probably more important to creating a good film than fleshing out members of the X-Men team like Storm. Casting Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen gives the film some real weight in the important roles and helps define the morale struggle of the X-Men's world. The effects and action sequences are not as impressive as we might expect from a big blockbuster like this but the story and themes used make up for that.

4/5 the film that popularised a genre.