Plot
Two mutants come to a private academy for their kind whose resident superhero team must oppose a terrorist organization with similar powers.

Release Year: 2000

Rating: 7.4/10 (175,907 voted)

Critic's Score: 64/100

Director: Bryan Singer

Stars: Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen

Storyline
In a world where both Mutants and Humans fear each other, Marie D'Ancanto, better known as Rogue, runs away from home and hitches a ride with another mutant, known as Logan, a.k.a. Wolverine. Charles Xavier, who owns a school for young mutants, sends Storm and Cyclops to bring them back before it is too late. Magneto, who believes a war is approaching, has an evil plan in mind, and needs young Rogue to help him.

Writers: Tom DeSanto, Bryan Singer

Cast:
Hugh Jackman - Logan / Wolverine
Patrick Stewart - Professor Charles Xavier
Ian McKellen - Eric Lensherr / Magneto
Famke Janssen - Jean Grey
James Marsden - Scott Summers / Cyclops
Halle Berry - Ororo Munroe / Storm
Anna Paquin - Rogue / Marie
Tyler Mane - Sabretooth
Ray Park - Toad
Rebecca Romijn - Mystique (as Rebecca Romijn-Stamos)
Bruce Davison - Senator Kelly
Matthew Sharp - Henry Gyrich
Brett Morris - Young Magneto
Rhona Shekter - Magneto's Mother
Kenneth McGregor - Magneto's Father

Taglines: Protecting those who fear them.

Official Website: Marvel [United States] |

Release Date: 14 July 2000

Filming Locations: Ajax, Ontario, Canada

Box Office Details

Budget: $75,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend: $54,471,475 (USA) (16 July 2000) (3025 Screens)

Gross: $157,299,717 (USA) (19 November 2000)

Runtime: 104 min

Trivia:
After the film was completed, the wheelchair that the character Professor Xavier used was sold in an auction to Patrick Stewart's attorney, and then rented back by the production company for X2.

Goofs:
Continuity: During the fight atop the Statue of Liberty, Sabretooth throws Wolverine away from the statue's crown. In the next shot, their positions are reversed, with Wolverine's back to the crown.

Quotes:
[first lines]
Prof. Charles Francis Xavier: [narration] Mutation: it is the key to our evolution. It has enabled us to evolve from a single-celled organism into the dominant species on the planet. This process is slow, and normally taking thousands and thousands of years. But every few hundred millennia, evolution leaps forward.

Smart, stylish, and very cool

Rating: 8/10

"X-Men" is a rare treat-- a blockbuster that lives up to its hype and a comic book adaptation that hits the mark.

Along with Tim Burton's "Batman", this stands head and shoulders above all other superhero movies. It's a genre that's usually synonymous with silly, campy, cartoonish crap, but Bryan Singer delivers a long-awaited exception to the rule. "X-Men" is smart, stylish, and very cool... one of the better sci fi/fantasy films of the last decade.

Of course, it helps to have good source material.

The X-Men comics, which originated in the 1960s, are more politically progressive and morally complex than older superhero stories such as "Superman" where the heroes are always right, and truth, justice, and the American Way always prevail. The series is a well-crafted parable about individuality and discrimination. The characters are mutants--struggling to find a place in a society that rejects them. Its primary villain, Magneto, isn't an evil lunatic-- he's a sympathetic character, a misguided revolutionary playing Huey Newton to Professor Xavier's Martin Luther King. The iconic character, Wolverine, is a beer-swilling anti-hero who cares little for ideals and fights only to protect himself and his loved ones. The female characters are as powerful and important as the men, rather than being mere love interests.

Rather than making just another flashy explosion-per-minute-special-effects-extravaganza, Singer practices the lost arts of character and plot development. As a result, the movie has a far greater depth than the average big budget summer flick. The acting is also quite good on the whole. Hugh Jackman, who plays Wolverine, is fantastic--a bona fide Clint Eastwood caliber badass. Some of the dialogue is fairly cheesy, but in the hands of Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart it sounds quite convincing. (Stewart has made a career out of making lame dialogue sound cool.)

Hard-core fans of the comics have complained about the omission of several popular X-Men. This is silly. A movie that gave the background on every character in the comic books would be 6 hours long. There will be plenty of time to develop new characters in the forthcoming sequels. Fans have also complained about the casting of Anna Paquin as Rogue. I disagree. Rogue is unable to touch another human being without harming them--she would not realistically act like a confident, sassy warrior. Paquin did a tremendous job of conveying the fear and isolation that such a young woman would feel. She will undoubtedly grow into the part in future movies.

In the end, "X-Men" is a comic book movie. Superpowers are explained with silly pseudoscientific babble, the plot revolves around a fairly ridiculous take-over-the-world scheme, and names like "Magneto" are spoken with a straight face. Don't read all the glowing reviews and expect Citizen Kane. But don't underestimate "X-Men" either. It is an intelligent movie that people will enjoy whether or not they are familiar with the comic.

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