While today it plays like an above-average Syfy movie at best, the original X-Men was pretty special back in Summer 2000, before superhero movies became a dime (well, a lot of dimes) a dozen. It’s director Bryan Singer‘s obvious respect for the material and the classy casting that works best, particularly Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier/Professor X and Ian McKellen as Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto (James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender have big shoes to fill in X-Men: First Class). X-Men also introduced the world to the glory that is Hugh Jackman, who would go on to play Wolverine three more times (and counting). Ultimately, the action scenes and special effects are really nothing to write home about, and it is Halle Berry as Storm who has to utter Joss Whedon’s unfortunate contribution to the script (“Do you know what happens to a toad when it’s struck by lightning? The same thing that happens to everything else.”), but this first mutant adventure is still a favorite bookmark in our personal Cerebro nostalgia files.
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New On Netflix: X-Men