Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Patrick Stewart as Professor X, and Ian McKellan as Magneto really steal the show. They've embodied their characters, and work well together. The message of discrimination is never played heavy-handed, but it comes across. All in all, a solid performance.

Michael Kamen's music is wonderful and fitting. Just the right amount of adrenaline and somberness. (I recommend you by the CD as well as the DVD!)

In short, X-Men is a rewarding superhero flick. People with children however, should be warned that there is an amount of violence, but it is not gory. All in all, and excellent movie.

X-Men is an entertaining action movie and it has some great fight scenes but it is pitched at its intended mass audience and carefully falls short explicit violence making it pretty much suitable for all but young children. However, although the X Men movie comes from a comic book background and is definitely aimed at a mass audience it also has a message and is a lot more highbrow than most super hero adaptations. X-Men for example opens with a scene in a Nazi concentration camp with a young Magneto witnessing his mother being shepherded off to the gas chamber and from this it is pretty clear that Director Bryan Singer is deliberately making a point and drawing a comparison. It is also worth noting that at the time of the X Men's creation, back in 1963, among the major political figures in pre civil rights America were Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and it is easy to draw comparisons with Professor X and Magneto. Comparisons can also be drawn between X-Men character Senator Robert Kelly and a certain Senator McCarthy. What is more, X-Men is particularly pertinent at a time when there is so much tabloid speculation and scare mongering with regard to genetic engineering.

With X-Men, Director Bryan Singer, a self-confessed fan, has stayed remarkably loyal to the comic books and has served up a commercial but extremely enjoyable film with impressive special effects, which has inevitably spawned a sequel and (in all likelihood) a franchise, which makes me for one very happy. Full of great characters and great performances from the likes of Hugh Jackman (as Wolverine), Anna Pacquin (as Rogue) and Famke Janssen (as Dr Jean Grey) and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos (as Mystique). However, it is the excellent pairing of the Royal Shakespeare company's McKellen and Stewart opposite each other that really adds gravitas to the proceedings and my only real dissapointments were seeing the excellent and beautiful Halle Berry (as Storm) being under-used and the relatively short running length of 97 minutes.

X-Men 2 hits our screens later this year and I for one am really looking forward to it! Four stars ****

What distinguishes this film from other lesser film adaptions is an intelligent script, or at least intelligent for the genre. Character development isn't sacrificed to make room for more standard mindless special effects and action setpieces, like in some movies ("Batman and Robin", anyone?).

The in-jokes are funny, and the characters' history and motivations are treated with a fan's level of respect.

If the filmmakers can retain those elements of character-driven story and a respect for the source material in future installments, then they may have a successful movie franchise on their hands