X-Men (2000)

By the turn of the millennium, superhero films were not in a healthy place. The Batman franchise had collapsed under the weight of its own camp excess, and Hollywood had largely retreated from the genre. Into that gap stepped Bryan Singer with X-Men, a 2000 production from 20th Century Fox that adapted Marvel's long-running comic book series about a world divided between ordinary humans and genetically evolved mutants, known as homo superior. The premise, rooted in anxieties about prejudice and social exclusion that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby first sketched out in 1963, proved to have plenty of life left in it when transplanted to the screen. At its core, the film follows two new arrivals, the young Rogue and the feral, wisecracking Wolverine, as they find their way to Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, just as a larger conflict between Xavier's X-Men and the militant Magneto threatens to spill over into open war.

Singer had come to the project off the back of the well-regarded crime thriller The Usual Suspects (1995), an unusual pedigree for a blockbuster of this scale. What he brought was a willingness to treat the material seriously, something that was genuinely not guaranteed at the time, and a visual approach that was polished but unremarkable in the best possible way: functional, grounded, and not desperate to overwhelm the audience with spectacle. The production was handled through Singer's own Bad Hat Harry Productions alongside The Donners' Company and distributed by 20th Century Fox. The result ran to a lean 104 minutes, a discipline that many of its successors could have learned from. For the lead role of Wolverine, the casting of Hugh Jackman was a last-minute change (the original choice had to withdraw due to scheduling conflicts), and it turned out to be one of the more fortunate accidents in blockbuster history. Jackman would go on to carry the character across decades of films, including the critically admired Logan. Opposite him, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen stepped into the roles of Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr respectively, two classically trained stage actors who brought genuine gravitas to what might otherwise have been fairly thin archetypes. Famke Janssen and James Marsden rounded out the principal ensemble as Jean Grey and Cyclops, part of a larger group of mutants whose individual powers range from weather manipulation to bone claws.

Singer would return to the franchise for X2, widely considered a step forward from this first outing, and again much later for X-Men: Days of Future Past, by which point the franchise had already gone through some very variable territory. Whether this original film holds up as the best of the lot is a question worth sitting with.

This is still the best of the Marvel franchise imo. The one that kicked the door open for modern superhero cinema. Before Spider-Man, before the MCU, there was X-Men in their gritty leather suits, brooding mutants, and a surprisingly grounded tone that made comic book films feel serious again. It might look a bit dated now, but back in 2000, this was huge. Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine is instantly iconic and it's wild to think he's played the role for 25 years. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen as Xavier and Magneto are perfect casting. Their ideological clash gives the film real weight, and their chemistry carries so many scenes. The story is simple but effective, and the ensemble is strong even if a few characters are a bit undercooked (sorry, Cyclops). The action holds up decently, and there’s a real sense of world-building that laid the foundation for better (and worse) films to come. Cheesy in places, sure. But it was the right film at the right time, and it still hits that nostalgic sweet spot. A bold start to a franchise that would go on to… well, let’s just say, mutate.

And I think that assessment is hard to argue with, honestly. There is something to be said for a film that knew exactly what it needed to do and did it without fuss. The franchise that followed was, to put it charitably, inconsistent, and revisiting this first entry is a reminder that the foundations were genuinely solid. If you want to see where the whole thing began, before the timelines got knotted and the stakes inflated beyond all reckoning, this is the place to start. Sometimes the door-kicker is still the best room in the house.

Rating: ★★★  | Year: 2000  | Watched: 2025-04-07

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Trailer

▶ Watch the official trailer for X-Men (2000) on YouTube

Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: Disney Plus
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Watch in the US
Stream: Disney Plus
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Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from Bryan Singer: X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) · X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) · X2 (2003)
More with Hugh Jackman: Logan (2017) · Van Helsing (2004) · X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) · X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
More from the 2000s: Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) · Daredevil (2003) · Apocalypto (2006)
More adventure: Alice in Wonderland (1951) · The Eagle (1925) · Louisiana Story (1948) · The General (1926)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)