X-Men is one of the most important blockbusters ever made. Although the explosion of superhero movies in the early 2000s was all but inevitable after Marvel declared bankruptcy and wholesaled off their movie rights, it was Bryan Singer's mutant ensemble piece that showed they could be done right. Let's not forget that previously the genre had become a garish joke, with recent year's seeing the likes of Batman & Robin and Steel stinking up cinemas. The only solid entry in the genre in almost a decade had been Blade, and as an R-rated film that didn't feel like a superhero flick, that barely counts. So it's rather odd that, despite being the film that changed everything, there's something remarkably old fashioned about X-Men. Maybe it's just watching it from a modern perspective, where an actor's won an Oscar for playing the Joker and we're currently awaiting the thirteenth entry in a massive shared universe franchise, but what was once the deft combining of comic lore and movie sensibilities now feels a tad clumsy, particularly those leather jumpsuits (although that's something Singer's still running with today). And yet there's an extreme confidence in handling things with a maturity here that means coming from a period that was the low-point of big budget cinema doesn't actually hurt the film. The world is fully fleshed out and if the recasting in First Class was good, the base choices here are inspired; unknown Hugh Jackman as Wolverine dominates (even if he'd never have got the part in the more comic-faithful modern day) and having stage vets as the older generation add a touch of class.
