I don't see the big deal

[Principal_Skin-trade]

I finally watched X-men along with the rifftrax tonight... and I was expecting more. Is this what everyone has been raving about as one of the greatest comic book movies of all time?! I think Wolverine was the only likable character in the whole film, he actually had depth. The others are just lifeless cardboard cutouts (Storm, Cyclops, Kitty Pryde, Jean Gray, Mystique) and/or just total dicks (Cyclops, Storm, Sabretooth, Magneto). The movie left me very empty inside, as though the x-men accomplished nothing, because there really wasn't much at stake in the first place.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Magneto was going to turn ordinary people into mutants...

, So what?! I mean it's not as though we get to know any ordinary people in the entire movie, therefore the whole premise seems a tad thin. All we get to learn about Magneto is that his parents were probably killed by Nazis... but there's got to be more motivation to his actions than that! Why didn't they bother to expound on the characters a little bit more? I'm just as much a fan of comic book movies as anybody else, but X-men is a 100% eye candy movie. Why it has such a high rating on Rotten Tomatoes I have no idea. By the way... Cyclops is a dick(Yes i'm aware i've said that 162 times already). Couldn't Bryan Singer have just totally cut his character out of the movie? I mean it's not like Cyclops has any big fans. If you have a hard time understanding what I'm getting at, then picture Darth Maul in place of Sabretooth or Toad or Mystique. See? We don't know anything about that character! He may be bad-ass but has no driving force other than a vague idea I get of vengeance or some crap. Overall... I give X-men a 4/10 - Disappointing on a good day.

[PsypherPunk]

Actually I don't know anyone who particularly liked the first X-Men. I found the whole thing pretty lacking; much preferred the sequel though.

[Pak-Man]

To see the big deal, you must watch any superhero movie that came before it. Save (Debatably) for a couple Superman movies, comic books had been one painful trainwreck after another. Ninja Turtles was a HIGH POINT. X-Men was far from perfect, but it was the best we'd seen at the time. I think it's only in retrospect, now that several other Superhero flicks blew it out of the water, that we see it as merely OK, but it deserves its praise for paving the way. :^)

[Hobbit]

It was like watching the Mortal Combat movie.  No video game movie before it was even passable as entertainment.  Then, along came a watchable video game movie.  No, it wasn't great, but it was a video game movie that didn't suck donkey balls.  Then, the second one came out and we'd all go back to crying on our controllers/keyboards until Resident Evil came out.

[Sharktopus]

The big deal was that it didn't completely suck, and took itself fairly seriously, unlike nearly every previous "superhero" movie. (And before anybody cites Tim Burton's Batman as a "serious" movie, I'll remind you that the Joker shot an airplane out of the sky with a handgun, and Bruce Wayne slept hanging upside-down.) I'll agree that X-Men has deep flaws, and is at least somewhat responsible for the glut of craptastic comic book adaptations we've been inundated with, but I give it major points for having half a brain, at least until the climax at the Statue. But hey, it's not like Bryan Singer had much experience directing big action set pieces.

The others are just lifeless cardboard cutouts (Storm, Cyclops, Kitty Pryde, Jean Gray, Mystique)

Kitty doesn't even have any lines until the third movie, but I can't argue with the rest.

and/or just total dicks (Cyclops, Storm, Sabretooth, Magneto).

Well, to be fair, Sabretooth and Magneto are villains, but I think Magneto comes off as fairly relatable, except for the megalomania.

The movie left me very empty inside, as though the x-men accomplished nothing, because there really wasn't much at stake in the first place. Magneto was going to turn ordinary people into mutants, So what?! I mean it's not as though we get to know any ordinary people in the entire movie, therefore the whole premise seems a tad thin.

We, the audience, are ordinary people. Anyway, I don't think it takes much to empathize with people who are about to be killed by a terrorist. (And they were going to die, like Senator Kelly, not just become mutants.

All we get to learn about Magneto is that his parents were probably killed by Nazis... but there's got to be more motivation to his actions than that!

How about the fact that the US government was seriously debating making his entire species criminals, parallelling the Nazi Germany backstory?

I do agree that X-Men would've benefited from more backstory and character development, but the movie had to introduce an entire world, plus a large number of characters in a limited amount of time. When you consider the track record of superheroes at the box office in the '90s, not to mention the stigma associated with "comic book movies," it was a big gamble on Fox's part just making an X-Men film. Audiences never would've gone to see a Lord Of The Rings-length X-Men movie, which is pretty much what it would've taken to give all these characters and ideas their due. X-Men has a lot of flaws, and I admit I don't enjoy it nearly as much as when it first premiered, especially after the far superior sequel and Spider-Man movies, but it was pretty groundbreaking in ways.

And if you thought X-Men was bad, stay away from X-Men 3.