X-MEN (US, Bryan Singer)
What can I say about X-Men that hasn't already been said? I agree with most critics: fine special effects, fairly intelligent story, good casting (Hugh Jackman as Wolverine is hands-down the Discovery of the Year), and a comic book adaptation that manages to do justice to its source material. Singer can't direct action very well; there's plenty of it, but little of it gets you even close to the edge of your seat. However, even though he claims to have never read the comic books before being hired for the film, he has great respect for the characters (as well as the fans), and it shows.

And I'll admit, in my youth I was quite the X-Man fan myself. I read the comic during its so-called "Golden Age," when it was written by Chris Claremont and illustrated by John Byrne. I gave up on it soon after Byrne's departure (in the dull days before the emergence of the Graphic Novel, Byrne was as good as a comic book artist could get) but I still have fond memories of what was, frankly, a mixed bag: complex characters, pitch dark storylines, and corny, corny dialogue. Still, it was tops for an 11-year-old like me, so my love for the old comics no doubt enhanced my enjoyment of the film. I wondered afterward if I would have cared much for X-Men had I not been a fan previously. I doubt it. Newbies to the X-mythology might shrug and say "so what?" but the rest of us can at least sleep at night knowing that they could have really ruined it... and didn't. There are also plenty of in-jokes for the fans and a spot-on cast (Cyclops is exactly as priggish as he was in the comic). Though I regret that Storm, who has an interesting back story (paralyzing claustrophia, a talent for pickpocketing), is given little to do here. Also, Jean Grey, whose troubled alter-ego Phoenix dominated the Claremont-Byrne X-Men, isn't much fleshed-out. But the film does briefly hint at her dark side: as sequels are more than likely, I imagine - I hope - that a stronger focus is put on her in the future. Okay, fine. I can't wait for the sequel. Despite my better judgment, I fell for X-Men.

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS (US, Matthew Vaughn)
The X-Men film franchise was starting to get really tiresome, in my humble opinion. And that's coming from a guy who was a major fan of the comics back when he was a kid. (I think I stopped reading around the time I was 11, after illustrator John Byrne moved on to other titles.) So it was with reluctance that I deigned to catch this prequel, which on paper seemed like beating a dead horse: yet another superhero origin story in a time when studios are finding it hard to make an engaging comic book movie that isn't an origin story (which is why "reboots" have supplanted sequels). But the allure of its Cold War era setting - 1962, with the streamlined aesthetic of Mad Men and the early Bond movies - proved irresistable. And now, after seeing X-Men: First Class, I am quite happy to say that it works. It's not perfect, but for a comic book movie, it's close enough. The film introduces us to the first wave of "out of the closet" mutants, led by Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), who seeks to recruit those like him in order to stop an evil mutant (Kevin Bacon!) from destroying mankind. He forms a shaky friendship with a powerful but angry concentration camp survivor named Erik Lensherr (Michael Fassbender from Inglourious Basterds), whose magnetic powers will soon earn him the name of Magneto, the great X-Men villain. The two actors deliver surprisingly moving performances, as well they should - their characters, after all, will wind up turning into Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. In fact, the entire cast (including recent Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence as a young, horny Mystique) is fine, save for a stiff January Jones as villainess Emma Frost. It's ironic, as the Mad Men actress should be the one performer familiar with the film's early '60s milieu. And actually, this is the only other major problem I have with the movie: Despite its Kennedy-era setting, the hair department clearly dropped the ball, and the shaggy do's on the young cast look like a 2011 interpretation of late '60s hairstyles. It's distracting. Couldn't these folks be bothered to get their hair cut? The wardrobe is also not quite exactly of the era - costume designer Sammy Sheldon, who has worked with director Matthew Vaughn several times now - should have done more homework. But these are minor quibbles in a film with expertly-paced action pieces (Vaughn previously directed the impressive Kick-Ass), evocative cinematography by John Mathieson, and an engaging storyline by a gaggle of writers. It's also a nice chance to let old X-Men fans enjoy seeing some of the '70s characters like Banshee, Sebastian Shaw, and Havoc up on the screen, along with some newer (lesser) characters.

X2: X-MEN UNITED (US, Bryan Singer)
A friend told me an interesting bit of trivia about the name of this film. Originally to be titled just plain X2 (as if X-Men 2 was too difficult to remember), studio executives at Fox requested it be retitled, for promotional purposes, as X-Men United because it's now passe to add a "2" onto your sequel's title. After all, it's not The Matrix 2 or Charlie's Angels 2, right? Ah, studio mentalities. Anyway, I enjoyed X2 to the same degree I enjoyed the first X-Men. I liked it in general, had the same complaints (Storm's character is woefully underdeveloped, Cyclops is a complete ninny), but mostly just had a reasonably fun time wallowing in the nostalgia that both movies dredged up - that period of my life when, from the age of 10 to 13, I was a rabid fan of the X-Men comics. So once again I appreciate the attention to comic geekdom detail and the fine casting (the big improvement in X2 is the addition of Alan Cumming as the perfect Nightcrawler), though it's obvious that some of these superheroes' talents are cinematic, and some aren't: Poor Anna Paquin, so central to the first movie (as her character Rogue served to introduce the audience to the world of the X-Men as she was inducted into the group) doesn't have much to do now, since her mutant powers aren't visually that exciting. However, I admit that I am enticed by the promise of the film's pseudo-cliffhanger that the sure-to-come sequel will center around my favorite chapter of the X-Men saga (aka the John Byrne years): The rise and fall of Phoenix. I'm sure my fellow X-dorks not only know what I'm talking about, but can also tell what that nebulous shape in the water is in the final shot of X2. Anyway, if you liked the first X-Men movie, you'll like this one. If you didn't, don't bother.

X-MEN: THE LAST STAND (US, Brett Ratner)
First of all, let me buck the trend and state that a) I don't think that Brett Ratner ruined the X-Men franchise with his work on this, the third movie in the series; and b) whatever's wrong with X-Men: The Last Stand - and there is plenty - isn't all Ratner's fault. In some respects, the revered-in-his-absence director of the first two installments, Bryan Singer, laid a lot of booby traps in the storyline that even a gifted filmmaker - which Ratner is not - would have a hard time fixing. So much of it comes down to Singer's original hit-and-miss cast, and how they fare in X3 depends on how the individual actors fared in their careers over the last six years. Hugh Jackman proved to be a successful star as well as perfect in the fan-favored role of Wolverine, so it's no surprise that he should take the lead in the film, even if it messes up the traditional relationships set forth in the comics. Unfortunately Halle Berry won an Oscar somewhere in between her bland turns as Storm, and so she wins more screen time in a role that, to be fair, was never well-developed in the first two X-Men movies. Then there's the issue with Cyclops: It was clear early on that neither Singer nor his screenwriters liked the character much (even though in the comics he is the leader of the X-Men and has his own interesting story to tell), so Singer cast a weak actor (James Marsden) in the role, then gave him little to do. So when Cyclops is rather casually "let go of" in this movie, it was probably an inevitable filmmaking decision (it should be noted that Marsden also left to work in Singer's Superman Returns), but his abrupt dismissal from the X-Men saga didn't please me in the least as a childhood fan of the comics. This also happens during a key scene - the rebirth of Jean Grey, aka Phoenix - that Ratner totally drops the ball on. In a moment that should be chilling and awe-inspiring, it comes off as flat, rushed and strangely uneventful. I almost thought it was a dream sequence, it was so clumsily handled. I'd like to think that Bryan Singer would have known how to make this scene work, but I can only shrug. Still, the movie's not as terrible as the fanboys would have you believe. While the dialogue is goofy and cliche-ridden (the characters keep overstating the obvious throughout the film, i.e. somebody returns and then somebody else says "You're back"), I almost accept it as an homage to Chris Claremont's corny banter from the "golden age" of the X-Men comics which he wrote in the 70's. But overall the story is good; while there are lots of missed opportunities in the details, the dark and scary Phoenix plot line hits most of its marks, and Famke Janssen (who waited six years for her chance to cut loose) is quite effective in the role. Even Kelsey Grammer, an unlikely choice to play Beast, is a surprisingly welcome presence. But the film is uninvolving, a series of action scenes and special effects that have little magic to them. Pardon the pun, but I agree that Bryan Singer brought some sort of "X factor" to the first two films. He's not a great filmmaker, but there was a grace and imagination in those movies that isn't here now. X3 is little more than a standard Hollywood action picture that, while it does gain some emotional resonance during its grand finale, still feels like a blocky work-in-progress in need of some extra detailing. And by the way, what happened to Nightcrawler?