25 years today since the first 'X-Men' film was released back in 2000. The fact that this movie happened back then, 8 years after the X-Men animated series that got so many of us into the comics, was a *huge* deal. Seeing the posters for the first time and seeing in live action the X-Mansion basketball court opening up and the Blackbird flying out caused some *serious* hype.
It marked a milestone for Marvel after their rocky history of low-budget, low-effort adaptations, especially with a cast like Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Anna Paquin, and Ray Park, while also helping to propel Hugh Jackman's career. It was a fun action film that took itself, its cast, and its audience seriously and stayed true to the core theme of the X-Men being a team of outcasts who fight to protect a world who hates and fears them.
In retrospect is it a perfect X-Men adaptation? Nope. It never managed to shake off the shame it felt for certain aspects of its source material, and in the process of trying to make it digestible to a wider audience, it failed to fully capture the 'found family of weirdos with a hint of soap opera' spirit of the comics. It lacked the heart that acted as the glue keeping those characters together, sticking up for each other, despite their different backgrounds and personalities.
But the film undeniably marked a significant shift in the way Marvel comic book adaptations were approached, eventually leading to an era where these movies have found a better balance between serious themes, camp, and yellow spandex.
