Well its been a while since i've responded int eh forum but i shall type away.
I think the movie is almost on par with Spider-Man. Sometimes it seems to be better then it and then it doesn't. I think they couldn't of picked a better person to play Wolverine. I still love reading my paper when they were in production of the movie. Tons of the movie was filmed near me or almost down the road from my house. But i didn't find out until the day after they had finished taping the :iberty Island scene (Still get a chuckle knowing what they actually hop over to get on the land. Plus knowing what the real Liberty Island is like from my trip a while back) Another great story was an early interview with Hugh Jackman about him arriving in Toronto to start production of the film. He was stopped by security and asked what was his business. He mentioned he was an actor and then was asked what movie he was doing. He happened to say X-Men and the next thing he knew was he had all these guards getting his autograph for their X-Men crazed kids.
Ok anyways back to the movie. I think they did pretty well with their sources for the movie. They didn't ahve the budget like they did for X2(i think around $60-70 Million) Some of the SFX are nicely done and some aren't as good (Wolvie on the Statue of Liberty Swing) But they got teh job done and payed off pretty well in the end
As for the actors and actresses. I think they did a pretty good job for the casting. Well maybe not for Cyclops voice wise (James you do the voice of Solid Snake . . . use it in the movie. Your Cyclops voice is too soft. Your the leader) Patrick Stewart was a no brainer (still thinking if that was pun intended) But overall the had the chomps and pulled it off (still would of done it without some main characters being younger then in the Comics)
The overall plot was different (after growing up and learning about XMen on Fox Saturday Mornings
) The opening shot of Magneto and his mom at the camp was pretty powerful and i think would of been great if they had left it on a bit longer and show Xavier meet him some how. (i think they met in a camp in WWII) I didn't like Rogue being a Teen and running off to Canada but i did like how it got Wolverine to meet Xavier and the X-Men. (go figure) Magneto's device didn't really work for me and so did Kelly being turned into a Mutant. I did like how they used Wolverine Metal Skeleton against him with Magneto. I think they coud of used more shots with the mutants using their abilities. But the plot was a popcorn flick style but it did require some thinking.
It will be great too see what happens now with the X2 movie opening this Friday and hopefully it will tie up some lose ends fromt he past movie.
Oh before i go. Did anyone else laugh at the part when Toad pulls the bar away form the elevator that he had 'trapped Storm' in. I think people thought i was weird, because i knew Parker had done Darth Maul in the Phantom Menace movie and just repeated his signature Duel Laber twirl. (just look at his little chuckle/smile in the end)
yeah ok maybe i'm a geek but i thought it was funny.