The early 2000s proved to be quite the boon for superhero films, with the Spider-Man and X-Men films proving that the genre could be financially successful if put into the right hands. While I did grow up during this time, I didn’t have much of an interest in X-Men at the time outside of the X-Men: Evolution cartoon on Kids’ WB (I was more interested in Spider-Man at the time), only ever feeling motivated to watch a select few of the X-Men films years later. After recently watching all three X-Men cartoons at the time of this writing (X-Men The Animated Series, X-Men: Evolution, Wolverine and the X-Men) in their entirety (with X-Men: Evolution still being my personal favorite), I felt more motivated to actually watch the film series in earnest from the beginning, with additional motivation from the upcoming release of Deadpool 3 as well as Spider-Man: No Way Home setting a precedent for the MCU now requiring intimate knowledge of outside film continuities. After rewatching the original X-Men film from 2000 that started it all, I found it to be a solid beginning for the series, one that is still enjoyable over two decades later.
