Early returns on 'X Men'

By Times staff writer

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 14, 2000

Magnificent mutants This first attempt at bringing the X-Men to the screen is a success, with more chapters likely to come. The future of comic book heroes rests on X-Men Look, up on the screen! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's . . .

Several hundred moviegoers got a sneak peek at X-Men in Tampa earlier this week. Here's what some of them had to say after the show:

• "I'm so glad that it didn't suck. Every previous comic-movie pretty much has. It's good for comics to see a translation actually go to the screen. Now they can do a sequel and bring in other characters when the technology catches up to it." -- Paul Grenier, 26, Tampa
• "I really liked it, and I don't even know anything about X-Men. I just brought the kids, but I enjoyed it very much. Very entertaining." -- Sandra Knightlinger, 45, Tampa
• "It was action-packed. My kind of movie." -- Emily Cutolo, 7, Tampa
• "It was great. I've never seen a good Marvel (Comics) movie until now. Batman and Superman were, you know, DC Comics. This one had great characters, great plot and fantastic special effects." -- John Savage, 21, Tampa
• "I brought my gang of friends and told them this was either going to suck or it was going to rock. And it rocked." -- Adian Baker, 28, Clearwater
• "We were kind of disappointed, actually. It was kind of unresolved. The issues presented at the beginning of the movie seemed to be just as unresolved at the end. Nobody died, nothing big and eventful happened. It looked like they were just setting up the sequel." -- Ryan Johns, 19, Temple Terrace
• "It wasn't too cartoony. I was kind of afraid that it would look stupid with all of the unreal characteristics (X-Men) have. They did a good job of depicting that." -- Jeremy Troughton, 21, Wesley Chapel
• "I've been reading X-Men for years, and I thought it was pretty close to the way the comic is. All of the characters were the way they should have been. Magneto, without a doubt, was exactly the way he is in the books. Rogue was the weakest character, I thought." -- John Lewis, 45, Clearwater