I just saw it. Because it has been a long long time since I read/heard/watched any X-Men, I really enjoyed it. I'm not a purist. I think Jean was actually portrayed pretty well -- spaced out, confused, messed with... this movie got me thinking about how we really ought to start exploring space pretty soon. We are way too crowded and we need to relieve ourselves of the scarcity we face. Something I think is neat about X-Men is how the idea of mutants is used to talk about how we're limited by, and only by, our minds. Jean Grey, for instance, is pretty much not limited except by Xavier's mental blocks. All the other mutants are less powerful than Jean, and they can all do just a few special things. Make knives, control weather, heal quickly, shape-change... These are all little subsets of what Jean, a powerful psychic, can do. These powers are all very high-level, too. You get the impression that when a mutant uses their powers, they "just do it" -- it's completely mental and conscious and it's derived from their ideas about their role in the world. And although I don't particularly like the division between "humans" and "mutants," I do like that they express a continuum from regular humans all the way up through Jean. I think that is supposed to teach that your potential in the real world has to do with how your mind is locked down in one way or another; that your potential is limited only by what you assume you can't do. And that is why X-Men rules and why I consider watching such films to be a mildly spiritual experiene.
