X-Men: First Class.

OK, straight up warning: for those who watched/are going to watch this expecting it to fall in naturally with the other X-men movies, I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed. Because it's quite clear in the movie that some plot elements don't line up with the original series, particularly in reference to the flashback sequence in X3. (Case-in-point: by the end of First Class, Xavier is in a wheelchair with a full head of hair, but in the flashback in X3, he is bald but has no wheelchair.) It's not too much of a stretch to largely ignore these, however.

The movie is based in the time of the Cold War; and it is suggested that one particularly dangerous mutant, Shaw, wants to start a nuclear war, which he believes will destroy the humans while breeding more mutants. Charles, of course, wants to stop this, and he happens to run into Erik, who wants to stop Shaw. He then works to gather a team of mutants to fight against Shaw.

For those who are familiar with the original series, this film particularly explores the interesting interaction between Charles and Erik in much greater detail than the original trilogy. Of particular interest is the satellite dish scene, which explores part of Erik's character that most would be surprised by.

Though it can at times feel like a new mutant overload just to keep the fanboys happy (I believe there's eight that are new to the movie series), I don't think that's the intention. I think it's a pretty decent movie, really. Maybe that's just because I'm a bit of a Marvel fan, I dunno. Any other opinions?