by Bobby Roberts
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It's never really stopped being 2003 in the X-Universe. Even as the X-Men films skipped across timelines in decade-long leaps, they've carried with them the same faint air of apology—a low-level hum of embarrassment softly buzzing inside their time-locked bubble. "This is all really silly, isn't it?" each film seemed to whisper, summer after summer. "Superheroes, right? Mutants? Yellow spandex? C'mon."
Bryan Singer's X-Men have never resembled—visually or personality-wise—their comic book source material, but that hasn't stopped those movies from being (mostly) satisfying, character-driven melodramas. Character-driven melodramas that just happen to be about blue/furry/scaly people and Hugh Jackman with knives in his fists.