Are the X-Men films, as many comicbookmovie users would say, "gutter trash" Are they truly the worst of all time while Marvel Studios shows how comic films are meant to be made? The answer is an easy no, but I'm going to go through the X-men series as a whole, comparing it to others and reviewing what it's done over the years.
Themes
One thing that the X-men films have been able to do is maintain themes in their movies. Often times comic-book movies tend to have difficulties in establishing strong themes and ideas in their movies that they come off as generic.
The themes in the X-Men movies that were introduced in the comics of persecution over race or sexual identity still resonated in the films, creating a realistic and relatable world. Even in later X-Men films, ideas of too much government control are used in interesting ways that remind audiences of their own government not being too far off from the fictional version.
The only other comic-book movie that I could think of being comparable in this category would be The Dark Knight with it's ideas of chaos, evil, and the human condition.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe obviously has themes, but they often come off as very simple and insignificant in the grand scheme of the movie. The Winter Soldier had some interesting ideas of Government control, although it felt inconsequential in the movie and was practically abandoned in the third act.
Stories Adapted
A major fan complaint is the X-film's inaccuracy to the comics, although they do manage to adapt comic storylines pretty damn well! Aside from Dark Phoenix or Origin that is.
Days of Future Past and God Loves Man Kills were adapted and are arguably better than their comic counterparts. X-Men Days Of Future Past was a relatively short story with little content to it. The movie version managed to expand it into an extremely compelling story. It even put Wolverine as a secondary character, a major fan complaint about the X-men movies.
Characters
The X-Men movies have a large array of characters in their movies, so there is the problem of not all characters getting enough screentime. As much as a fan-fic artist extraordinaire, you can't develop 30 characters in 2 hours. There are always going to be prioritized characters to develop when you are making a movie out of 40 years of source material. Sorry to say that Toad may not have his entire backstory delved into.
Costumes
One complaint I see about the X-men movies is the most is this: " THIS GUTTER TRASH CAN'T EVEN GET THE COSTUMES RIGHT WHAT A TERRIBLE MOVIE. LOOK AT QUICKSILVER'S TRASHY COSTUME"
The entire idea of costumes in the X-men universe as it is kind of strange, Xavier is in a way, making a paramilitary force. Having colorful costumes doesn't make sense.
But outside of that, I have to ask. Are you really going to judge an entire film on the lack of colorfulness on it's costumes? It seems like such a childish criticism, "This is boring, Wolverine doesn't have the yellow costume."
Although I'm sure many will cite Deadpool's perfect portrayal of the X-men in all 10 minutes of screen time they had.
Merit in film-making
As much as comic fans and autistic english lit majors disagree, the X-Men films are well made films. Outside of X3 and Origins, all of them are very solid movies on their own. The film-making techniques are innovative in each movie, and unlike installments in the MCU, all X-Men movies can stand alone.
Score
A problem in CBM's and film in general now is having a memorable score that stands out among increasingly uninspired scores. The X-Men films defy this with very memorable and powerful scores in most of their films. Magneto's theme, XFC Theme, the DOFP Theme are great examples of how strong the X-Men film's soundtrack is. They evoke emotion which very few other Comic Book Movies have been able to do.
Stacking them up against other comic book movies
In the grand scheme of things, and as I have said before, as many fans like to ignore, the X-men films helped reignite the CBM genre. Some may say Blade did that, although Blade wasn't a superhero movie.
But comparing the X-Men movies to other superhero movies is a hard thing to do. Throughout this genre of movies there are many varied films and trying to compare which is best will always lead to a skewed result. However, the X-Men films can easily be treated as some of the best Comic-films.
Performances
One thing that no one will deny is the series' powerhouse performances by it's all-star cast. The superhero genre is starting to attract some very high profile actors to it, but the X-Men movies have always had some of the best actors attached to the series.
Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Evan Peters, Michael Fassbender and more are great examples of what the series has attracted. And with Oscar Isaac's portrayal of Apocalypse looming, I have no doubt he will be ranked with some of the best performances throughout the series.
Conclusion
In the end, there will always be a level of scrutiny that comic fans give the X-men films. Although that doesn't change the series' incredible legacy as the longest running comic book movie series. It along with Spider-Man reiginited the Superhero genre, without them we wouldnt be flourishing with the vast amount of CBM's we get every year.
The majority of the X-movies are still incredibly well made movies, and when the genre eventually dies off in a decade or so, I'm confident we will still see the Fox X-men series running in some shape or form.