Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) searches the subway train for Rogue.

They are led by Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), a wheelchair-bound genius who believes that the mutants’ future lies in coming to terms with the humans who fear them. In this, the X-Men are at loggerheads with the Brotherhood, another group of mutants led by Magneto (Ian McKellen), who believe their mission is to take over the world.

“They believe that mankind is going to ostracise them, herd them into camps, study them and experiment on them - basically, through fear, get rid of them, which of course, history tells us is the way it’s been done in the past” Hugh Jackman

“For a long time, Magneto and Professor Xavier were colleagues who worked together to protect and help develop the skills of mutants,” explains Stewart. “But they have parted because their philosophies have become so different. Xavier’s is one of being understood, accepted and absorbed into society. Magneto believes that society will never accept them, and therefore force is the only means that can be used in order for mutants to acquire the living space and the respect that he feels they deserve.”
As Stewart’s use of the word ‘living space’ suggests, there are implications in the X-Men saga way beyond the usual cartoon world of superhuman deeds and America in peril. Translate it into German, and ‘living space’ becomes the ‘Lebensraum’ that motivated Nazi expansionism. And it is no coincidence that, the last time McKellen and Singer worked together (on Apt Pupil), the former played a retired SS man living in hiding in a small American town.
But what really makes the X-Men different is that they are superhuman rather than subhuman - a little further up the evolutionary scale than ordinary mortals, with special talents but a tendency to be misunderstood by the human race, at any rate as represented by the film’s unlikeable political figure, Senator Robert Kelly (Bruce Davison).
“The way I like to explain it,” says Jackman, “is we’ve all heard stories of people lifting cars or jumping 15 feet. People can do extraordinary things under emotional turmoil. Well, the story of X-Men takes place in the not-too-distant future where they have harnessed the X-chromosome that makes people able to do extraordinary things.”
At the same time, however, it sets them apart from the rest of humanity and makes them objects of fear. “What’s so great about the movie,” continues Jackman, “is that the X-Men believe that mankind is going to ostracise them, herd them into camps, study them and experiment on them - basically, through fear, get rid of them, which of course, history tells us is the way it’s been done in the past.
“So it’s not goodies and baddies: it’s a three-tiered world: humans, and then the mutants split into two camps. We’re at that point in history where everything is about to change, and that’s the real tension which this film is built on. Wolverine is stuck right in the middle and he doesn’t know which way to go. He doesn’t particularly want to be drawn in any which way. And so, through Wolverine’s eyes, the audience can see all different points of view.”
Wolverine’s special powers are two-fold: he has a skeleton coated in adamantium - the “strongest metal known to man” - which makes him invincible and also enables him to unsheathe the famous steel claws; and he can heal any wound inflicted on him.

“It’s not an action film.
It’s a film with action in it”

Bryan Singer