I’m a little bit upset that X-Men: First Class didn’t do better at the box office in its opening weekend, but I have a feeling that might have to deal with the lead-ins… à la The Jay Leno Show and The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.

You see, X-Men: The Last Stand and Wolverine were quite terrible, and perhaps the masses have finally realized they’d had enough.  Or potentially, Hugh Jackman just has that kind of draw.

None the less, I realized there was no pattern of the films in this series being The Shit or simply Just Shitty, so I rated what I think about each movie in comparison to various roller coasters and their riders.

• X-Men

The first X-Men had a lot of work to do.  It had to introduce not only a unique spin on previous superhero origin stories, but it also had to introduce a lot of characters and ideologies.  It’s probably not too fair to compare the flick that introduced the world to the concept of mutants and a mine car roller coaster… Actually, it might be perfectly fair.  Besides, the finale at the Statue of Liberty stills leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

• X2: X-Men United

Aside from the fact that the title should have been anything other than what it is (X-Men 2: Mutants United makes way more sense on all levels), this film was fun from the get go.  Gone was Halle Berry’s stupid fake accent; Wolverine finally kicked some ass; Nightcrawler was handled exceptionally well.  Still one of the best superhero movies in Colonel Stryker general.

• X-Men: The Last Stand

Directors Matthew Vaughan and Bryan Singer poured some of their creative talents into the third film during pre-production.  I assume anything clever (and there was very little) was their handiwork.  The rest was Brett Ratner’s greasy fingers.

• X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Could have been great.  Could have been fun.  Wasn’t at all.

• X-Men: First Class

I avoided the previews as best as I could, and I was not disappointed.  I loved this film.  It accomplished everything it set out to do: be an origin story and a palette cleanser.  It was cool that it was set in the real world, with a real world life-saving issue, and it was even cooler that it was a send-up of 60’s spy movies at times.

James McAvoy as Charles “Professor X” Xavier and Michael Fassbender as Erik “Magneto” Lensherr fit their roles well, and brought more to the table for these characters, much like how Chris Pine updated Captain Kirk in the Star Trek reboot.  Also, I’ve never appreciated Kevin Bacon more, because he brought a sense of validation to the cast of mostly unknowns.  (There are tons of B-Actor! cameos, and some A-Actors! as well.)

The only thing that sucked?  January Jones can’t act her way out of lingerie.