Paquin grew up on camera. The teen years kicked in, the hormones too. But the searing cultural memory of the pre-teen Paquin breathlessly gripping her Oscar, or in curious character, examining The Piano's Harvey Keitel with a gentle head tilt, or screaming defiance to co-star Sam Neil in the same proved hard to overshadow. And certainly, during the aforementioned nymphet years there was an unspoken and frankly queasy undercurrent to the speed at which Paquin had been embraced by the industry as an underage temptress. She became the go-to-girl for horny older men characters, like Philip Seymour Hoffman in The 25th Hour. Even the morally simplistic X-Men thrilled with the erotic charge created by mercilessly rubbing the adolescent Paquin up against grizzly middle-aged predator Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). In several scenes blatant sexual metaphor mixes freely with the surface drama i.e. Rogue sneaks into Wolverine's bedroom at night, in a clingy white number, only to be brutally impaled on the sweaty man-beast's, er, spikes. She saves herself from certain death by ahem, sucking the healing power out of him.

Source: i-D magazine

"Paquin and Jackman have excellent chemistry together, and their scenes inject warmth and actual human connection into the film."

Source: DJ at the Movies (website off-line)

"I think the greatest success of X-Men is its main characters (Wolverine, played by Hugh Jackman, and Rogue, played by Anna Paquin), which provide some of the most tangibly emotional scenes in any film released this year. Any one scene between Jackman and Paquin has more electricity than anything in The Patriot and The Perfect Storm combined."

"Jackman has a magnificent, coiled-spring energy to him that made me fervently wish that he'd go mano a mano with Russell Crowe sometime. Wolverine is written as a Ludlumesque amnesiac with a penchant for the occasional deprecating wisecrack, and Jackman deserves a lot of credit for carefully reining himself in and not letting the character become condescending."

"As for Paquin, she's marvelous to watch; she's lovely, for one, and for another, she's harnessed an economical performance style that lets you into her character's underlying hesitancy and anguish without wallowing in it self-righteously. Their scenes together have a wonderfully complex feel to them; a barely- harnessed sexual attraction combined with each of their heavily-loaded emotional baggage. Both Wolverine's anger and frustration at his unclear past and Rogue's fear and loathing of a power she can't understand or control come through, clear as a bell, and Singer guides these two fine performers along that tightrope without ever letting them take a misstep."

Source: FilmScoreMonthly.com

"[Hugh Jackman] captures Wolverine's coiled rage and snarky attitude, evident in pointed exchanges with Marsden's Cyclops. At the same time, he convincingly portrays Logan's awkward tenderness toward Rogue."

Source: SciFi.com

"All of the crucial plot elements are there -- action, suspense, wit, and a love triangle. Rogue (Anna Paquin) and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) are the main players of the film, and they explode on screen."

"As the lead players, Paquin and Jackman do a great job. [...] In fact, Rogue and Wolverine dominate the movie so much that they seem to share far more chemistry than even X-Men’s star couple, Cyclops and Jean Grey."

Source: Film Review HHH

"Rogue (Anna Paquin) and Iceman are an item, but Rogue is still in love with Wolverine. Unfortunately, Rogue and Iceman still haven't figured out a way for them to touch without her stealing his powers and injuring him. Talk about sexual frustration!"

Source: Epinions.com

"What makes X-men an enjoyable film is the really fine work from many of the actors. I was particularly impressed with Hugh Jackman's performance as Wolverine and Anna Paquin's performance as Rogue. It is through the relationship of those two vital characters that X-men tells its story."

"Another highlight among the special features is the screen test for Hugh Jackman. It's a great scene (albeit too short) with him and Anna Paquin. In the movie there's such great chemistry between the two actors, it's nice getting a peek into the early stages of that relationship."

Source: DVD Talk

"Wolverine is the no-nonsense action mutant at the center of this particular narrative, and Jackman's bravado has on-screen charisma to burn. But the scenes in which Wolvie and runaway teenager Rogue talk tenderly (denoting true sexless love between misunderstood souls) are tremendous. The burden that is being who they are is framed perfectly via flashback scenes that set up the lifetime of emotional scarring they've gone through (particularly Paquin's reaction to her first kiss)."

Source: PSX Nation (website off-line)