Animated could work, but it would lose a lot of people and really be for fans only. The point of adapting comics to film is to adapt them. It can be successful, take Doc Ock in Spiderman 2; he wasn't a joke for once.
You should definitely check out GM's run on New X-Men though. He took risks most are afraid to take withthe characters, and I appreciate that. Everything was justified, and the reader is never insulted by the stupidity of the writing. I should point out that it was he, Grant Morrisson, who turned Beast cat-like. check it out, you will do yourself a favour.
Just don't read Claremont's follow-up story arc, it destroys every single good thing Morrisson did.