Starring Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Halle Berry, Tyler Mane, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Ray Park. Directed by Bryan Singer, 2000.
The movie, which hews fairly close to the comic stories (truncated, of course...there's over 25 years of history behind these characters) deals with mutants, human beings born with special powers. As these mutants become more and more widespread (the point at which we enter the action in the film is ambiguously defined as 'the very near future'), humankind starts getting awully nervous about this powerful new breed. As anti-mutant hysteria starts cropping up, some mutants begin to think an all-out war is inevitable, led by the powerful Magneto (Ian McKellen being marvellous as usual as the magnetically-powered villain), who we first see in a flashback sequence from 1944 Poland. He didn't like humanity then, and he hasn't changed his mind yet.
On the opposite side is Professor Charles Xavier (the always charming Patrick Stewart from NEXT GENERATION), a telepath who has established a school for 'gifted youth' as a secret haven for young mutants, as well as the staging grounds for his very own strike force of mutant heroes, dubbed his 'X-Men'. Despite the grumblings from humaity, Xavier is an eternal optimist, vowing to protect them from Magneto's forces, as well as protecting mutants from undue persecution. Almost too good to be true, I know, but these guys ARE superheroes.
When we meet the X-Men they're off in the Great White North, intervening as one of Magneto's 'brotherhood of mutants' attacks two mutants for reasons unknown. The attacker, the vicious, feral Sabretooth (wrestler Tyler Mane, a living special effect who is awe-inspiring to watch here) was targetting doelike Rogue (THE PIANO's Anna Paquin playing a fairly tragic heroine, whose touch has the potential to kill it's recipient) and brooding, mysterious Logan, aka Wolverine (played with magnificent appeal by Hugh Jackman) when the X-Men arrive and save the day. Wolverine, aside from possessing rapid healing gifts and a sort of natural animal ferocity, possesses a surgically-bonded skeletal structure laced with an unbreakable metal called Adamantium, visible through a pair of three switchblade-like claws that can extend from either hand. He has no memory of how these things were done to him, and does not play well with others. Needless to say, he makes for an uneasy mix with Xavier's well-heeled team of professional good guys.
Soon enough a master plot of Magneto's is discovered, leading to several terrific battles between the mutant forces. There are plenty of opportunities for special effects fun, from the devastating laser eye-beams of X-Man field leader Cyclops (James Marsden, with not too much to do, but still managing to play a goody-goody with likeability) to the evil Mystique's shape-changing wiles. Mystique, played by the shapely Rebecca Romijn in full, slinky blue body suit (paint?), is a trifle underused in the picture, which is probably the chief complaint, and one you might expect from a picture boasting as many major characters as this one. It's hard to give everyone enough screen time to really flesh them out. The movie mostly concentrates on new arrivals Wolverine and Rogue sometimes to the expense of other players. Poor Halle Berry seems utterly lost as the weather-controlling Storm...even Ray Park's Toad gets better screen time than her.
Still, the Oscar win should change that come sequel time. And the movie has more pros than cons. It's surprisingly low-key for a big-budget action superhero picture, which works just fine for a movie with such underlying sentiments of hate and isolation. As a comic reader, I actually liked the X-Men more on the screen than I ever did on paper. The whole concept of the mutant fear and loathing never worked for me in the comics, where the X-Men share the world with other super-powered icons like Spider-Man and the Avengers...why single mutants out when an obvious schizophrenic madman like THOR is on the loose, belting people with a hammer and claiming to be a Norse God? And Wolverine had been saddled with far too much excess backstory in the books over the years, much of it involving his apparent samurai training in the east. Here, he's been stripmined into the brawling, snarling loner he was always best as.
More accessible to the non-comic fan than you might expect, X-MEN served to revitalize the superhero movie, after it had been temporarily sunk by the disastrous box-office spectacle that was BATMAN AND ROBIN. So far, it seems as if filmmakers are taking notice of Singer's honest and respectful techniques in bringing the mutant heroes to life, and here's hoping they keep it up.
Review copyright 2002 The Visitor