I admit I went into the X-Men expecting the worst. Even when I was a devout fan of the X-Men comic -as devout as only a 12 year old can be- I felt a movie based on the comic would never work. I couldn't believe that anyone would try to condense all the melodramatic never-ending plot-lines into one movie. But now Brian Singer has gone and made a multi-million dollar summer movie starring a batch of social reject mutants. So how does it come out?

In the opening scenes set during World War 2 a young Erik Magnus Lehnsherr is separated from his parents in a concentration camp. Shrieking hysterically as he's pulled off by Nazi camp guards, Erik uses his mind to crumple and twist the heavy metal door separating him from his family. Next the film jumps forward to the near future where a young girl [Anna Paquin] is horrified to learn that anytime she touches someone she causes them to pass out, their skin drained like a dry leaf. Next up is a congressional hearing where it's revealed that an increasing number of mutants are being born, so much so that Senator Robert Kelly [Bruce Davison] has, with popular support, proposed some form of government registration for those that are born with a different genetic make-up. Watching the proceedings are Professor Xavier [Patrick Stewart] who feels that humanity and whatever it's turning into can co-exist and the adult Erik Magnus [Ian McKellen] who feels that mutants like himself are the future, and he will do anything necessary to keep mutants from suffering the same persecution he endured in Poland all those years ago.

In the opening scenes the themes of mutation standing in for everything from racial intolerance, to the confusion that comes with puberty, to the feeling of being somehow outside the norm. Pretty heady stuff. So what does the movie do with these topics? Nothing, unfortunately. Instead of discussing the validity of their actions or how they might be perceived by the world at large, the characters wind up duking it out in fight scenes that look like they were imported from a low budget Hong Kong movie.

While this seriously undermines the film, there are a few bright spots. The movie treats it's characters seriously which is a refreshing change from the unwatchable campy crap of the later Batman film, plus whenever you're making a movie that features people being yanked around on wires it's not a good idea to draw attention to how absurd the whole concept is. Of the characters that the film bothered to develop most of them seemed to jive pretty well with how I remember them. Hugh Jackman did an impressive job pulling off what I thought was going to be the difficult role to fill -the most popular mutant around, Wolverine. Besides being a gruff and mysterious sort of fellow with claws, Wolverine is expected to be a surrogate father figure as well as some sort of messiah character who perpetually dies [or at least gets the whey beaten out of him] for the sins of the world on a regular basis, all of which Jackman managed to pull off quite well even while wearing a freaky weird wig.

Even though his character was nothing more than an ugly flunkie who's name even suggested a problem with self-image, Ray Park seemed to be having a fun time playing Toad. With this and his role as Darth Maul in the latest Star Wars movie, Park is carving out a niche for himself as the premiere goon of summer movie bad guys.

But a few interesting characters don't make a movie, and the X-Men is no exception. While fans of the comic book can have endless fun discussing the similarities and discrepancies between the movie and the original comic, the non-fans in the audience are going to want something more. I went to the film with a friend who knew nothing of the X-Men and noted he was disappointed because -I am not making this up- he hoped the film would of been "more stupid than it was." While this is probably not the best summation of the problems with the movie, it does illustrate that there was something missing from the film.

The film's main problem is the same problem with the source material. Because the X-Men comic book is published month in and month out, there can't be any sort of permanent resolution. Instead it comes across as a a super powered soap opera where the plot lines and characters come and go but the central idea of the title remains the same. Wolverine will never know his past since it would lessen his character... mutants and humanity will never come to an understanding since that would destroy the story's conflict... as long as sales remain high things can't change. As a result any sort of adaptation of the comic has to adhere to these unchanging conditions as well. At the end of the movie when Magneto's big evil doo-hickey is deactivated it doesn't explode in a blast of pyrotechnics but just peters out [also an apt metaphor for the movie as a whole] leaving everyone, be they good, bad or a member of the general population, none the worse for wear, unchanged, and ready for the next movie. While it's not the worst way to tell a story -serialized stories can be quite fun- it makes for an anticlimactic movie going experience.

Side Note: Since the movie wasn't used as a vehicle to sell toys [it was a more of a vehicle to sell comic books] the tie-ins are plentiful but not as overwhelming as, say, Star Wars. Of the promotional material I saw for X-Men my favorite piece by far is www.mutantwatch.com It's full of science texts that denounce mutants, political ads demanding a genetically pure America, and interactive sections where you can either test yourself for mutant powers or rat out your friends for being suspected mutants. Fun!

Using my psychic powers I'm commanding you to do one of three things: Either drop me a line at gleep9@hotmail.com, or go back to either the Second Movie or Main page. Do it now... now...

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