Today, evolution leaps forward.
From 20th Century Fox comes X-Men, based on the long-running, extremely popular series created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and brought to legendary status by writer Chris Claremont. The film takes place in "the not too distant future", where humanity is split between two factions: humans and mutants (humans with extraordinary abilities). Teenage runaway mutant Rogue (Anna Paquin) and hard-ass loner Wolverine (Hugh Jackman in his first film role) take refuge at a school run by Professor Charles Xavier (Sir Patrick Stewart), who also leads a team called the X-Men, dedicated to keeping the peace between mutants and the rest of humanity. A mutant terrorist, Magneto (Sir Ian McKellen), wants freedom from persecution "by any means necessary", and has devised a plot to achieve that using one of the X-Men. It's up to Xavier's group to find out which one in order to foil Magneto's plan.
I loved X-Men when it came out in 2000, and it still makes me happy every time I see it. Bryan Singer did the impossible: adapt a comic with- at the time- 37 years of complex history behind it. He got down to the nitty gritty of what this mythology is about. The ensemble cast was something brand new for superhero movies back then. It wasn't made up of stars; they were (for the most part) the best actors for the roles. They inhabited these characters. The X-Men movie honors the comic mythos while forging its own path.
The path still has a few bumps. X-Men has an imbalance of character and story- which unfortunately became the model for future first installments of comic book film series. A lot of time is spent on establishing that when things get going it feels over before it's begun. The late Michael Kamen's score is hit-and-miss. And then there's Halle Berry as Storm. She's the weak link in an otherwise tight ensemble. Her performance- not to mention her accent- is lazy, and she delivers the worst line ever in superhero movies.
At least these are real criticisms of the movie. In recent months, I've come across articles like this, which pretty much shows how fucking spoiled fans have become. Reading shit like, "Personally, I've given up all hope of seeing Wolverine in his costume..." makes me believe the moral of X-Men doesn't mean a damn thing to these clowns. They're shallow. All they want is Wolverine slicing people down and a Rogue with huge knockers.
I continue to appreciate the efforts to bring the X-Men comic book to the big screen, and I remain all-smiles with the results. No cry-baby fanboy nit-picking is going to change that.
The age of the superhero movie has officially begun.
- JDO
X-Men
4 out of 5 Cap shields
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