Review 67: X-Men

X-Men is a brilliant superhero movie, an awesome start to an awesome film series and a great example of how Superhero movies ressurged in popularity in the 21st Century.

Based on the comic book characters X-Men by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby. In a world where mutants live among us, Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Rogue (Anna Paquin) become embroiled in the conflict between Professor Xavier's (Patrick Stewart) X-Men, and the Brotherhood of Mutants, led by Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto (Ian McKellen). Magneto intends to mutate world leaders at a United Nations summit with a machine he has built, to bring about acceptance of mutantkind, but Xavier realizes this forced mutation will only result in their deaths.

The plot is just great. What director Bryan Singer and his writers have done with this film is take an expansive superhero team, stripped it of its fat and focused on the actual meat that makes this team of characters so popular. That is the racial themes of discrimination, intolerance, prejudice and fear.

The mutants represents evolution, what could be the next big step for mankind and that scares human beings.
People hate what they don't understand, so humans start treating them like scum and want to keep tabs on them, what they are capable of, wether they pose any threat to them, wether they'll turn on them and rebel against them and from a human perspective that's a pretty terrifying prospect.

As a result it captures the dark, gritty feel of the comics and really takes a smarter, more realistic, more serious approach to the characters. The X-Men themselves don't feel like cartoon characters with silly powers they feel like real human people who just want to lead normal human lives

Bryan Singer's direction is sharp and precise, the cinematography is solid, the special effects are superb, the production design is stupendous, the costumes are manifique, the make up is fab, there are some truly terrific moments of suspense, there are some great moments of humour (which add some levity to a film with a serious subject matter)

does a good job at handling the film and brings out some raw emotion and political undertones that the film needs to work and interesting way of using the X-Mens powers to further the story and I like this serious direction the film takes, it makes us care for these characters not make them look like action troops killing each other in mindless action scenes,

there are some great relationships between mutants that help show the drama in this film, there's also so moments of humor so that it never takes itself to seriously and never too much to make it all campy and the ending was superb.

There are a couple of drawbacks though, I really don't like Michael Kamen's score, its too much rough.
I feel there's too much of a focus on Wolverine so as a result there isn't enough time to get to know the other mutants, you get snippets of them but most of the focus shifts to Wolverine and I can't say I blame the filmmakers for going in this direction.

X-Men, at times, feels like a pilot for an X-Men tv series, as most of the movie is focused on introducing the characters, establishing and building the world, introducing the conflict and overall quickly establishing everything you need to know about this world so you tell a proper story in the sequel.

The acting is brilliant, Patrick Stewart and Ian Mckellen are simply brilliant and inspiredly cast as Professor X and Magneto respectively. They have a history, they use to have a friendship together however they have opposing views as to how mutants should be integrated in todays world. Professor X wants mutants and humans alike to live in harmony whilst Magneto sees mutants as the next step in evolution and the dominant species and that humanity won't accept them. He believes a war is brewing an intends to win it by any means necessary and honestly both of the points of view make sense

, also you've a great supporting cast as Xavier's X-Men, and the Brotherhood of Mutants: you've got Halle Berry as Storm, James Marsden as Cyclops, Anna Paquin as Rouge, Famke Janssen as Dr. Jean Grey, Shawn Ashmore as Iceman and Rebecca Romijn as Mystique.

However, Hugh Jackman is the true find of this film as Wolverine. He is the audience surrogate.
We get to see the conflict between Professor X's X-Men and Magneto's Brotherhood from his perspective. He's also a loner and an outcast, he has no idea of whats happening like we as an audience.
We as an audience have no idea are being introduced to the world of mutants and have no idea of what's going on so Wolverine is the perfect audience surrogate. That coupled with his lack of memory and identity and mysterious/dark past helps us to relate to him and we understand his point of view and wonder if he will fight with the X-Men or go his own way and have no part in the conflict.

X-Men is mostly a set up movie so realisticaly there isn't much time for character development, nevertheless isn't enjoyable entertainment and great way to revive the superhero genre, 4/5.

The Anonymous Critic