X-Men (2000)

                               X-MEN
                  A film review by Mark R. Leeper

               Capsule: Very nice to look at but
          startlingly unoriginal, X-MEN is a short feature
          film consisting mostly of borrowings from other
          films.  It is based on the popular graphic novel
          series X-MEN and features two good actors.
          Still the production offers us little we have
          not seen elsewhere.  The film works but rarely
          impresses the viewer.  Rating: 6 (0 to 10), +1
          (-4 to +4)

There is a war going on. The battlefield is all around us, but we normal people do not see it being fought. We will, but not yet. There are around us mutants with special powers far superior to us humans. But the war is not yet between them and us. Right now it is between two factions of mutants. And we humans are just bystanders whose fate may depend on the outcome of that conflict. This is the plot of David Cronenberg's 1981 film, SCANNERS. It was indeed a very original and atmospheric film. However that same plot also describes X-MEN made almost two decades later. Now it may well be that SCANNERS could have taken some inspiration from the X-MEN, but Cronenberg did the in film first. Even if the Marvel Comics X- MEN preceded the film SCANNERS, it is an idea that has already been explored in film and probably more intelligently in a previous film. Most of anything is good about X-MEN has been done better elsewhere.

The film opens at an unnamed concentration camp. A young Jewish boy is separated by force from his mother. Trying to follow her he is restrained by four guards and in his grief somehow causes two metal gates to bend. (There are two things wrong with this scene. The Jews they show are in a condition too good. They probably would not be brought to the camp without already having been through much rougher treatment than implied. Also a Jew causing this much trouble would simply have been shot.) We see that the boy, Eric Lehnsherr, obtains his powers from his own mental anguish and that he has good reason for mistrusting and hating human nature. Perhaps understanding this is why Dr. Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and he remain lifelong friends. One would expect them to be enemies. Each leads one of two opposed factions of mutants. This friendship of adversaries is probably the most remarkable and unexpected twist of the script. Lehnsherr (now played by Ian McKellan) leads a faction of militant and ugly mutants, preparing them for war against humans. Xavier trains his attractive mutants to co-exist with the normal humans. Invited to join the fold are two new mutants: the nihilistic Logan, known as Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), and the very confused Marie, called Rogue (Anna Pacquin). Xavier runs a school for mutants not unlike the one in Brian De Palma's THE FURY. The school is complete with a huge spherical chamber the design for which seems to come from Terry Gilliam's BRAZIL. To this school he invites the new mutants Rogue and creature of rage Wolverine, a creature who likely was inspired by the animal ferocity of Lawrence Talbot in THE WOLF MAN.

David Hayter wrote the screenplay based on a story by director Bryan Singer of THE USUAL SUSPECTS and by Tom DeSanto. Occasionally the lines are unintentionally humorous. The first line of the film says that mutation has allowed us to evolve from one-celled creatures to the dominant life form on this planet. Of course when there was only one-celled creatures, that WAS the dominant life form. Occasionally the writers overstate their point. At one place we anti-mutant people hanging "Mr. Mutant" in effigy. This is a little heavy handed. I think discrimination these days would take more subtle forms after this sort of expression has been so obviously associated with racism.

The art direction and set design give this film a nice look down to detail like X-MAN symbol shows up as the wheels of Xavier's wheelchair. They have not given in to satire or levity. Instead this is a nice dark story that wants to be taken seriously. Unfortunately when the fight scenes play fast and loose with Newton's Laws the feel drops to the level of a bad martial arts film. The film has a lot to see, but not much to think about. It all builds to a large fight out in the interior of the Statue of Liberty, perhaps a tribute to Alfred Hitchcock.

That makes it all the more surprising that it attracted the acting talent that it did. Patrick Stewart, Formerly of the Starship Enterprise and currently of the cast of Arthur Miller's "The Ride Down Mt. Morgan" plays the lead. Ian McKellen is one of the finest actors living, but the role of a super-villain in a costume may stretch his talents. Anna Paquin of THE PIANO is reasonable as the troubled Rogue. Bruce Davison who was touching in LONGTIME CONPANION and on Broadway as THE ELEPHANT MAN has not much to do as a United States Senator bigoted against mutants. This is hardly one of his better roles. Famke Janssen who played Xenia Onatopp in GOLDENEYE is on-hand, apparently as Xavier's assistant.

     Stylish but redundant, I give this film a 6 on the 0 to 10
scale and a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.

                                        Mark R. Leeper
                                        mleeper@lucent.com
                                        Copyright 2000 Mark R. Leeper