X-Men (2000)

Cast: Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Bruce Davison, Tyler Mane, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Ray Park, Anna Paquin Writer: David Hayter Director: Bryan Singer

Review by Scott Hunt Movie Hunt: http://netdirect.net/~hunt/index.html

Rating: Near Miss  (2 out of 4 stars)

(Romijn-Stamos). It changes skins from social commentary to action film to character study, never quite showing its face long enough to get a good look. What's seen in those glimpses are the promise of a thrilling,

potentially thought provoking franchise of movies.

an allegory to man's oppression of man, whether it's racial or ideologically based. The X-Men are a group of people whose genetic makeup differentiate them from the rest of mankind. Their mutant DNA gives them enhanced abilities. Some are powerful telepaths able to read minds, such as the X-Men's leader, Professor X (Stewart). Others can control magnetic fields, giving them mastery over anything with metal in

it, such as Magneto (McKellen). Still others have enhanced healing abilities, or can create ice, or fire. Rather than consider their abilities a gift, they are often viewing by those possessing them, mutants, as a curse, serving to ostracize them from society.

The comic book series has been wildly successful for decades, mixing kinetic, savage action with an often-blistering acuity for capturing the

despair of the downtrodden and disenfranchised. X-Men, the movie, gleans

the essence of the comic and effectively puts it on the screen.

The film opens as a flashback study of its villain, Magneto. Seen as a young boy, his family is ensnared in the machinations of the Nazi war engine as soldiers tear young Erik's parents from him as the family is sheparded into detention camps. The experience unalterably shapes his worldview. He thinks the only way for mutants to survive is to dominate those who would subjugate his kind.

His opposite, Professor X, has a background that's only hinted at. He is

obviously rich and influential. He believes that humans and mutants can co-exist, despite a senator's (Davidson) efforts to whip the country into an anti-mutant frenzy. It's a thinly veiled allusion to McCarthyism

and the nazi regime. Professor Xavier is an ersatz King to Magneto's Malcolm X.

With two decades worth of character development to mine and a squadron of characters to manage, Singer succeeds with mixed results. Hayter and Singer shrewdly balance the action scenes with character development, but due to time constraints, some actors come off better than others. Of

the X-Men, worst of the lot is Storm (Berry), who not only is given nothing to do, but has an accent that noticeably fades in and out. Wolverine is an intriguing mix of toughness and emotional vulnerability.

Blessed/cursed with a skeleton made of indestructible metal, blade-like claws that can project from his hands and the ability to heal from almost any wound, he forges a surrogate father relationship with Rogue (Paquin). Much of the film's empathetic and emotional strength draws from the wellspring of their budding relationship.

Jackman plays Wolverine with the sharpness of ..... While the classical theater trained Stewart and McKellen serves as solid bookends for the acting ensemble, it's Jackman who provides the entrancing, substantive middle. His Wolverine is perhaps the most confused and lonely of all the

deadly. Jackman could have done a lot of self-conscious posturing and overly pensive emoting, thereby crushing any hopes the film might have. Instead, he plays it remarkably straight. Wolverine is a confused, grown man yearning to find a place in the world, rather than a wisecracking, super thug with the right answer to every situation.

Cyclops (Marsden), the X-Men's field leader and love of Dr. Jean Grey (Janssen), projects a borderline arrogant smarminess. An unbalanced attempt is made at a potential love triangle between Wolverine, Cyclops and Grey, but it's a sparkless connection.

Of the evil Brotherhood of Mutants, Toad (Park) and Sabretooth (Mane) revel in the physicality of their roles. Sabretooth is an animalistic sledgehammer of force, showing a reckless brutality unhampered by any sign of true intelligence or cunning. Toad has all the grace of a grade school bully, enjoying any opportunity to inflict pain with the warped glee of a child burning ants with a magnifying glass. Romin-Stamos is a bit of a cipher as Mystique. She has few words of dialogue and is covered in blue scales and body paint, rendering her unrecognizable. Of all the evil mutants, her presence is compelling. Is this due to some heretofore-unseen acting ability, or the strength of the script playing to her acting weaknesses?

The gist of the story involves Magneto's attempt to influence world powers in embracing mutant kind, in the opposition to senator Kelly's dogmatism on the subject. To that effect, he plans to use a special device to genetically alter many of the world's leaders into mutants. Xavier means to stop him. It's an admittedly simplistic story, but it serves mainly to introduce the characters and set up conflicts for future films. Hopefully future X-Men films will present themselves with the same straight-faced earnestness of this one. By playing up the humanistic angle, rather than heroic preening, Singer has made a film that's accessible to both fans of the comic series and newcomers to the storyline. There are obvious rends and tears in the fabric of X-Men's script, but on the whole it plays as smart, fun entertainment with promise. What more can you ask of summer fare?