Movie: X-men (2000)
Rating: Pg-13
Starring: Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, James Marsden, Halle Berry, Femake Jennsen,
Anna Paquin, Ian McKellen, Rebecca Romijn, and Shawn Ashmore
Score: 7 out of 10 stars
Family Friendly: 3.5/5 (minor action violence, one guy turns to water)
Recommended: Anyone who likes superhero films.
Plot Summery (No Spoilers):
In the future, people with Mutations that give them superpowers come into being, and the battle between those who want to eliminate humanity and those who want to protect it begin.
Plot Summery (Spoilers): (From Wikipedia)
In 1944 German-occupied Poland, a 13-year-old Erik Lehnsherr is separated from his parents upon entry to a concentration camp. In attempting to reach them, he causes a set of gates to bend towards him, as though attracted by a magnetic force. Decades later, in the not too distant future, Senator Robert Kelly attempts to pass a "Mutant Registration Act" in Congress which would force mutants to publicly reveal their identities and abilities. Present are Lehnsherr, now known as Magneto, and the telepathic Professor Charles Xavier, who privately discuss their differing viewpoints on the relationship between humans and mutants.
In Meridian, Mississippi, 17-year-old Marie D'Ancanto accidentally puts her boyfriend into a coma upon kissing him which was caused by her unknown superhuman ability to absorb the life force and mutant abilities of anyone she touches. In fear that she is harmful, Marie, now going by the name of Rogue, runs away to Laughlin City,Alberta. While at a bar, she meets Logan, an amateur fighter known as "Wolverine", who also possesses superhuman healing abilities, heightened senses, and metal claws that extend outwards from between his knuckles. While on the road together, both of them are attacked by Sabretooth, a fellow mutant and an associate of Magneto. Cyclops and Storm arrive and save Wolverine and Rogue, and bring them to the X-Mansion in Westchester County, New York. They are introduced to Xavier, who leads a group of mutants called the X-Men, who are trying to seek peace with the human race, educate young mutants in the responsible use of their powers, and stop Magneto from escalating the war with humanity.
Senator Kelly is abducted by Magneto's allies Toad and the shapeshifter Mystique and brought to their lair. Magneto uses Kelly as test subject of a machine that artificially induces mutation. Kelly uses his new mutant abilities to escape imprisonment. After an accident causes Rogue to use her powers on Wolverine, she is convinced by Mystique (disguised as classmate Bobby Drake) that Xavier is angry with her and that she should leave the school. Xavier uses his mutant-locating machineCerebro to find Rogue at a train station. Mystique infiltrates Cerebro and sabotages the machine.
At the train station, Wolverine convinces Rogue to stay with Xavier, but a fight ensues when Magneto, Toad and Sabretooth arrive and kidnap Rogue. Kelly arrives at Xavier's school, shortly before dying due to the instability of his artificial mutation. The X-Men learn that Magneto was severely weakened in the test of the machine on Kelly, and realize that he intends to use Rogue's power-transferring ability so that she can power the machine in his place, putting her life at risk. Xavier attempts to use Cerebro to locate Rogue, but Mystique's sabotage causes him to fall into a coma. Fellow telepath Jean Grey fixes and uses Cerebro, learning that Magneto plans to place his mutation-inducing machine on Liberty Island and use it to mutate the world leaders meeting for a summit on nearby Ellis Island.
The X-Men scale the Statue of Liberty, defeating Toad and incapacitating Mystique, before Magneto and Sabretooth incapacitate the group and continue with their plans. Magneto transfers his powers to Rogue, forcing her to use them to start the machine. Wolverine escapes and defeats Sabretooth. Storm uses her weather-controlling powers and Jean her telekinesis to lift Wolverine to the top of Magneto's machine. Wolverine saves Rogue when Cyclops knocks out Magneto, and destroys the machine. Wolverine touches the dying Rogue's face, and his regenerative abilities are transferred to her, causing her to recover.
Professor Xavier recovers from his coma. The group learns that Mystique is still alive, and impersonating Senator Kelly. Xavier tells Wolverine that near where he was found in Canada is an abandoned military base that might contain information about his past. Xavier visits Magneto in a prison cell constructed entirely of plastic, and the two play chess (Xavier seems to have the upper hand). Magneto warns that he will continue his fight, to which Xavier promises that he and the X-Men will always be there to stop him. As Xavier is being taken away from the prison by a guard, Magneto pushes his king chess piece over.
My Thoughts:
For anyone who loves, or hates superhero films, you should love or hate this film.
Back in 2000 Superhero films was dead. Prior to the Xmen films you had a handful of Christopher Reeve Superman films from the 80s, the Batman films that Started strongly with Batman (1989) and had degraded to the rubber nipple/codpiece "Badman and Robin" in the late 1990s. You also had some campy batman film in the 1970s and a Fantastic 4 film that was never released due to it being so bad and it was made solely to maintain rights over the intellectual property. .
Back in 2000 Superhero films was dead. Prior to the Xmen films you had a handful of Christopher Reeve Superman films from the 80s, the Batman films that Started strongly with Batman (1989) and had degraded to the rubber nipple/codpiece "Badman and Robin" in the late 1990s. You also had some campy batman film in the 1970s and a Fantastic 4 film that was never released due to it being so bad and it was made solely to maintain rights over the intellectual property. .
For those who are too young, or took too many mood enriching chemicals to remember, In 2000 Superhero films did not exist, was no plans for a new Batman Film, and no films starring Ironman, Thor, Captain America, Watchmen, or Avengers, . Let Alone the idea that the X-men line would spawn at least Seven movies in the next 15 years.
So imagine if you are a moviegoer watching Xmen movie. It starts out with people being herded into a death camp in World War 2,as soon as you think it is a historical film, then suddenly it shifts to modern day suburbs , with a very teenage looking Anna Paquin and her randy boyfriend upstairs. You can cut the teenage hormones with a knife as they kiss, and he goes into what appears to be a bad case of epileptic seizure as she sobs. Then we cut to the Yukon and we see a bare knuckles boxing match in a cage.
Welcome to Superhero films.
As a film, this movie has a lot of strong points. The Xmen films are noted for having amazing casts and many times, excellent directors. Singer, fresh off his Usual Suspects filming, does a excellent job with this movie, however it is very disjointed at times. However the star of the film, even in this ensemble cast, is Jackman as Logan/The Wolverine, a man who does not know his past,. but has superhuman healing , and can extend metal claws from his hands that can cut anything.
Also on the stage is two great actors, Patrick Stewart (Picard!) and Ian McKellen,(Gandalf!) playing two roles in the civil right movement for Mutants. Stewart, playing Professor Xavier, plays the Martin Luther King peaceful role, while Ian McKellen, playing Magneto, plays the more Militant Malcolm X type role. Giving him the background as a survivor of german camps gives him more gravity to the role.
The background is that you have elected officials who wish to register mutants (political aside, and people wonder why registration, be it persons, firearms, or money causes concern, as a note, the only reason why a government will want to register something is for future seizure, end political aside) as a danger to society, Professor X wants to show society that mutants and humans can co-exist, while Magento wants to end human rule as they are a danger to mutants. This works as you have great actors taking the role seriously.
The planned plot of using a machine to induce mutations in world leaders is not a bad one as comic book movies go, but it is mostly a mcgruffen to move the plot along.
However the plot is disjointed, and leads to the general rule that in modern superhero films, the 2nd movie in the series is best, as you do not need to spend a ton of time explaining everything and get to the movie.
The movie is hurt by two things, the low budget tat at times has not aged well, and the disjointed pacing. I will go over the pacing first. This ignores the horrifically bad lines given to Halle Berry playing "Storm".
The pacing is odd in this movie, first off you have the odd start up, as described above. Some parts work wonderfully. For example, Jackman as Wolverine and Paquin have a ton of chemistry, to the point that you could cast them as a May-December type relationship. However they instead do the more normal protector/protected setup, and it really works, these actors can really make you buy into this. Less so for the romantic lead for Paquin (though no fault to the actor, as he works very well with Ellen Page in later films. Instead they have Logan get into a romantic triangle for the love of Jean Grey.
However as soon as they really start to click, you end up at the Xmen school, a school for Mutants who many graduate to join the X-Men hero team, letting you find such comic book heroes as Cyclops (who shoots lasers from his eyes), Jean Grey (mental powers), and Storm (who can control weather). Logan is a loner who does not want to join the team, but when Magneto kidnaps Paquin character, he willing to suit up and join the Xmen in a battle around the statue of Liberty. The force of direction and acting skill makes this work, however the fact that the entire 2nd act of the film is reserved for exposition means that much of the actual plot is flat as a soda left out in the warm summer sun.
The second issue is that it has not aged well. The budget was not the largest, and much of it was wisely spent on good writers and actors, however this means that much of it feels small. Magneto base looks like something out of a Trek Trek episode, and the final battle in the statue of liberty shows all the signs of being shot in the studio with obvious green screen shots when they happen.
However, no matter it flaws it did quite well, for it showed that comic books could be the source of something more then a campy fun, and that serious actors could talk about serious topics while in a comic book movie. I have a rule of thumb, if a comic book movie is not as good as the First Xmen, then it not a good comic book movie, as it a good bellwether for a decent movie.
It may surprise a few that know me, but I am not a comic book fan. I never grew up with comics (long story) and it is really hard to tell a story that would interest me in the limited page count of comics. The only exception that comes to mind is "Watchmen" which I agree with Time magazine as a top 100 novel of the 20th century. However, I am biased towards anything with the criminally underused dutch born Famke Jennsen, who has been in my mind's eye the perfict woman since 1992 when she starred in Star Trek TNG "Perfect Mate".
And as a note on my usual rating rants, this is actually a classic case of what PG-13 is. There is action violence, there is no harsh cussing, no blood, and while it has a moment of body horror (as one guy becomes a liquid) their is nothing that I would even think of being concerned about a 13 year old seeing. Compired to the recent "Xmen Day of Future Past" which also had a PG-13 rating shows how much more the rating system is allowing in movies.
