 X-Men (2000) For anyone who endured Joel Schumacher's hellish borefest Batman and Robin, it's nice to see X-Director Bryan Singer playing by a totally different set of rules. Singer brings his mastery of the ensemble cast to Marvel Comics' first full-blown cinematic attempt. It's nice to see one of Stan Lee's flagship titles treated with such reverence, and its core fans catered to so subtly, while maintaining easy accessibility for those who've never heard of Professor X or his mighty mutants. The plot, in essence, centers around the evil mutant mastermind Magneto (Paul McCartney wrote a song about him, incidentally), and his brotherhood's attempts to seek revenge against humans, who, as a society, view people like the X-Men as freaks and outcasts. Unlike most of my reviewing cohorts, I really don't want to give away too many of the plot details … 'cause what's the point of babbling on and on about things like Cerebro, Mystique, and Sabertooth, anyway? If you care, you will see the movie. If you don't, you'll get nothing from me with which to fake your way through dinner party conversations that might alight on the X-Men movie, you truffle-huffing sonofabitch. In any case, I'm sure you know the end result of the epic hero/villain conflict already. A great strength of the film is in its characterizations. I believe it takes a lot of talent and restraint to steer away from a campy performance (don't look so pleased with yourself, Mr. Clooney) and get on to the drama at hand while maintaining some semblance of wit. Hugh Jackman's performance is pivotal to the whole film, especially worthy of mention, mainly because he doesn't go over the top, and keeps Wolverine down to earth. Sir Ian McKellan could definitely have gotten carried away playing a power-hungry domineer like Magento, but he reins it in brilliantly for the benefit of ensemble and audience alike. Perhaps Singer somehow made these actors actually think the people they were playing were cool, not corny, and at any they pull it off. Patrick Stewart and James Marsden do fantastic work bringing Professor X and Cyclops, respectively, to the silver screen. As we all know from his performances in that other sci-fi universe (what's it called again, oh yeah, Star Wars), Stewart is pretty darn good at playing eloquent men in charge of heroic adventures. Marsden manages to pack plenty of attitude and excitement into the narrow window of screen time he has to work with. Anna Paquin gives another fine performance as Rogue, and might not be known as "the free-spirited heroine from Fly Away Home" anymore. People can't get enough of that movie. I had to laugh at an X-review I read today where the critic basically lambasted the "preposterous nature of the script." Um, hello, uh … exactly what caliber movie did you think you'd be watching? This isn't Ju Dou or one of the Trois Coloures flicks. I always have to laugh when the local free weekly art-paper, famous for its great want-ads in the back (mainly if you're looking for someone to vacuum your home in the nude, join you and your wife in bed, or perhaps just to see how the two-column ads look for the 900-PORN line you're operating in your mom's basement) "lowers itself" to send its NPR-reverent guy (who typically reviews things like Pedro Almodovar, Peter Greenaway, and Jean-Luc Godard films) to a high-budget movie from a major American studio. Having to adjust to a screening that has more than 7 people in the audience is the guy's first annoyance, of course, but beyond that you know his intellectual call to duty will just never let him enjoy a big movie like X-Men. Too quintessentially lowbrow. But regardless of your cultural sophistication or taste for/against imported art-house flicks, you're not going to do better than the script of X-Men for a movie based on a comic book. It's no Godfather, of course, but if you'll remember, Mario Puzo wrote for the Superman movies, so who can say? The top-notch special effects, both audio and visual, are making me want to get a DVD player by the time this one gets released (which will be around the time the goddamn Loud Bassoon gets around to publishing this review, in all likelihood). While I'm not an enormous fan of his work, Michael Kamen provides a Matrix-esque score that's a refreshing break from the Wagnerian (or is it John Williamsian?) fodder that lathers most sci-fi action hero adventures these days. Everything about X-Men looks good, even down to some painstakingly difficult comic-inspired parameters. Everything about it feels good, and makes you look optimistically ahead to see if the movie that broke the superhero movie curse can now break the lame sequel curse. At the screening I attended, nobody wanted to leave by the time this one was over, no one left to go to the bathroom in the middle, and everyone roared with applause at the end. How about that? (I guess the chirping crickets from the end of Battlefield Earth got the night off.) It looks like Fox may have a bankable series after all, to fill theaters during George Lucas' off-years. Let me now also be the also person to flip my middle claw at people who don't look beyond the superhero movie stigma of the past and give this great action film a chance. You don't have to have Giant-Size X-Men #1 to keep score, or even know who the hell Chris Claremont is. This movie is a bonafide winner.
Review by PAL |