X-Men

The first X-Men movie came out at the exact time that it was needed and change a lot of things going forward. Before the time of the MCU, comic book movies, particularly Marvel, continued to flop with examples like The Punisher, Spawn and Ghost Rider, further tarnishing the brand and continue to give the impression that comic book adaptations were not worth the constant negative reviews despite doing decent at the box office. While Blade was the first positive in a line of failure, and Spider-Man was the one to start the ride of success, the 2000’s Bryan Singer, X-Men movie was one of the contenders that allowed comic book adaptations to be taken more seriously and given the better on-screen treatment these stories deserved.  In a world where Earth is home to a new evolution of humanity; people who have special abilities who have been dubbed mutants. Much like in real life when something out of the ordinary is introduced to the public, everyone has either intense fear or hatred towards mutants and try to find every possible way they can to either contain them or just annihilate them entirely. One such mutant is Rogue (played by Anna Paquin), a teenage girl who has the power to suck the life out of anyone she touches. On the run after almost killing her boyfriend when her powers activated for the first time, she meets up with a fellow mutant named Wolverine (played infamously by Hugh Jackman). While they start to get along, the two are thrown into the world of the X-Men, a group of crime fighting mutants led by Charles Xavier (played by Patrick Stewart). He runs a school for mutants to allow them to hone their talents away from uncaring eyes, along with fellow mutants Storm (played by Halle Berry), Cyclops (played by James Marsden) and Jean (played by Famke Janssen). Although both Rogue and Wolverine don’t quite fit in with this place, they all have to band together when an evil man-hating mutant named Magneto (played by Ian McKellen) threatens to turn the world leaders into mutants and kill off any remaining human. Directed by Bryan Singer, this movie, at first didn’t seem like it was going to shake things up in a good way, with weak advertising and a very low budget that gave off the impression of it being of B-movie quality. Fans were not expecting good things from this movie adaption of a beloved marvel comic book series, yet were pleasantly surprising that it managed to not soil the material, with enough of an understand of the brand so that it can be recognized as X-Men, yet stable enough so that it wouldn’t be a laughing stock upon released. While debatable how good the movie really is, it was a decent starting point for any future movies to come

The story written by Singer and Tom DeSanto is pretty straightforward and easy to follow, and the run time isn’t long enough to overly bore people either. In a time where comic book movies were seen as jokes, it was refreshing to see the movie take a more grounded approach to telling its story. It did take time to let the characters talk and interact with each other and allowed the audience to know that it wasn’t just a goofy mess and would tackle serious issues that the comics were known for like discrimination in a manner that, while not overly complex or deep, at least presented them as straight as they could for the time, it was appreciated. With that said, the actual narrative is rather dull in comparison to the incredibly gripping and adult material that its based on. Bryan Singer manages to compose the film in a steady way to keep people from laughing with embarrassment, but the tone completely muddles the components of X-Men. The movie is a lot more down-to-earth and realistic to match the harsher tone, which results in a lot of the fun, rebellious and colorful aspects of the X-Men being  removed in exchange. As big of an issue as that is, it also forgot to make the story interesting in any way. The X-Men story was a simple but very clever allegory for any oppressed minorities and tackled the issue in very a adult way with all the complexities delivered so that both kids and adults could appreciate it. Here the levels of depth only go as far as PREJUDICE IS BAD, and that doesn’t grab the audience as much as the source material does. While it has some clever ideas like a machine that can turn someone into a mutant, which is a clever twist on the extreme methods people took to ‘wipe away’ homosexuality, but other than that, the script written by David Hayter (the voice actor for Solid Snake of all people) is simple and not entirely focused on being extremely creative or even that faithful, it doesn’t go far enough with its concept to leave a noticeable impact, and it makes the whole movie feel unmemorable. With that said, at a time where comic book movies weren’t being taken seriously, it was necessary to show the audience that it could deliver this story with intelligence and effort, so you can give the film a bit of a pass in that regard.

So many of these characters are such recognizable icons of the comic series and the 90s animated series, and being able to see them in cinematic fashion would have been great to witness, and for some it was worth it. Hugh Jackman as Wolverine is a picture-perfect casting choice, being able to emulate the characters gruff, anti-social and downright awesome energy flawlessly, and for an actor that was mostly a no-name Broadway star at the time, this elevated him to stardom status instantly and showed what a talent he could be.. The film is home to some really good talent that helps to add enough credibility to an idea that would be hard to illustrate. Patrick Stewart is a great Professor X and Ian McKellen is nice and diabolical as Magneto, and you can feel from these portrayals that they are putting more effort in to bring a sense of weight and importance to the story. The issues start to arise when it comes to some of the characterization of most of the other characters. Either from poor casting choice or taking them in a bad direction, it feels like the other characters weren’t given enough screen-time or personality traits to feel fleshed out. Rogue goes from a fully grown super-powered southern one-line spewing powerhouse along with a tragic power in the comics to a mopey teenager who only cries and only sucks people’s powers. While she is still given depth and Anna Paquin acts her very well, it just doesn’t feel like the character and that becomes a problem for the rest of the cast as well. Halle Berry is too meek and quiet to portray the thundering godly presence of Storm and people like James Marsden and Famke Janssen, along with side villains played by Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Ray Park and Tyler Mane have very little screen presence or dialogue so none can form that much of an identity. While they still give good performance, they are only these characters by name alone, lacking the definable backgrounds and personalities that made them so strong. To go from such a colorful cast of characters to a very stale line-up like the movie shows, it doesn’t allow fans to feel the excitement to see their favorite characters come to life on the big screen, but newcomers will be left with even less of an indicator of what the characters are truly supposed to be like.

The most underwhelming and disappointing element of this movie is the amount of blandness surrounding the product. The low budget can excuse the sometimes-choppy effects, but everything down to the production design by John Myhre, the costumes by Louise Mingenbach,  the staging, the cinematography by Newton Thomas Sigel, everything is very bland. This is coming from a source material that is filled with such color and action, as well as deep character insight and smart undertones, yet in the film adaptation, it comes across as stale, lifeless and overly simple. The outfits are dull, the only colors prominent in the movie is either blue or grey, the sets by James Edward Ferrell Jr. are generic, the editing by Steven Rosenblum, Kevin Stitt and John Wright feels very rushed and never really lets certain moments just breath, and the effects, aside from Wolverine’s metal claws, aren’t visually creative enough to disguise the fakeness for long. The action is also a big part of the X-Men, and unfortunately, that as well stumbles in terms of delivery. Aside from one creative fight involving the shape-shifting mystique near the end of the movie, most of the action is either incredibly slow and hoaky looking, or too bland to be memorable. The original action was fast-paced, creative and filled with adrenaline, while this failed to match that level of grab.

The bottom line is that the first  X-Men movie came at a time where even films that were okay at best were seen as amazing by comparison, and while that means the film is deceptively praised, it can be excused for its failings by an amount. It was one of the movies that started off the comic book movie renaissance and revitalized the energy that these kind of movies deserved, even later X-Men movies (which are also a little mixed in quality). While it is home to some stale characters, boring visuals, unmemorable action and overly safe and slow direction, it also has some great actors, a comprehensible story line and showed the world that these kinds of movies can allow characters to feel emotion and be smart enough to be taken seriously, instead of being only action-oriented mindless pieces of fluff. The movie deserves more praise for what it accomplished rather than the material it contributed itself, and while it’s tragic that it happened to something as cool, interesting, colorful and fun as X-men, it would certainly not be the worst contender in Fox’s long, confused messed-up lineup in the franchise that would spawn from this first movie. For an avid fan or casual viewer, it can satisfy them enough and many more will still be able to look pass its shortcoming even to this day. Not a perfect movie, but a perfectly decent one that helped the medium evolve into something greater.