X-Men
Directed by: Bryan Singer
Written by: Tom DeSanto, Bryan Singer, David Hayter
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Ray Park, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos

I was really worried about this movie. Marvel have been known for messing up things like this in the past, and comic book/cartoon adaptations quite often don’t work out on the big screen. There was plenty of hype around this movie, and I immediately had my guard up.

I saw numerous trailers for X-Men that definitely highlighted the special effects and the “cool” new looks for all the different characters. Needless to say I was not impressed. The trailers left a bad taste in my mouth, and they left me thinking that the movie would be all special effects and no story. Also, the way the previews had been edited together left me thinking that there would be a LOT of lame dialogue in this movie.

Happily, the first thing I can say about the movie is that the story and the dialogue were pretty solid.

The story, for the most part, revolves around everyone’s favourite anti-hero, Wolverine. He is the dark, mysterious character that everyone loves. I don’t think the movie could have been made any other way. Strangely enough however, Rogue also plays a central role in the movie. The Rogue we see in this movie however is not necessarily the Rogue we may be accustomed to. It is a much younger Rogue, strangely reminiscent of Jubilee.

I thought that they did a good job of capturing the essence of most of the main characters. There were a few characters that weren’t developed as well as the others (Storm for instance, and Sabretooth), but I certainly don’t think they misrepresented anyone, and that was something that I had been worried about. In my opinion, Wolverine and Magneto totally stole the show. They were brought to life perfectly by their respective actors, Hugh Jackman and Ian McKellen. (Casting Patrick Stewart as Professor Xavier was a good move as well.)

The story was well written. There was plenty of action, but it all had a direction and a purpose. There was also a fair amount of background story provided for the main characters. The plot is fuelled by the classic X-men struggle between Magneto, who believes that mutants should rule over humans, and Professor X, who believes that humans and mutants can exist together in peace. Looking back on specific plot details, there were definitely a number of events that were pretty ridiculous. However, this is a comic book world we are dealing with, and that usually requires a larger suspension of disbelief than the average movie would. I’m actually kind of glad they didn’t try to make things too realistic and perfect.

I was also happy to find that there were also a few moments of dark comedy, the majority of which came from the sarcastic exchanges between Cyclops and Wolverine, something which will definitely be appreciated by most hardcore fans. There were a couple of stinky one-liners, but I guess that type of thing is to be expected. Such occurrances were in the minority, so I was able to turn a blind eye to the cheesy stuff.

The special effects were good too. They didn’t go totally overboard, but there was some cool stuff, especially when Magneto unleashes his powers. The movie’s action sequences definitely seemed influenced by The Matrix. A lot of movies seem to be borrowing from The Matrix style. It’s not really a bad thing. They didn’t go too crazy with it, but it did give the X-Men a cool modern edge.

Overall, I was extremely impressed with this movie, and I would recommend it to X-men fans and non-fans alike. When it comes right down to it my only complaint with the movie is that they left out a lot of cool characters. But I’m sure they’re just saving some of them up for the sequel. And you don’t need to have Professor X’s psychic abilities to deduce that there will indeed be a sequel. — Sean