X-Men DVD > Reviews > Mutatingly eXtraordinary

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Liked it
Story	Good
Characters / Performances	Outstanding
Special Effects	Good
How does it compare to similar films?	Good

Advantages:	Good to see your comic heroes on screen, Wolverine and Sabetooth kick butt
Disadvantages:	Not the comic (and not meant to be either)

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

From early Flash Gordon where special effects wowed audiences in the 50’s, through to the ‘camp’ Superman of the 80’s (truly one of the better comic adaptations), to the 90’s Gothic setting of Batman (steadily getting worse), comic book heroes have always been hard to portray on the silver screen. What does the 21st century hold for us? Well those loveable mutants the X-men.

The problem with putting established comic characters into film is the fact that you’re never going to live up to the comic itself. No matter how hard you try the characters that Die-hard fans have been reading about for years will never be the same as human actors on the screen. Also a series like X-men has been around for almost 39 years, so if you think your going to tell the ‘whole’ story to a comic illiterate you’d be wrong.

Saying all this, X-men wasn’t a bad version for director Bryan Singer. As the plot goes it isn’t the greatest story your going to witness this year, but it wasn’t weak and it didn’t let the film down. Basically the world leaders want all mutants to be registered and make themselves known, but both the good and evil sides of the mutant population feel this would only add to the prejudice they already feel against them, and both have very different ideas about how to stop it.

The thing that made the film for me is the literal typecasting of the actors. I mean if you were going to choose one actor to play each part it would be the ones chosen for this film, they all seem to fit the part naturally and they almost all look the same as their pen and ink counterparts. That is except for Rogue, played by Anna Paquin (The Piano 1993), who acts the more sentimental side of the comic hero, it is inefact acted well enough to ignore that she’s a little different from how the cartoon lady has been written by marvels comics.

Rogue or Marie (her real name) runs from home after her power puts her boyfriend in a coma. She subsequently meets up with a bar brawling drifter who turns out to be the most famous of the X-man (for those who don’t read the comic anyway) Wolverine, or Logan. Hugh Jackman (Snowy River (TV series) 1993) takes this part and he plays the character eloquently. In fact his performance through out is the one that impressed me most and he definitely shaped Wolverine nicely on screen.

After a run in with there soon to be come enemies, they are taken back to the school and base of the X-men owned by Prof. X or Charles Xavier, acted by Patrick Stewart (Star Trek 1987). The X-men team also include Cyclops or Scott Summers, portrayed by James Marsden (Public Enemies 1996), Storm or Orono Monroe, acted by Halle Berry (The Flintstones 1994) and Dr. Jean Grey, played by the feisty Famke Jansen (Golden Eye 1995). To underline my point about type-casting, take a look at Halle Berry as Storm, because I think her and the cartoon character are almost identical in look. I was, also, expecting Picard, no sorry, Patrick Stewart to jump out of his wheelchair and shout ‘make it so’ but I suppose that’s the effect Star Trek has had on me (very sad I know!!).

The good versus evil plot line comes when Magneto or Erik Lahnsherr, played by Ian McKellen (Lord of the Rings 2001) decides to turn all the world leaders into mutants with a machine that doesn’t actually work. This is demonstrated by an escapee from Magneto’s base who winds up on Xavier’s doormat, whose death is another good scene in the film and probably the only death like it I’ve ever seen on celluloid.

So in true comic book hero style the X-men go off to thwart Magneto and his mutant teams chances. This includes Sabretooth or Victor Creed, acted by one time wrestler Tylor Mane (‘Big Skye’ in WCW 1991), Mystque or Raven Darkholme, played by Rebecca Romijn-Stamos (Austin Powers 2 1999) and Toad or Mortimer Toynbee, portrayed by Ray Park (Star Wars 1999).

The pick of the baddies was Mystique, who I definitely labelled as the mutant with the most powerful power namely shapeshifting. To generalise the baddies were better acted and spent more time on screen than their X-men counterparts but Ian McKellen's performance warranted this and I can’t wait to see him in the forth coming Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

Overall I liked this film, it was a good attempt at getting the characters from book and into film. I think that the best thing to be done, for anybody who is going to see this film for the first time, should be to wipe all existence of the comics out of their mind and treat the film as if it were a totally original idea. This is because the film doesn’t have enough time to go through telling you every detail of every character as set out in the million or so comics. So treat this as a film without any connections and you’ll probably like it without thinking ‘but that would have never happened in the comic!’

The end, which I won’t tell you about, has the word ‘sequel’ written all over it. It’s probably the only time in a film where I’m not stuck in saying so what the next film could be about. If there isn’t any X-men 2 then the end of the film seems very open ended to me and I would have liked to see some threads tied into place to give a definite ending feel.

All things said go and see this film because the film is decent as films go. The special effects are up to par with today’s technology and the fight scenes are particularly well done. Enjoy it but don’t be to critical about any omissions or loop holes, after all there’s not going to be any time-travelling, yellow lycra wearing, confusing alternate universes as there are in the comic. There just isn’t time and it would probably spoil the film if they were added.