X-Men 1.5

A team of models mutants - humans born with superpowers - called the X-Men fight to stop another mutant, Magneto, and his team from succeeding in scheme so badly thought out only a master villain could have done it. After years of trying, Marvel Comics finally gets a movie that it doesn't have to be embarrassed out.

Wolverine (Hugh Jackman)
Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart)
Magneto (Ian McKellen)
Jean Grey (Famke Janssen)
Cyclops (James Marsden)
Storm (Halle Berry)
Rogue (Anna Paquin)
Sabretooth (Tyler Mane)
Toad (Ray Park)
Mystique (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos)
Senator Kelly (Bruce Davison)

Year: 2000
Censorship Rating: M15+ (due to some pretty bloodless violence and low level coarse language)

If there is ever a series that showcases both the best and worst of comics, it is X-Men. Created by Stan Lee in yet another of his "why the hell didn't anyone else think of doing something that simple before?" moments, the X-Men were originally teenagers who were born as mutants - they had special superpowers - and were trained by Professor Charles Xavier to use those powers to help the normal humans who both hated and feared them for being different. (Of course, why Marvel Universe humans hated mutants while loving characters like Captain America and Thor is something I've always wondered, but let's move on.) Over periods of both waxing and waning popularity, X-Men comics have explored the difficult issues of discrimination and racial hatred (while using mostly white protagonists on both sides) and also raised the soap opera nature of convoluted comic book backstories to a near art form. As I said - the X-Men show both the best and worst sides of comics and are pretty much an institution to themselves.

As such, it was probably a given that at some stage a movie with them in it would come out. But it's success was never a sure thing; in fact, most fanbois would have guaranteed that "X-Men" would have sucked on release. It had a green director with no big action experience. The cast had a couple of fan favourites in key roles, but most of the actors were mainstream unknowns. Sin of sins, they weren't following the comics and had changed things. Behind this, the production itself was reputedly difficult, with a lot of studio pressure to succeed and a tight schedule to meet. With hindsight it is easy to wonder how "X-Men" was ever going to fail, but given that at that time comic book movies were still risky recipes for disaster (and probably still are, actually), it's quite amazing that "X-Men" succeeds as well as it does. Particularly since it still has a number of flaws that have crippled many other comic book movies - like some mutant itself, this movie is greater than the sum of its parts.

Since I'm doing this on DVD, I'll look at the "X-Men 1.5" version of the movie, which has a few pretty pointless extra scenes. These scenes will be highlighted in blue text, so if you want to see what you've missed, just look for them below.

The movie starts with a voiceover about how evolution is "leaping forward", said over a DNA-inspired title sequence. [The Marvel standard credit sequence. "Spider-Man" gets webs. "The Punisher" had bulletholes and a black, bleeding cityscape. "X-Men" gets DNA.]

We open in Poland, 1944. People are walking through the rain. They are wearing yellow stars and are near a concentration camp. Nazi soldiers are separating these people out to go to different areas. A young teenager is separated from his parents - his mother screams for him to come, but the gate is closed with the teenager on the wrong side of it. Soldiers try to pull the boy back, but several groan men are unable to move the teenager in the mud. The gate starts to buckle under some unseen force, pulling towards the boy. A soldier stuns the boy with a rifle blow to the head - with the boy stunned, the gate stops bending and the boy (and soldiers grappling him) fall to the ground. The Nazis look around, wondering what just happened.

[Aside: And BANG! "X-Men" starts with a scene that shows it isn't fooling around here with the issues, nor your light-and-fluffy comic book for kids movie. I don't think I'm giving too much away by revealing that the boy grows up to be Magneto, master of magnetism and chief thorn in the side of the X-Men as he tries to raise mutantkind to rulers of the Earth. Except, instead of being a villain who cackles maniacally while rubbing his hands together in glee at his latest mad plot, Magneto is ideologically driven in his actions by the first-hand knowledge of what ordinary people will do to those who are different to them. And one of the best things about him is that it is pretty hard to argue that he's wrong.]

Cut to Mississipi in 'the not too distant future'. In a typical suburban family home a teenage girl has a teenage boy in her room, telling him about her future travel dreams. After an awkward pause, they kiss - veins bulge out on the boy's head and he collapses. The girl's screams bring her parents - she cries, saying that she "only touched him".

Jump to Washington, where Dr Jean Grey is addressing a senate hearing about mutants in America. Senator Kelly butts in with a question: "Are mutants dangerous?". Jean Grey replies that mutants shouldn't have to come forward and register themselves because they will be met with "fear, hostility and violence". Kelly counters that mutants shouldn't be allowed to hide because their powers make them too dangerous. His oratory [which you'd think another politician would leap up to stop Kelly getting exclusive press coverage with his sound-bite worthy speech, but anyway] proves popular, with the large watching crowd rising up in supportive applause. In the crowd, one man in a wheelchair sees another trenchcoated man leave.

[Aside: In this speech, Senator Kelly mentions he knows of a little girl who could walk through walls and uses the scare tactic on the crowd that she could just walk into a bank vault and take what she wanted. Now, this is meant for us to look on Kelly as the bad, scaremongering politician... except that in "X-Men 2", Professor Xavier gets hold of a confidential file because he knows of a little girl who can walk through walls too. So, Kelly looks like he's 100% on the money, while Professor X looks to be two-faced - "Don't fear mutants as they will use their powers to help you... unless they need to help themselves, then they'll do what they want!". Sure, "X-Men 2" hadn't been even conceived at this point, but it kind of justifies Kelly's point. Anyway...]

The two men meet outiside in the hallway. [Although they address each other as "Charles" (in the wheelchair) and "Erik" (trenchcoat), I'm going to call them Professor X and Magneto. Also, I'll be sticking to using mutant codenames in this overview since it keeps things easier to follow.] Professor X and Magneto discuss ideologies - Prof. X wants to keep working with humans; Magneto says he's heard these arguments before and that mutants "are the future [...] not [humans], they no longer matter." We find out that Prof. X is psychic. Magneto leaves.

And now, off to Canada [does this movie move around or what?]. The teenaged girl from Mississipi gets out of the truck and is surprised to find the name on the map she wanted to go to actually represents a rough bar. Entering it, she sees a cage fight start. The challenger in this fight is advised not to hit the champ "in the balls" because he takes it personally. Initially, the challenger lands a few blows, but after kicking "the Wolverine" in the nuts gets slapped down pretty quickly. The crowd boos while the girl watches on.

Sitting at the bar, the girl eyes off the tips jar. Wolverine comes out and gets a beer, only to be accosted by the losing challenger, who says he knows what Wolverine is. The challenger pulls a knife, the girl shrieks a warning and Wolverine has three blades spring from his knuckles and pressed into the challenger's neck in an instant. A teleporting barkeeper [how else do you explain how he moved from behind the counter where he keeps the shotgun to an arm's length away away from Wolverine?] tries to intervene with a shotgun, but Wolverine cuts it in half with blades from his other hand. Wolverine leaves the bar (with the girl close behind him) and leaves in his campervan.

Sometime on the drive, he stops to investigate a knocking sound and finds the girl under a tarpauline in his trailer. Wolverine kicks her out and starts to drive away, but feels bad about it and stops to let her ride in the van with him.

The girl talks at Wolverine - she introduces herself as Rogue (also, they share real names - Wolverine is Logan while Rogue is Marie). In a good character moment, Wolverine reveals that it hurts "every time" the blades pop out of his knuckles. Rogue and Wolverine bond in a big brother / little sister way.

Rogue tells Wolverine to put on his seatbelt. Wolverine says he doesn't "need advice" on it. Pretty much instantly a tree drops down in front of the van, which they crash into. Seatbelt-less Wolverine goes flying quite a distance from the crash while seatbelted Rogue is stuck in the van, pinned by stuff. A fire also starts up in the van on some oily rags that Wolverine is keeping there. [From the looks of things, Wolverine has an oily rag collection in his vanand not much else.]

Wolverine's injuries heal up before our eyes and he goes back to help Rogue, but smells something. He gets attacked by a big guy who looks like he dresses based on fashion advice from Grizzly Adams. Wolverine gets knocked out, and the big man comes towards the van, but gets diverted when two other figures appear. These figures drive the big man away and manage to save Rogue and Wolverine before the van explodes.

At bad guy headquarters, Mountain Man reports his failure to Magneto. Magneto isn't too concerned - he knows where "the mutant" is. [Err... how did you find out about "the mutant" to begin with, Magneto? Or what they could do? It's one of the great unanswered questions of the script. Anyway...]

Wolverine is now in a medical lab, tended to by Jean Grey. He wakes dramatically, partially choking Jean before attempting to escape - a voice guides Wolverine through corridors and a lift up into what looks like a school. Wolverine meets Prof. X, who runs the school, as well as Storm and Cyclops [sure, they have real names, but they're hardly ever used]. Prof. X fills Wolverine on his attack by Magneto's goon, Mountain Man aka Sabretooth. Wolverine is unimpressed by it all, mocking the codenames (asking if Prof. X is called "Wheels" [which apparently was an ad lib by Jackman, instead of saying "Baldie"] but Prof. X offers to help him find out about Wolvie's mysterious past through the use of Prof. X's psychic abilities.

In the theatrical cut version of the above class scene, Prof. X does a voiceover about his School for the Gifted [and drops the whole Christianity link, which I'll go into later on]. Prof. X also shows Wolverine the more paramilitary nature of the school and explains his purpose in helping man- and mutant-kind co-exist. Wolverine agrees to hang around for two days to find out why Magneto is interested in him.

Anti-mutant campaigner Senator Kelly catches a helicopter with his aide. He realises that the helicopter isn't flying in the right direction, then watches in horror as his male aide transforms into a blue-skinned woman. The woman kicks him into unconsciousness, the joins another of Magneto's mutants in the cockpit.

Wolverine and Jean Grey have a character bonding moment before Wolverine is medically scanned. The scan shows that he has "admantium" metal infused in his skeleton and was experimented on by someone in his mysterious past.

Senator Kelly is restrained to a chair and Magneto introduces his team - Toad (yellow skinned) and Mystique (blue-skinned with yellow eyes). [As an exercise, compare the clean cut, attractive young mutants that surround Prof. X with the odd-looking and coloured mutants that surround Magneto. Apparently, ugly people = evil.] Magneto tells him not to fear mutant-kind - "not anymore" - before ascending to a platform above the Senator. Things start spinning and Kelly is engulfed in an expanding white light that comes from the platform.

The theatrical cut shows the above scene, but cut so that it is quicker, with less chatter between Cyclops and Wolverine while the past flashback is increased.

Prof. X is sitting in front of a big, psychic power-enhancing, helmet-controlled computer called Cerebro. He's getting frustrated at not being able to find Magneto. Jean Grey wants to try to use Cerebro - she can "feel my power expanding all the time". Prof. X reminds her that she "lost control" during the Senate hearings [apparently referring a scene cut from both versions of the film where Jean Grey uses her telekinesis to get a file from Kelly - in case you were wondering what the hell Prof. X was talking about. Until I found out about this cut scene, I thought that she was psychically influencing the Senators, which is probably worse]. Jean Grey indicates that she doesn't mind getting involved in Prof. X's fight against Magneto.

At night, Rogue hears Wolverine having nightmares stirred up by Jean Grey's psychic investigations. She wakes him, but he reflexively pops his blades and ends up stabbing her through the shoulder. She reaches out and touches him - Wolverine starts to look drawn, while Rogue's wounds start to heal. Other people gather around just in time to see Wolverine collapse; Rogue flees the room.

Later, Prof. X indicates to Wolverine that Rogue's touch absorbs "their energy, their life force; and if they are a mutant, their powers".

Senator Kelly waits forlornly in a cell in Magneto's headquarters. Accidently, he finds that he squeeze through the bars, stretching like he's made out of rubber. Magneto and Sabretooth arrive to find Kelly out of the cell but clinging to the side of the cliff below the cell. [Because all villain headquarters are located on cliffs, after all.] Kelly is now a mutant - "one of us" according to Magneto. Sabretooth tries to grab Kelly, but Kelly's arm stretches and slips, causing him to fall into the sea below.

Later, Kelly arrives on a populated beach, his mutant abilities on full display and changing body - or perhaps full nudity - shocking onlookers. [Stan Lee sighting is in here, since he just has to appear in all recent Marvel films.] Kelly grabs some clothes and catches a news report about the UN summit where all the world leaders will be.

Bobby meets Rogue in an isolated spot and tells her that everyone hates her and she should leave after what happened to Wolverine. Rogue goes off upset; Bobby's eye turns yellow.

Prof. X and Cyclops chat about Wolverine; Wolverine shows up, stopping the conversation while Prof. X realises that Rogue has run away.

Prof X. uses Cerebro to locate Rogue (and we find out that Magneto helped build this computer). Finding her at the train station, Prof. X sends Storm and Cyclops off to get her while telling Wolverine to stay at the school. Wolverine immediately sets off and, thanks to him stealing Cyclop's rocket motorbike, gets there quickly.

Wolverine talks Rogue into coming back. (We also get to see that there are two Bobby's at the school - one is obviously a fake.)

Mystique sneaks into Cerebro and sabotages it's good blue goo with some murky goo [which makes as much sense written here as it does on the screen, but anyway...]

Wolverine convinces Rogue to "give these geeks one more shot."

Inside the train station, Cyclops and Storm gets attacked by Sabretooth and Toad. Cyclops accidentally does a lot of damage when Toad takes off his glasses, but Storm's lightning bold manages to beat off Sabretooth.

Rogue's train screeches to a halt and is peeled apart by Magneto. Wolverine leaps up to fight, but finds out that having a metal skeleton is a hinderance against a master of magnetism. Magneto then reveals that he isn't at all interested in Wolverine - he wants Rogue. Rogue gets knocked out by a chemical dart.

Magneto, Sabretooth and Toad try to exit the train station with Rogue in tow, but get met by a lot of police. Magneto's powers strip the police of their guns pretty quickly. A nearby Prof. X psychically controls Sabretooth and Toad, but Magneto threatens to kill every cop with their own weapons, so Prof. X lets them go. They escape by Mystique-piloted helicopter.

Wolverine is angry and goes to search for Rogue solo. Storm tries to convince him to stay and help them; to "pick a side" in the coming "war". Wolverine is still set to go, but is stopped by the appearance of Senator Kelly at the front door - he wants Jean Grey [who he knows is a mutant by her actions in a scene that we didn't get to see. It's great when a movie refers not once, but twice, to something that the audience never sees, isn't it?]

Prof. X talks to Kelly and reads his mind to find out what happened to him. He sees that Magneto's platform is actually a magic mutant making machine which uses radiation to turn normal humans into mutants. [Ironicaly, Stan Lee came up with the idea of having people born with powers to get around the problems of having to create origins for getting powers - you know, like how getting exposed to radiation before 1979 would give you superpowers instead of cancer.] However, using the machine leaves Magneto severely weakened. Prof. X and the X-Men realise that Magneto plans to use Rogue to power the machine. Storm gets to watch as Kelly breaks down completely into water as a result of the imposed mutation. Wolverine gets added to the X-Men over Cyclops' objections. Prof. X tries to use Cerebro to find Rogue, but the sabotage causes him to end up in a coma instead.

Jean Grey fixes Cerebro and uses it to find Rogue, despite it causing her great pain.

On Liberty Island, Magneto's brotherhood of not-attractive mutants kill some guards in setting up their plan. [Which just makes you wonder about what type of security the US is providing for the UN world leaders. You'd expect that several guards not reporting in would cause alarm bells to ring, but obviously not.] Magneto reveals to Rogue that she is to be sacrificed so that the world leaders will become "just like us" and that "our cause will become theirs".

[Aside: Which is where the earlier conversion-to-Christianity story takes on relevance - if those is power are mutants, then it follows to Magneto that mutants will become more powerful and hence accepted. Which they might, if only Magneto had tested his mutant making machine on more than one subject and discovered that it would actually turn them to water pretty quickly. It is here that "X-Men" really falls down since the lead villain has one of the lamest plots outside of selling killer face cream to the US public.]

The X-Men plan to take on Magneto.

[But of course this scene had to be deleted: it shows Cyclops not being a bland jerk to Wolverine or as completely ineffective. If I were James Marsden, I'd be a bit annoyed at how little I had to do as a character outside of playing the wimpish nerd to Wolverine's cool tough guy.]

Wolverine complains about the outfits, to which Cyclops makes a wanting "yellow spandex" joke about. [Oh. My sides.] The X-Men leave the school in their stealth jet and fly to Liberty Island - Storm calls up some fog for cover, which alerts Magneto to their approach.

Arriving at the island, Cyclops spots a new addition to the Statue of Liberty [which no-one else saw get put on - despite it being done within the last hour - or has noticed since. You'd think that security would be interested in a new bit appearing on the Statue of Liberty with all those world leaders about, but anyway...]. The X-Men enter an unattended security area [see again: security and the lack thereof] and Wolverine thinks he smells someone. He goes to investigate and returns... but with a duplicate in tow. The Wolverines start to fight, but get separated from the others. Toad attacks the three other X-Men and takes them all down without too much effort thanks to a combination of martial arts, slime and his tongue. [One of my favourite parts of this film was seeing Toad as a genuinely dangerous character - one that makes sense for Magneto to have around, and not just to laugh at.] Elsewhere, the more athletic Mystique is doing a pretty good job in beating up the brawler that is Wolverine.

Storm recovers to blow Toad away with a lightning bolt [and gets to deliver a bad one-liner while doing it too]. Mystique tries to trick Wolverine by pretending to be Storm, but gets stabbed in the gut for her troubles.

The regrouped X-Men travel further up the Statue of Liberty until trapped by flying metal strips. Magneto appears and binds them securely with the strips. Jean Grey reveals that they saw Senator Kelly and that he is dead due to the machine; Magneto questions if they are "sure you saw what you saw" [which is a damn lame way of ducking the issue of what Magneto's intentions are. If he means to turn the world leaders into mutants, he would be better served by live mutants, not dead ones. Anyway...].

The world leaders sit through an openning ceremony.

Magneto monologues a bit about how his plan will help mutant-kind by making "our fate theirs". Wolverine disagrees that since Magneto isn't sacrificing himself then he isn't as "righteous" as he likes to make out. Mageto sets off to start the machine, leaving Sabretooth to stand guard.

Hearing Rogue's cries for help, Wolverine takes the desparate step of putting his claws through his own body in order to cut his bonds. Sabretooth heads over to investigate; Wolverine is healed and ready, starting a fight with this bigger and stronger opponent.

Magneto touches Rogue (who is bound to the machine) and she absorbs his powers. The machine starts.

Wolverine is unable to take down Sabretooth on his own, but manages to end it with teamwork - Cyclops ends up blasting Mountain Man out of the area and it's a long fall to the ground. Having to move quickly, Wolverine has Storm and Jean Grey fly him up to where Rogue and the machine are located.

Wolverine makes the landing, but is prevented from destroying the machine by Magneto's remaining magnetism powers [which seems a bit unbalanced, given that Rogue's touch has dropped everyone else, but hey, it adds dramatic tension and all...]. An expanding area of white light approaches the world leaders. Part of Rogue's fringe turns white under the physical strain of powering the machine. Cyclops manages tag Magneto with an optic blast, letting Wolverine destroy the spinning bit of the machine. The white light dissapates.

Wolverine frees a motionless Rogue. He touches her skin... and nothing happens. Again he tries, holding her close. Wounds start to reopen on Wolverine and blood flows as Rogue absorbs his healing powers. Wolverine collapses, but Rogue is well again.

Security shows up [finally!]. They find a guard who has been stabbed in the stomach (exactly like Mystique was) and an unconscious Magneto. The X-Men take their stealth jet and leave.

Prof. X wakes up in the care of Jean Grey and finds an injured Wolverine on a nearby bed.

Later, Wolverine wakes up and shares a romantic moment with Jean Grey.

Prof X. points Wolverine in the direction of a sequel an abandoned military base that may hold the key to his mysterious past. Wolverine and Rogue say their goodbyes before Wolverine sets off on Cyclop's rocket motorbike.

Prof. X and Magneto play chess in a "plastic prison" that has been designed to hold the master of magnetism. Magneto indicates the war still coming; Prof. X vows to stop Magneto if he tries anything in the future. Cue the sequel.

"X-Men" is a landmark film for several reasons. It is the first big name Marvel Comics movie to be successful, finally paying off against the promise held in their mainstream titles ("Blade" and its sequels don't count, given that Blade was almost an unknown character that was recreated for the big screen). It launched the Marvel movie flood, where a number of other Marvel heavy hitters were turned into films that weren't embarrassments either creatively or financially. Despite it focussing on some characters more than others, it is a successful superhero team movie - a rarity, given that so many superhero films just focus on one main character. Finally, although it no doubt attracted the fanbois who keep the X-Men line comics at the top of the comics charts, it also attracted people who wouldn't be caught dead in a comic book store. "X-Men" is hardly flawless, but it was certainly a stronger film than the sum of its parts, at least on the surface, would suggest.

This is likely due to a number of factors. Firstly, the actors involved were all solid (yes, even Halle Berry as Storm, given that accent). The senior members of the cast, in Sir Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, had the hard task of selling the philosophy and exposition within "X-Men", with both pulling it off near perfectly. In many ways, it is McKellen's performance as Magneto that gives "X-Men" a greater impact than it probably deserves, because he has managed to capture the nobility of a man fighting for a cause. Yes, at times Magneto / McKellen dips into Evil Villain cliche mode (and I'll talk about his "turn world leaders into mutants" plot below) but it is very hard to argue that what he is trying to do isn't somewhat justified. Stewart, who has to do a lot of talking about what has happened / is going to happen, comes across well as Magneto's opposition, but just has less to do, making his Professor X a weaker character by comparison.

On the side of the good guys, it is Hugh Jackman as Wolverine that gets most of the screen time and was the breakthrough performance within "X-Men". He gets both emotional (with Jean Grey and Rogue) and action (with Sabretooth) pieces across the film, managing to pull both types off equally convincingly. Jackman also manages to achieve a perfect balance between Wolverine's standoff-ishness and distrust of others with a charismatic warmth that lets you understand why (most of) the other X-Men around him are willing to let him into their group so quickly. For a character that could have easily slipped into being obnoxious jerk or faux tough guy, Jackman manages to give Wolverine something of substance that extends beyound his mysterious past.

Part of the strength of "X-Men" also comes from its thematic core - of people with differences fighting to be accepted by the majority. Being left out or excluded because you are different in some way is a common human experience, so is easily understandable to an audience. Although the movie doesn't dwell on it too much, it's a theme that is easily accessible - openly homosexual McKellen has publicly stated that he sees parallels between "X-Men" and the struggle for gay rights. Of course, if you start down that path, then you have to consider that "X-Men" has the beautiful righteous people on one side and the evil, ugly coloured people on the other, so perhaps it is best to not look below the surface of "X-Men"'s idea that everyone should be accepted despite their differences.

"X-Men" does have its flaws, and the big one is its script. In many ways, "X-Men" follows all the conventions of superhero movies that have come before it. These conventions have often given comic book movies a bad name. In this case, a talented director in Bryan Singer and a stong cast managed to overcome some of the hurdles - pseudo-scientific dialogue, heavy studio oversight, lots of exposition, high expectations from fanbois, trying to set superpowered beings in the real world, etc - but there are a few stumbles.

Firstly, as a team film, there are lots of different characters that can be given screen time. Obviously, some will suffer from a lack of it. Within "X-Men", the two characters who are most short changed are Cyclops and Storm. Cyclops' only real role appears to be the stiff to Wolverine's coolness, which occurs to the extent that you wonder why anyone would follow him as team leader. Apart from shooting down Magneto and Sabretooth at the finale, he mostly either 1) looks petulant as Wolverine makes eyes at Jean Grey or 2) gets into trouble when fighting Magneto's mutants.

Storm also doesn't get much to do, perhaps because her powers require a bigger budget to do properly. However, Halle Berry's few lines of dialogue are marred by her attempts at an African accent and she doesn't (to me) appear to sit so comfortably in a comic book film.

As such, you can't be blamed for wondering why Cyclops and Storm are even in the movie. They seem like third wheels, when all the action is with Wolverine, Magneto and Mystique.

Secondly, Magneto's plot is one of the lamest to appear on screen from a comic book supervillain, which is even more of a pity since I'm sure there are numerous better examples that could be taken from established comic book storylines. Apparently, after building his Magical Mutant Making Machine - which would have to be a scientific breakthrough of some kind - Magneto only tests it exactly once on Senator Kelly before going to New York to convert the world leaders into mutants. The fact that the machine will see the world leaders turned into water a couple of days later is something that Magneto has apparently never worked out for himself. For a world-class genius villain, that's a pretty stupid course of action.

Because once those world leader / mutants liquify, they aren't going to be replaced by people more sympathetic to Magneto's cause; if anything, his life will be harder as he is recognised as a terrorist responsible for the deaths of some very important people. All mutant kind would be tarred with that brush. Magneto would have the war on mutants that he believes is coming - not that he's opposed to that, but it certainly isn't his aim to start it in the film.

When confronted with proof that perhaps his Mutant Making Machine doesn't work like he thought it would, Magneto dismisses it with a very lame line of dialogue and the movie cuts to another location to distract the audience from thinking about it. Unfortunately, people like me DO think about stuff like this, and while Magneto's plot sounds interesting on a broad level, once you get down to the details it seriously blows as a plan. Since it is this plan that is key to the entire third act of "X-Men", it leaves a very big hole that other aspects in the movie are fortunately strong enough to gloss over.

Finally, "X-Men" does its best to make us think of X-Men as the good guys and Senator Kelly as the slimy politican, but at no time do they make a reasonable argument that answers his opening question in the negative: "Are mutants dangerous?". All evidence in the movie points to "Yes" as the answer to that question. Any one of the mutants seen in "X-Men" could cause serious damage to others (financial or physical) with their powers. What is more, they are happy to use their powers blatantly, with little regard for others, when it suits their cause. As much as Professor X wants human- and mutant-kind to live peacefully together, he certainly doesn't involve humans in any of his decisions and doesn't mind sending his team of operatives off carte blanche to stop Magneto - they break laws, cause property damage and assault other people, but it's okay because they are the "good" guys. Given those actions, it is hard to argue that Kelly isn't a bit right to want more attention paid to mutants by the government.

But all of these complaints are fairly minor in the big scheme of things. "X-Men" is an enjoyable popcorn superhero flick and the breakthrough hit that Marvel was looking for after so many years of embarrassing big screen conversions.

Given that X-Men comics have 40-odd years of history and backstory to them, it is little wonder that "X-Men" kept everything mostly simple when showing them on the screen. Despite a few small changes, few could argue that "X-Men" doesn't keep true to the spirit of the comics as well as getting the characters moslty right.

Although not without flaws, "X-Men" is very watchable and a good adaption of one of the comic book world's staple titles.

Magneto's plot really, truly, awfully sucks. The rest of the film, however, keeps things mostly out of the land of the Funktastic.

Date of review: 22 September 2005

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