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| Relevant Sites: www.x-men-the-movie.com , www.x-men.com , www.marvel.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||
The X-Men Store
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| HugeReviews.com
Reviews:
A
very successful transition:
X-Men Review Christian De Matteo SuperI should start by saying that I had not wanted to see this movie. There was a period of about eight years of my life that I spent blowing most, if not all of my money, on comic books, mostly Marvel and during that time I read a lot of X-Men comics. This was the Jim Lee/Rob Liefeld era for those of you who know. I would never claim to be a great expert— we leave that to Mark— but I was certainly well-versed and director Bryan Singer’s vision I watched in the badly conceived previews tipped off my spider sense, crying out, “He screwed up the X-Men.” The casting looked miserable, the story insipid and the look cartoony. I’ve been burned one too many times by Hollywood’s attempt at bringing the magic of comics to the big screen and I no longer receive the news of a comic book movie with the excitement I once did. Regardless of this, Mike dragged me just short of kicking and screaming to a matinee, soothing me with the fact that I at least wouldn’t be paying full price. And so the movie started and we looked at each other wondering if we’d wandered into the wrong theater, a stark, chilling vision of Nazi concentration camps strikingly realistic before us. And the movie was great. I watched it again last night since my DVD copy had just arrived in the mail. Again I found myself completely engrossed in the reality of this world that almost didn’t look that different from ours. Singer’s vision, it turned out was perfect. How does one make a live-action screen depiction of a colorful comic book realistic and not like the old Batman TV show. Simple, you inject as much reality into every scene that you can, permeate the film with it so that the fantastic basic premise almost has to exist because it too becomes part of the reality. First of all, Singer changed their costumes from the various extravagant ones Marvel has presented since 1963 and gave them simple uniforms built for practicality over flair, but certainly not without flair. Second of all, he smartly amped up the political human rights aspect of the comics that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby built the series on from the beginning. Some commentary has been tossed about that the Martin Luther King/Malcolm X was too heavy-handed with Xavier and Magneto, but no bones have ever been made about that being one of the main real life basis’ for the characters and much of the plots. As for casting, almost all my problems dissolved. Obviously Hugh Jackman was perfect as Wolverine. He nailed the comic persona of Logan as a real person and had the exact crude likability of the comic Wolverine. Anna Paquin couldn’t have been more perfect as Rogue. BUT, Storm looked wrong. Storm is a powerful, strong AND beautiful black woman, much more along the lines of Angela Bassett then Berry. Don’t get me wrong, there was nothing wrong with her acting (minus her here-sometimes/gone-other-times accent) but she was not the comic Storm that I grew up with. I still have those incredible images of Jim Lee’s raging Storm rising up to strike down the wrath of the heavens on the Brotherhood. Through no fault of her own, Berry was never meant to play that role. But regardless, Singer (The Usual Suspects), in his infinite wisdom, has created a wonderful and fun movie where something is at stake, where politics exist, but that never slips into the preachy soapbox danger zone. As you watch, you can feel his respect for the comics and his firm hold on reality, the two factors that combine to make X-Men a fun and exciting movie, and one of the few successful transitions from the colored page to the silver screen.
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X-cellent:
X-Men Review Super
X-Men
is a superhero movie, simple as that.
Therefore, the review should be just as simple. X-Men is a truly great superhero movie that makes the
recent Spawn films and Batman sequels look
even worse than they actually were, although I’m not
sure that’s possible.
Bryan Singer has found the formula to make a
comic book real, yet still enjoyable and, most
importantly, still fun. 1)
Save
money. It’s
not necessary to throw millions of dollars into a comic
book movie. 2) Have a plot. The story of the film, like in comic books, drives the plot just as much as the look. 3) Get good actors. Could anyone other than Patrick Stewart have played Dr. Xavier? I don’t think so. 4) Keep it short. At about an hour and 45 minutes, X-Men is just the right length for a good time. 5) Have fun: The most important aspect. The film looks like Singer had fun directing, the actors had fun acting, and the writer had fun writing. Let us hope the unavoidable sequels keep in mind the essence of this film. X-Men is just a good time, and if you can have that, even the few negative qualities become less annoying. More importantly, the good qualities become better.
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