X-Men
Rated
PG-13
Opens Friday,
July 14
X-Men
creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby are responsible for such
superheroes as the Incredible Hulk, the Fantastic Four,
the Avengers and Silver Surfer.
Director Bryan
Singer and Ian McKellan worked together in Apt Pupil.
Hugh Jackman,
who plays Wolverine, was a last-minute replacement for actor
Dougray Scott (Mission: Impossible 2), who was forced
to drop out of X-Men.
When Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created The Uncanny X-Men
in 1963, they added more than a new cast of a characters
to the then-in-its-infancy Marvel Universe, which included
Spider-man, Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk. Lee
and Kirby's creation--a team of super-powered mutants dedicated
to protecting a world that fears and hates them--would become
an epic tale of mythic proportions. Characters have died
and been resurrected. Heroes have become villains and villains
have saved the day. Now the characters of the best-selling
comic book face their greatest challenge--translation from
printed page to movie screen. It's a knock-down, drag-out
battle, but one from which they emerge victorious.
X-Men begins in Poland during the second World War,
as young Eric Lehnsherr is separated from his family while
they are marched off to the gas chambers. As the young boy
fights to be with his family, he begins to manifest an amazing
ability to manipulate metal--he becomes a living magnet.
Jump ahead 60-plus years. Mankind is slowly evolving into
a new species of super-powered mutants--Homo superior.
Enter Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), a powerful
telepath who wants to see mutants and mankind live in peace,
despite the efforts of Sen. Robert Kelly (Bruce Davison),
a McCarthy-like anti-mutant crusader. Xavier has formed
his School for the Gifted, an institution designed to help
mutants like Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Rogue (Anna Paquin)
cope with their differences and hone their powers. Xavier
is also mentor to the X-Men, a team of highly trained mutants
who have sworn to defend the world from Magneto (Ian McKellan),
a much older, world-weary and bitter Lehnsherr who has seen
firsthand the evil mankind represents. Magneto and his evil
"brotherhood" are preparing for the inevitable war he believes
will be fought between humans and mutants--a war he plans
to win.
With more than 40 years of mythology to potentially screw
up, X-Men uncannily manages to succeed where so many
other comic-book adaptations like Batman and Robin
have failed. Director Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects)
treats the story and the characters as seriously as a film
of this nature allows. Sure, there are a few liberties taken:
Costumes have been radically altered--looking like something
out of The Matrix--and some of the actors, like Jackman,
don't physically resemble their comic counterparts. But
the movie works, maintaining the precarious balance between
placating die-hard comic fans and entertaining mainstream
audiences. Jackman gives a break-out performance as Wolverine,
the film's central character, and McKellan's Magneto is
a multidimensional mix of villainy and understandable rage.
X-Men runs the risk of collapsing under the weight
of its large ensemble cast and several subplots, and at
times it does stumble, but Singer manages to handle the
load. Favoring character development over action--which
isn't a bad thing, especially since the action scenes work
so well--Singer has created an entertaining film that does
justice to its source material.
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