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Hey guys, kanna here! So, with Days of Future Past out today and iMovie being downright annoying, I figured I'd bring you another installment of my X-Men review series! Yay! So, let's go over the rules just one more time. These reviews will be in order of continuity to the best of my ability (because, as we all know, The Last Stand screwed up continuity), and we will be ignoring the spin-offs (Origins and The Wolverine).
If you haven't read my First Class review, check it out: X-Men: First Class. You don't need to have read it to understand what's going on here, but if you have, great!
So, without further ado...X-MEN!!!!
We have a pretty good cast for this one. Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, Hugh Jackman are our headliners for this movie. Other cast members include Shawn Ashmore, James Marsden, Famke Janssen, Anna Paquin, and Alex Burton.
Let's get to the story.
Our movie opens up with a classic Patrick Stewart narration.
"Space, the final--"
Sorry, I was having a Star Trek: The Next Generation moment (because, for those who don't know, Patrick Stewart was in Star Trek: The Next Generation as Captain Jean-Luc Picard). I can only imagine how hard it was for Patrick Stewart NOT to call James Marsden Geordi when they were filming the movie. Here's the real narration:
"Mutation: it is the key to our evolution. It has enabled us to evolve from a single-celled organism into the dominant species on the planet. This process is slow, and normally taking thousands and thousands of years. But every few hundred millennia, evolution leaps forward."
We then cut to young Erik Lensherr (Magneto) at a concentration camp in Poland in the year 1944, and...wait a minute. Isn't this the same as First Class? Well, sort of.
In this movie, they had a different actor playing young Magneto. Bryan Singer, who directed X-Men and X2: X-Men United, actually re-shot this entire scene for First Class and got Bill Milner to play young Magneto, while in this movie, he got Brett Morris to play young Magneto. Parts of this footage was actually used in X-Men: First Class, while Bill Milner played young Magneto in First Class during the coin scene. For the record, I have have not seen anything that Bill Milner was in besides First Class. I have no idea who Brett Morris is outside of X-Men. Sorry.
Anyway, young Magneto metal-bends the gate and gets knocked out before we cut to our next scene "in the not too distant future" in Meridian, Mississippi. We see a girl named Marie (Anna Paquin) and her boyfriend talking about a road trip, when the two start making out. However, Marie touches her boyfriend, and starts to absorb his life force, thus putting him into a coma. Marie's family freaks out and she runs away to Alberta, Canada, where she meets everyone's favorite mutant, one of Marvel's most marketable characters since insert-name-of-Avenger-here, WOLVERINE!!!!
But before we go into more detail about Wolverine and Marie (who are pretty much the focus of the movie), we also get our first appearances of two of our three headliners: Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan. They're at a meeting where Senator Robert Kelly is trying to pass the "Mutant Registration Act." This act would require all mutants to reveal their identities and abilities. Professor X/Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto/Erik Lensherr (Ian McKellan) discuss their opinions on the relationship between mutants and humans. Magneto believes that mutants should dominate the human race and views humans as an outdated species. Professor X, however, believes that mutants and humans can coexist.
We then get this really long bit of dialog between Marie (who now goes by the name Rogue) and Wolverine (I'm not calling him Logan, his real name, because I think that in the context of X-Men, Wolverine sounds WAY more badass), before they are attacked by a mutant named Sabretooth (Tyler Mane). Sabretooth was under orders from Magneto to capture Rogue, but he was stopped thanks to a rescue from Cyclops/Scott Summers (James Marsden) and Storm/Ororo Munroe (Halle Berry).
Cyclops and Storm take Rogue and Wolverine to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. The two are introduced to Professor X, an extremely powerful telepath, as well as the head and founder of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.
The story kind of drags on in this one. This was a movie that was under two hours long, but felt like it was about three or four hours. Sometimes, that can be a good thing. But in this movie...it just made it long. Really, really long.
Overall rating: 7.5 out of 10
Why: This is an adaptation. I understand that changes have to be made, but in the comics, Rogue didn't just have the whole "no touching people" power. She could also fly, and she had super strength. In this adaptation, they just stripped her of those powers. While it would be interesting if there was a little bit more development of her powers and her character in the movie, we only get three really short scenes of character development that don't really develop her character at all. She pretty much did nothing but act helpless the whole movie. With adaptations, the changes have to MAKE SENSE. This was one that just...didn't. Why? Um...ask someone who might have some idea. Because I have no idea why.
Legendary actors such as Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, and Halle Berry were SERIOUSLY underused. I understand that this was a Rogue and Wolverine centered film. I really do. However, Storm's role in the movie was seriously screwed up. They just turned her into this person who could do fun little tricks with the weather, and that's it. Um...why?
You have this incredible conflict between Charles and Magneto that has been going on for years and it's barely referenced. The conflict does come into play a bit later on in the movie, but it's BARELY there. When do you get this conflict in more detail? Oh...only A MOVIE OR TWO LATER.
Personally, I think the people making this were just too dependent on there being sequels. Granted, people who read the X-Men comics or watched the cartoon (or just spoiled everything for themselves by looking it all up online and spending HOURS upon HOURS studying the world of X-Men) probably knew that there would be sequels. But this begs the question of who the target audience was. Fans of the comics/cartoon? People who had heard of X-Men through friends/family/media? Fans of Marvel Comics in general? WHO WAS IT? Dennis Harvey, a critic from the film section of Variety, said:
"X-Men plays like a so-so middle chapter of an epic series rather than a fitting kickoff."If you want to read the rest of the review he gave: Dennis Harvey's X-Men Review
I looked on Rotten Tomatoes, and the movie ranked #3 on the X-Men Movies by Tomatometer. 82% of all critics gave it a positive review. Personally, I did like the movie, and while it wasn't one of my favorites, it still was pretty good. If you're a newcomer to X-Men, I'd watch First Class before watching X-Men. While First Class isn't completely true to the comics (*cough*ADAPTATION*cough*), it's still good for people who don't want to read the comics.
Oh, and we got a seriously awesome fight scene done by the original Mystique herself, Rebecca Romijin-Stamos.
So...sorry about the lack of pics and such. Lots going on here in the real world, and I still haven't seen Days of Future Past. Rest assured, it's going to happen. This week, with any luck. Anyway, stay tuned for the next X-Men review, X2: X-Men United! This is kanna, signing off. Bye!
