X-Men (2000)

Possibly the hardest of all movies to make is a movie based on a comic book. The comics are a medium all their own. They contain fantastical imagery and bigger than life characters. The only limitations are the boundaries of the imagination of those who write and draw them. In a medium like that X-Men rose above them all as a wildly popular storyline. It would seem then that possibly the hardest movie to make would be X-Men.

None the less, 20th Century Fox did just that. They were more than a little skittish about the affair considering the colossal failure of Warner Bros. Batman and Robin. So director Bryan Singer was handed a rather modest $75 million dollar budget to make a summer blockbuster movie. Kind of sounds unfair doesn't it? Asking someone to make an extraordinarily difficult movie on a relatively small budget. Add on intense scrutiny from legions of fans across the world and this could easily be a recipe for disaster. So how did it turn out?

Only time will tell how X-Men fares at the box office but the movie itself can stand proudly as an example of how to make a movie based on a comic book.

One of the biggest problems with making such a movie is that comic book characters have long established histories prior to making the leap to the big screen. Condensing that into something easily understood by non-fans is difficult. As the movie opens we see a brief back story introduction to two characters, the mutants Magneto and Rogue.

Magneto was born Erik Lehnsherr and as a young man he and his family were forced into concentration camps by the Nazis. Erik is separated from his parents and as he struggles to get to them his mutant powers emerge. It takes several guards to try and hold him as he reaches out to an iron fence with his mind, pulling on it and bending it all out of shape. The scene is important for two reasons. One it establishes the underlying theme of the comic, which is dealing with racial intolerance. The X-Men exist in a world where normal people hate and fear mutants. The other is that it establishes Magneto's mindset. He has witnessed this hatred up close and it cost him his family. He will not allow this to happen to his kind and is willing to fight for them by any means necessary. He's not necessarily evil. Instead, he's simply not afraid to step on others to further his cause.

The other introduction is of Rogue. Her real name is Marie and she lives in Tennessee. During an intimate moment with her boyfriend, they kiss for the first time. Her powers manifest themselves for the first time as she steals his life force during this simple contact. Scared and horrified by nearly killing him she runs away from home. This quickly points out the other major theme of the comic. These powers can just as easily be a curse as a gift. Rogue can never enjoy the simple pleasure of touching another person.

The movie moves to a Senate committee meeting where a law is being debated that would require the registration of mutants. There is an obvious corollation between this and the tatoos put on Jewish prisoners in the Nazi concentration camps. In this room we meet Senator Kelly, a McCarthy-esque figure leading the charge for mutant registration. He is the symbol of the fear, hatred and intolerance focused on mutants.

Soon after we find Rogue hitchhiking into Canada. She enters a bar where we meet the star of the movie. A man named Logan is making money fighting other men in a steel cage. He beats them easily while never seeming to suffer so much as a scratch. Confronted later we find that he too is a mutant. Threatened by one of the men he fought earlier, Logan pins him to the wall with a pair of metal claws that erupt from between his knuckles. Slowly a third claw emerges and inches towards the man's neck. The bartender attempts to intercede with a shotgun which is quickly reduced to scrap by claws from Logan's other hand.

The special effects used in these early scenes are quiet and understated but very effective. These people have fantastical powers but they still seem grounded in the real world. Unlike a lot of other comic book movies, the world around them isn't as strange as it's characters. The characters blend right in for the most part. That's the part that causes so much fear, anyone could be a mutant.

The acting is generally excellent. Hugh Jackman as Wolverine/Logan is the star of the movie and he is as close to perfect as is possible for the role. Logan is gruff, bad tempered and capable of extreme violence. At the same time he has a heart and will go to extreme lengths to protect and defend those that he cares about. Jackman embodies those qualities and manages to very much look the part as well. Logan can't remember his past. At some point someone experimented on him, coating his skeleton with an unbreakable metal and giving him the claws. His power to heal at an extraordinary rate made such experimentation possible. However, whoever did it to him stole his memories and now he wanders aimlessly, trying to learn who he is.

Anna Paquin is also great. She really makes it clear how frightening it is to this young girl to suddenly develop these powers and find herself in the middle of a race war she barely understands. She is the perfect foil to Logan. She is as scared and sensitive as he is fierce and prickly. Together they make quite a pair and form the movie's heart and soul.

Patrick Stewart plays Professor Charles Xavier, a telepathic mutant who runs a school to teach mutants how to deal with their abilities. Stewart is great and brings the proper weight and heart to the character. Xavier wants peace between humans and mutants but he's willing to fight for it. On the other side of the coin is Ian McKellen as Magneto. Magneto wants the end of mutant persecution and he's willing to fight for it. Both men want to protect their race but take completely different paths to the same end. McKellen certainly can't match the barrel chested imposing figure as drawn in the comic but other wise perfectly embodies the character. This is a villain with a real reason for what he does. He's not simply evil for the sake of being evil.

This is really the beauty of the movie. It's about the people not the effects. Things aren't as simple as good and evil. Magneto's not evil. He just wants to protect his people. Senator Kelly isn't evil. He too wants to protect his people. Xavier wants the same thing but these three factions are all fighting one another. A telling line is when Senator Kelly and the shape shifting mutant Mystique meet and she tells him, "People like you are the reason I never went to school."

The movie is character driven but its biggest flaw may be an excess of characters. Xavier's school contains countless young mutants, some of whom will be recognizable to fans of the comic. His three oldest students are the weather controlling Storm, the telekinetic Jean Grey and Cyclops, capable of firing blasts of energy from his eyes. With the movie's focus on Wolverine, Rogue, Xavier and Magneto, these three get minimal development. There just isn't enough time for every character to be well defined.

Magneto's henchmen, Mystique, the lion-like Sabretooth and the aptly named Toad receive even less development. Mystique is almost exclusively a special effect, albeit a fascinating one. Naked and blue skinned she is both sultry and deadly. Rebecca Romijn-Stamos gets only the one line as Mystique but she makes up for it with an impressive physical performance. Sabretooth's powers are poorly defined and mostly appears to be a thug. Toad is fun to watch. Played by Ray Park (The Phantom Menace's Darth Maul) he is both amusing and disgusting. They do Magneto's dirty work but as people we learn nothing about them.

I brought along a friend for the movie who was almost completely unfamiliar with the comic book. He came away impressed and saying it was pretty damn cool. I mention this because the acid test of such a movie is how it works for people not already familiar with the characters and story. X-Men stands on it's own merits as a movie. No previous experience with the comic is necessary to enjoy it. It's a well thought out and well acted movie. Hopefully this will prove a blueprint for future comic book movies. There is plenty of room for numerous sequels and for once I don't consider that a bad thing. I would love to see more of the X-Men on the big screen if they continue to be handled this well.

- John Shea