The following is an in-depth story analysis. If you haven't seen this movie, you might want to before reading this review
X-Men is the movie that started the onslaught of Marvel films throughout the 2000's. Blade was Marvel's first, and it was successful, but, X-Men was the first big, popular Marvel film franchise that finally made it to the big screen, and not for a lack of trying before that. Back in 1989, James Cameron was supposed to do a version, but the film company he was going to use, which was called Carolco, went bank robbed and the deal fell through. Then Fox decided to buy the movie rights in 1994, after the success of The X-Men: Animated Series. The first script for Fox, made by Andrew Kevin Walker, was very similar to the arc of stories of the first season in the tv show. The big difference is that besides Wolverine, because, you can't possibly have a good X-Men film without Wolverine, right?, this script used all five original X-Men: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Angel and Ice-Man. However, that script fell through, and various writers turned in scripts throughout the 90's, including John Logan, and Joss Whedon, before Bryan Singer finally took the director's chair, and eventually did a script with David Hayter, which is what finally made the movie that we have now. Singer didn't want to do the movie in the first place because he thought that X-Men did not have intelligent literature, then apparently he got off his high horse, and read some comics, and watched the Fox show, and decided there was something worthwhile here after all. Singer's version was more serious, and realistic, and, really, a lot smarter than the film might have been without him, and although it bugged me that he first dismissed it, his serious treatment of it makes it mostly respectful to the source material. Also, it's more legitimate to movie fans who might not know anything about the X-Men. My point is, if the movie has been made in 89, or 94, it might not have achieved the same popularity, and Marvel's big string of huge superhero films might not have happened.
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So here's the plot, senator Kelly is spearheading a mutant registration act to protect regular humans; Magneto, who believes mutants are better than humans, won't let that happen, so he builds a machine that will turn many of the world's leaders into mutants, so that the mutant cause will be theirs as well. Wolverine, meanwhile, meets Rogue, a runaway who steals a life force from anyone she touches. The X-Men rescues them both from Sabretooth, and take the back to the X-Mansion where Wolverine learns who Professor Xavier is, and about his school for mutants. Magneto kidnaps Rogue, and plans to use her to power his machine. The X-Men finally stop Magneto from turning the worldly leaders into mutants, but not until after he uses it against senator Kelly, which kills him, because his mutation was too unstable. Turns out, that's what would've happened to all the world leaders too, but Magneto won't listen to the X-Men, when they tell him that. Magneto is put to a plastic prison at the end, but of course, we all know that won't hold him for long.
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I like the serious tone this film takes. Whilst it certainly has its moments of humour, and it's not about making fun of itself for using character alias, like Cyclops and Storm, there's a part where Wolverine asks Xavier if he goes by "Wheels", this is a superhero team that exists for a very serious reason. They're not the Super Friends, helping out just because they can. They have a real cause, not unlike that Martin Luther King jr. What Singer found interesting was to use the X-Men's powers to further the story, rather than the story being just an excuse to show off their powers, like a scene in which Wolverine accidentally stabs Rogue with his claws, and she's forced to use her powers against him, to gain his healing powers so she'll survive.
I like how it's not just an origin film for every single character, and yet Rogue's and Wolverine's, or at least his origins as far as the X-Men know, but everyone else is firmly established as having worked with Xavier for a long time.
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This is just a set-up movie. X2 has more of a complex plot. X-Men certainly has a plot, but it spends more time setting up characters, than weaving an interesting tale.
There's a lot of criticism that Wolverine is overused in all the X-Men movies, and that other X-Men are underused, and I agree with that completely. I like Wolverine, and I like Hugh Jackman's portrayal of him, but we never get enough stuff about Cyclops, who is completely shacked in the next few movies, Jean Grey, although X2 does more with her, and Storm, until X3, and after seeing what little has been done with her there, I wish we should have kept our mouth shut.
There's a lot of criticism that Wolverine is overused in all the X-Men movies, and that other X-Men are underused, and I agree with that completely. I like Wolverine, and I like Hugh Jackman's portrayal of him, but we never get enough stuff about Cyclops, who is completely shacked in the next few movies, Jean Grey, although X2 does more with her, and Storm, until X3, and after seeing what little has been done with her there, I wish we should have kept our mouth shut.
X-Men: This movie is very effective, but not perfect. Some places it feels like a pilot for a series than a stand alone film. The film success was great for film, but not great for comics(for a while).
7.25/10
Marvel seemed obsess of trying to make its books look more like the movie, so the characters started wearing black suits, and Wolverine just looked silly. Bryan Singer was right on to not use colourful costumes with the serious themes of the movie, but that doesn't translate at all in the comics, so I'm sure glad those days were pretty much over.