A pretty good summer movie

Rating: Null/10 (15 July 2000)

This was a pretty good summer movie... It's good to see Marvel Comics finally get a good film franchise started.
The characters were well done. Obviously, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen steal the show. Portraying Scott Summers as a preppie refugee from Beverly Hills, 90210 was definitely a good move. The special effects were great without overtaking the movie.
That said, this movie was a little confused. On one hand, it tried to deal with substantial themes of fear, human rights, being seen as a freak by others, etc. However, when you get right down to it, the plot could be summed up as '"The Heroes" must save "The City" from "Certain Destruction" at the hands of "The Villains."' This is standard 60s-era DC Comics boilerplate and the exact same plot as "James Bond: The World is Not Enough" and "Mystery Men." However, "Mystery Men" was a spoof, and the Bond films were always a bit self-deprecating. "X-Men" tries to be much more serious but then opts for a formulaic plot (and it's not self-conscious about it at all). It would have been a great summer movie if the deeper themes were more well-developed OR if there were no deeper themes at all and they just opted for a fun action movie. As it was, I came away feeling that it claimed to be so much more, but they copped-out at the end, leaving me with just another big-budget summer movie.
It was a nice setup for what I hope are good sequels, though.
-Dean