An X-asperating lack of character development.

Rating: Null/10 (18 July 2000)

Thus, after the barrage of previews, we went to see The X-Men. I found it to be a Batmanish film-dark and brooding with excellent cinematography and special effects. My end reaction, though, was that it lacked story development. I sort of sensed that before I went in from all that I had pre-seen.
In the near future, certain members of homo sapiens are born into the next phase of human evolution. This is what we are told. But why each evolves into a different life form is never explained. No two mutants are alike, leaving us to question whether humanity is doomed beyond this simple show of genetic godfreaks for lack of an ability to mate. The film is flawed by an all too sparse character development. The greatest insight we have of anyone is of Rogue, played by Anna Paquin, whom most of us remember as the little girl in The Piano and later in Fly Away Home. Rogue is a teenage girl, who can never touch another person, for to do so drains their very life force. Yet she seems almost content with this; being a virtual leper, never being able to so much as kiss another individual, let alone have sex with anyone. All she could do was run away. Here was a mutant who should have had the curse of immortality, unable to end her own life. And with her acceptant attitude, perceptions of plausibility faded from whom she was meant to be.
Two of the mutants had not so much as one line-Sabertooth and Mystique, the latter played by drop-dead gorgeous Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, whose face one could not even seen though the blue reptilian scales. Patrick Steward and Ian McKellen gave adequate performances with what they were given. I remember watching Gods and Monsters recently, and thinking how much Ian McKellen sounded like Patrick Steward and how similar were their eyes and here they were like diametric twins.
Famke Janssen, who plays Jean Grey, although having considerable credits to her name, is relatively unknown to the general public. Star Trek fans, however, may remember her in a Next Generation episode back in 1992 called The Perfect Mate [a quasi-remake of an original Star Trek episode, Elaan Of Troyius, with France Nuyan]. In The Next Generation, Janssen played Kamala, a metamorph who would mentally bond with the man with chosen for her. A pawn of interplanetary politics, as fate would have it, she bonded tragically to Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Steward), her mentor in this film, whom she would never see again, at least as Kamala.
McCarthy-esque Senator Robert Jefferson Kelly , played by Bruce Davidson, shared credits with McKellen in Apt Pupil back in 1996. Hugh Jackman gives a credible performance a Wolverine, the amnesiac mutant with metal talons someone has grafted into his arms, which project outwards through his ever-healing flesh in moments of rage. Gone for the most part was the Iceman, a significant character throughout early X-Men comic book history, probably because the special effects of creating bridges of ice would have been prohibitively expensive. Gone, too, were some scenes shown in the Making of the X-Men recently on Fox, including one where the Senator's daughter turns into a mutant before everyone's eyes, as her neck begins to stretch upward like Plasticman. Whoever was responsible for the previews missed the point, as did the writers. The X-Men was to represent the next stage of evolution. If only the screenplay could have evolved beyond the formula plot as well. This should have been a three hour film. Character development and character interrelations were left on the cutting room floor in some mutantless dimension where quality takes precedence over box office sales. How this brings to mind the theatrical release of The Abyss and its unsatisfying end!
Well, undoubtedly there will be a sequel and, undoubtedly, too, some adult entertainment company will mutate this into The XXX-Men, which, more than likely and in totally contrast will have "in-depth" character relations and absolutely no plot. Welcome to America.