Waste of Time

Rating: Null/10 (19 December 2006)

Once upon a time, director Brian Singer (The Usual Suspects) pitched a very ambitious X-Men to the studio, a $175 million extravaganza including all of the characters from the comic book (some to be entirely computer-generated). But the studio quickly clipped Singer's wings, demanding he keep production costs down. I suppose you get what you pay for.
For instance, the filmmakers wanted the plot to revolve around Wolverine - a muscle-bound mutant with razor-sharp metal claws. Instead the studio gave them an actual wolverine, a small but ferocious woodchuck-type creature. To make it worse, they weren't able to pay for a professional wolverine handler, so throughout the film you see one of the other X-Men carrying Wolverine around in a small cage. During the few scenes when Wolverine actually gets into the action, they just use a stuffed wolverine and clever editing. And don't jump on me for nitpicking - it's pretty noticeable. The animal in the cage is brown, with dark eyes. When it's out, all the sudden it's bright red and makes a giggling sound when somebody touches it. There are rumors they used a Tickle Me Elmo doll for the part.
Singer also wanted the popular character Cyclops (who in the comic has a visor that unleashes a devastating beam) to play a major role in the film. The studio replaced that character with StareMaster, a featureless man with the superhuman ability to stare motionlessly at an object for days at a time. StareMaster is played by a department store mannequin.
There are other complaints, more than I can get into here. The character of Storm (Halle Berry) no longer has the ability to control the weather (as she does in the comic) but can now only observe the weather. There's one scene at the beginning where she displays her "power," and it goes something like this:
Rain slowly begins to fall on the group of X-Men. STORM steps away from the group, and gazes into the sky, a look of intense concentration washes over her face.
STORM Wait! I think..... it's raining!
DR. X She's right! I hope this doesn't interfere with StareMaster's staring powers!
STAREMASTER .........
WOLVERINE That tickles! Ha ha ha ha ha!!!
Get the picture? The in-X-plicable budget limits the studio set on the X-Men are also the reason why the film has a grade C cast; for the part of Dr. X, the filmmakers wanted Patrick Stewart (Star Trek: The Next Generation) but instead got Patrick Swayze (Road House). For super bad-guy Magneto they wanted classical actor Ian McKellan (Apt Pupil), but got Dom Deluise (Cannon Ball Run 2).
Well, I say from now on if you're gonna do a big-time comic book movie, do it right. Hopefully the upcoming Fantastic Four film (starring John Ritter, Mickey Rourke, Jim J. Bullock and Dennis Rodman) will have more to offer than this worthless piece of X-crement.
I give X-Men one star.
*