A good superhero film adaptation, though a below-average movie.

Rating: 7/10 (16 July 2000)

Despite the fact that my days as an avid X-Men devotee finished a half decade ago, I was ecstatic upon being subjected to the reputation that this film was beginning to garner a couple of months prior to its release. Thus, I patiently awaited for the movie to arrive with the anticipation level rising more and more as the days neared, my long-lost fanboy traits making every single fraction of a second nearly unbearable to experience. Afterall, who could resist seeing the legendary X-Men emerge on the silver screen after so many years of biding?
Unfortunately, I allowed my expectations to get the best of me, and as a result walked out of the theater not only slightly disappointed, but ashamed that I had expected this to be one of the best movies of the year.
The first factor that disillusioned me was the commercial campaign of the movie--things such as the X-Men television special, which revolved rather heavily on governmental mutant control, and the Mutant Watch website. Both painted the image that this particular film would not only bring forth the subject of discrimination, but in addition, discuss it to depths which could be deemed unprecedented in the genre of superhero/action films. Yet alas, the foregoing does not happen to prove true, and the fashion in which the subject emerges and "thrives" in the film adds the proverbial, lackluster Hollywood flare that so many of us hold dear.
Secondly, it is to be expected that villains in superhero movies should possess a certain degree of superficiality; but everything up to this point had suggested that at the very least, Magneto and Mystique would be the antagonists who would be most explored, while Toad and Sabretooth would play relatively minor roles. On the other hand, the reality of the situation is that Magneto is characterized by relatively weak scenes (with the exception of the opening of the movie), whereas all of the other characters utter no more than two or three lines each in the entirety of the film. A real disappointment indeed, as the major fights in the movie become devoid of any emotion whatsoever due to this.
As far as the protagonists of the story are concerned--I'll simply state that this movie should have been called "The Adventures of Wolverine and Rogue." They are the only two characters that are explored to a satisfactory degree (with rather excellent scenes in the beginning and end of the movie, no less), while Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Storm are simply there to provide a higher number to the group should the need for battle ever arise, with a slightly-explored Charles Xavier serving as mentor. Honestly, where are the admirable leadership traits of Cyclops, the legendary rivalry between him and Wolverine, the "Get away from Jean or I'll kill you" scenes? The rivalry is essentially established by Wolverine demanding that Cyclops move away from a door, and despite the fact that Cyclops at one point mentions for Wolverine to "Stay away from [his] woman," not once do we see the couple together.
And, this may seem like a bit of nit-picking, but for such a high-budget movie, there are a number of scenes that really could have afforded to be redone in different techniques. At one point in the movie Wolverine is flung about, and his body becomes contorted as it slides across the ground to the point where it elicited laughter from the audience in a rather serious moment. The Blackbird looks like a miniature toy as it lands and moves about half of the time, and the characters, when punched or kicked, fly backwards for yards on wires and arch their way upwards in a -very- unrealistic manner. And that's not mentioning the preposterous scenes where we see somebody flying about.
The common notion for comic book films is that if one is familiar with the comic book and its characters, the film will be better understood. Perhaps, with X-Men, this proves true to a certain extent, as in understanding where the rivalry between Cyclops and Wolverine comes from. Yet the one thing to keep in mind is that one-line characters are the order of the day in this movie, even when it comes to some of the larger parts like that of Storm's. For what it's worth, X-Men is indeed one of the better comic-book-to-film adaptations ever (simply read positive reviews to find all that there is to like in this movie), and I did come out feeling that it was not as much of a waste as a Batman film could have been. But I will forever remain adamant in my conviction that, with thirty more minutes detailing the characters and the world that they live in, this film could have turned out to be a contemporary classic.