Surprise; It Does Not Suck.

Rating: 9/10 (17 July 2000)

You know, there are a great many things that could easily have wrecked this movie completely. Marvel Comics adaptations have a pretty poor track record of coming across in live-action to either TV or the movies, especially when compared against their competition from DC. Witness The Punisher, The Trial of the Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Doctor Strange, and a good handful more. Balance these with the successes of the old 70's Spider Man series (cheesy, but not a bad effort at all for its time), the majority of The Incredible Hulk series and the recent Blade, and you can imagine how terrified I was that X-Men simply wasn't going to cut it.
I mean, bring in the biggest overall franchise Marvel has had in the last 20 years, throw in "that guy from Star Trek", "that guy from Apt Pupil" and several supermodels, and everything points to an expensive disaster that would kill the credibility of what used to be a really good comic book. Granted, I'm talking 15-20 years ago, but I am, after all, at least that old, and it was, after all, really that good for a while.
I was worried, to say the least.
But then, I noticed who was directing. Bryan Singer most assuredly did not screw up with The Usual Suspects. Not a bad pedigree, that. Also, one of the aforementioned supermodels, Famke Janssen, proved she can actually act a while back when she bloody well held her own against that very same guy from Star Trek -- IN Star Trek, no less. She also added a great deal to GoldenEye, and I'm not just talking about visuals, either.
"Onotopp?"
"Onotopp."
Sorry -- where was I? Oh, yes. Then there's this whole Hugh Jackman guy. Never heard of him, and he gets to play what is potentially the pivotal role in the (contracted) trilogy? Granted, I was pulling for Robin Williams or Gary Sinise, but that just goes to show what an idiot I can be when I put my mind to it. So Wolverine was a big question mark.
I went to see it the Friday night it opened. You know what? It Does Not Suck. Not only does it Not Suck, but it's actually Pretty Good.
Remember, I'm from Minnesota. Up here, winning the lottery is considered "Pretty Good", too.
You know what? It was such a solid Pretty Good that I went back on Saturday and paid to see it again, this time with my friends. They came out saying the same thing -- "You know what? That Did Not Suck. In fact, It was Pretty Good".
This, of course, led to the many details underlying the concept of Pretty Goodness, including Hugh Jackman's absolute nailing of his part, the rest of the cast doing their jobs and then some without trying to take over, and, most of all, Bryan Singer showing that rarest of qualities in a Hollywood director, restraint. Not one shot stood out as being bigger/badder/bloodier than it needed to be, and that is saying something these days.
Bottom line -- go see it. Comic book movies are very rarely this good, and one like this deserves to make enough money so that we might actually SEE the other two for which the cast has been contracted.
If we're lucky, we'll get Bryan Singer back, too.
IMDB rating = 9