Great movie overall, with some character flaws and chronology mistakes

Rating: Null/10 (18 July 2000)

First, let me say that this movie presented a fantastic rendition of the classic comic book characters, the X-men. It was interesting, action packed, and intelligent. But, since I am now acting as a critic by writing a review, I must point out the MINOR flaws that this movie has. Let me start with Hugh Jackman, the extremely talented actor who portrayed Wolverine, an extremely gruff, violent, unreasonable, semi-sadistic, and animalistic mutant. Although Jackman seemed to put his all into this character, he wasn't quite able to capture the roughness of Wolverine. Jackman came off as a nice man playing a mean character. And the absence of Wolverine's catch word, if you will, "bub", was not something to be addressed, but I missed it. Oh, another extremely minor detail about Jackman- Wolverine is 5'6" Jackman came off as approx. 6'. Now let's address the character of Rogue, portrayed by the inspirational young actress Anna Paquin. Personally, I think she is a pretty average actress.(considering she is in her teens) But I thought the flaws of Rogue were more the director's fault than Paquin's. First off, the character of Rogue was brought out to be a Southern teen mutant who had the ability to drain the "lifeforce" (as Stewart put it) from any being she touches. Well, the truth is, Rogue/Paquin is a southern woman who seems to be in her early 20's, not a young teen girl! That was the director's fault. Now Paquin's fault: she dropped her accent for half the film. She seems Northern, and she couldn't maintain the Southern belle accent. Actually I think Natalie Portman (Queen Amidala/Padme in Episode I) would have been better. (considering Rogue is a grown woman by the time she comes to Professor X's school for young mutants.) But she was pretty good as Rogue, and did not bring the quality of the film down at all. Now let's look at Storm, the African mutant who, in the comic books, played an extremely important role. Storm was portrayed by Halle Berry who, in my opinion, is not the most versatile actress by far. To put it politely, she's rather limited. The fact that her character probably had under ten lines and didn't play a pivotal role to the plot, was a terrible injustice to the comic book character of Storm, who soon became a leader of the team. She also had the Paquin flaw, dropping her AFRICAN accent for half the movie. And when she had it, it wasn't too noticeable. But, I mean, how can you tell if someone has an accent when their most important line is "Senator Kelley is dead". Now we come to the issue of Storm's elemental powers. She has the mutant ability to control all forms of weather. Rain, snow, lightning, etc, are all at her command. There were three instances where I thought that Storm's powers were underplayed. First, when she and Cyclops (James Marsden) went into a railroad station to try to find the runaway Rogue. Storm is at a ticket booth, when Sabertooth (Tyler Mane) grabs her around the neck, lifts her off the ground, and starts choking her. Storm LETS this happen for maybe ten seconds before she zaps Sabertooth with a lightning bolt. Now, if I were being throttled by a sadistic killer like sabertooth, and I could control the weather, I wouldn't wait until Cyclops made an attempt to save me, before I took action. I would have zapped his behind to Rhode Island the second he touched me! Then, later in the movie, Toad starts beating Storm up, while she makes no attempt to defend herself. It is only after Toad throws her into an elevator chute, that she finally decides to do something about it. Then, when the X-men are trapped in the Statue of Liberty by Magneto, and Wolverine tells Storm to "zap him", and he reminds them that they are in a copper structure, Storm doesn't think to maybe blow Magneto away with wind, or part the earth beneath him? Hmm. Disappointing. And I find it sad that, since, Storm was really the only African-American cast member, they should have given her a more significant role. Now let's look at Cyclops, who was portrayed by James Marsden, a seemingly average actor who had a very limited role. In the comic books, he has a very authoritative "don't take any crap from anyone" kind of mentality. In the movie, he lets Wolverine mess with him, and kind of let's him hit on Jean (who is his fiance). But that's about it for him. The last character I think had some flaws was Sabertooth, the sadistic, animalistic, killer, who was portrayed by Tyler Mane. First of all, Sabertooth is brought out as a mindless minion of Magneto's in the movie. Truth is, Sabertooth is actually pretty intelligent, and his own man. Then, his claws. Come on! In the books, they're like 6 inch daggers, in the movie, they're like the witch finger nails you buy at Halloween!And Sabertooth and Wolverine have the exact same mutant powers (with the exception that Wolverine's claws pop out and can retract, and Sabertooth's are always out). This similarity is never really brought out. I thought Patrick Stewart (Professor X and Ian McKellen (Magneto) were the strongest actors in the movie and were both great and gave the film a solidity that one doesn't often see in an action, comic book-derived film.
I also think that Famke Jassen (Jean Grey) performed fittingly for her role. Just four more things. First, Sabertooth and Wolverine were already fierce enemies before they came in contact with the X-men. In the movie they meet by way of the X-men. Then, Rogue is not a younger teen when she joins the X-men, she's a grown woman. Third, at the end of the movie, when Magneto is in his plastic prison and Xavier leaves Magneto after playing a game of chess with him, one of the chess pieces falls, making a ringing sound, implying that it is metallic. That is the catch ending, but please! You mean to tell me that everyone went to such lengths to put Magneto in a special, fail-safe prison, and they give him a chess set with metal pieces? Come ON! Fourth, the directors left out one of the original five members of the X-men, Beast, a blue, furry, monster who is strong, agile, extremely intelligent, and fast. If I am not mistaken the original X-men were: Jean Grey a.k.a Marvel Girl (originally), Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, and Beast. Not Rogue. Rogue comes around the time of Gambit, but that's a different story. Let me say again that all these flaws are extremely MINOR and I don't think that they bring the quality of the movie down at all. I thought X-men was Xcellent and Xtremely well done. I am very glad it didn't suffer from the unintelligent, "beat em' up" mentality that the recent Batman movies suffered. I know I critiqued this movie harshly, but I am a real fan of the X-men and my standards were extremely high. Anyway, most of the MINUTE flaws were only noticable if you are really familiar with the X-men comic books. This movie came very close to reaching my standards, and I could have happily sat through it again after it finished. Two words, SEE IT. You will be very pleased. I give X-men 9 stars out of ten. But I'm only 14, so you decide.