A breezy popcorn movie for kids.

Rating: 5/10 (8 September 2011)

I'm perfectly willing to accept that certain characters and plot points must change when you adapt from one media to another, especially when you're talking about a two hour action movie aimed at kids. However, the liberties taken with the characters in this movie are simply too much for me to wrap my head around. Sebastian Shaw is a WWII Nazi war criminal? In the comics, he's an amoral, American businessman who joins a secret society, kills all the leaders, and usurps control. That's a pretty scary guy. Does he really have to become an over-the-top Josef Mengele stand-in? Charles Xavier and Mystique are now step-siblings? OK, I'm willing to accept Shaw as a Nazi war criminal if I must, but this is just bizarre. Most of the characters have their nationalities switched around for no apparent reason. Furthermore, their ages are all messed up, with Havok (Cyclops' younger brother) being particularly paradoxical, now that he's old enough to be his elder brother's father. Seriously, I can forgive a lot of stuff, but this is just sloppy beyond belief.
OK, so the continuity is all messed up, the characters and their interactions are completely revamped, and this is apparently meant to be a reboot, not a prequel. How is the actual movie, once you get beyond the issues regarding the source material and continuity? Well, I'd like to say it gets substantially better, but there are several really annoying aspects to it. First of all, there's a token black guy who's introduced and then almost instantly killed off. Seriously? I can't believe that we're still doing that in 2011. Emma Frost, the White Queen, was never one of my favorite characters. I always felt that she was one of the worst examples of the objectification of women in comic books, and she's played completely straight in this movie. Her stripperific costumes are toned down quite a bit, however. The X-Men, after weathering an attack by Shaw and his associates, go through an intense week of training, where they each suddenly have individual epiphanies and become self-confident bad asses, getting beyond whatever psychological issue was holding them back. Ugh. It reminded me of a horrible 80s movie, but, luckily, we were spared the training montage set to Eye of the Tiger. However, what really annoyed me was the ease with which characters flip-flopped between good and evil. One simplistic speech is enough to change almost anyone's mind, it seems. Then again, this is a comic book movie for kids and young adults, so I guess you can't really expect anything deep. Action movies aren't generally known for their deeply philosophical dialogue and strongly written characters. The X-Men have never been intellectual, highbrow entertainment, but they were written better than this, and they deserve better than this.