If your not a fan already, steer clear.

Rating: 3/10 (26 June 2006)

I don't read the comics, I've only seen the first X-Men film, and I waltzed into my local theatre this afternoon with a very good friend of mine, having nothing better to do. My expectations of this film were consequently not high, my demand only for some light entertainment, something to pass the time. Oh dear.
Credit to the actors, there were moments of tension and drama in this film despite an appalling script. My heart goes out to whoever played the president of the United States (again Hollywood plays it safe by casting a generic old guy in this role) who had to hold a straight face when introducing the latest American ambassador to the U.N. as a 7 foot hairy blue thing, and whilst delivering lines such as "then God help us". Another cringe-worthy moment was Hugh Jackman's admirable attempt at yet ANOTHER repeated two-word sentence, in this case; "It's over....it's over...". Poor Hugh. Who on earth talks like this in real life, and why does Hollywood continue to inflict this kind of plastic text upon its actors?
Script aside, if you're not a member of what seems to be a near fanatical X-men cult following, you wont get this movie. OK, so perhaps its not a movie that you're supposed to "get", after all, one could argue the prospect of mutants being able to manipulate their own bodies and the elements around them to be too fantastical to be worthy of criticism, but for an outsider, unfamiliar to the X-men world, it all seems utterly ridiculous. I can handle the powers, the struggle of responsibility that goes with them, yadda yadda yadda, but why oh why must these powers accompany a daft hair-cut? A stupid costume? Why does Magneto, one of the most powerful beings in the universe and capable of moving the entire Golden Gate bridge with a flick of his wrist, feel the need to wear a plastic helmet that makes him look like the end of a man's penis? Wolverine has an EXOSCELETON MADE OF TITANIUM, but every morning gels his hair into two cute little wolf ears to make himself look that bit more gruffer. Though this may be a criticism of the concept of X-men itself, the film takes itself so seriously that one cannot help but point the finger and laugh.
To the inexperienced eye, this is how the beginning of the film is interpreted (SOME SPOILERS MAY FOLLOW). Some guy wearing sunglasses goes to a lake where he mourns over his dead girlfriend, he goes mental for some unknown reason, shoots the lake with his eye lasers and she appears, unharmed. She kisses him. WE NEVER SEE HIM AGAIN. His death is utterly unexplained and we get the feeling the actor realised how big a career mistake he was making and deciding to pack it all in halfway through filming. The girlfriend is found unconscious and her mysterious reappearance is explained with remarkable speed in a singular sentence of jargon from a pained Patrick Stewart. She wakes up, and is inexplicably powerful and evil. The subsequent "war" that follows is confined to one singular showdown: a pub brawl in the car park of Alcatraz Island.
And there you have it ladies and gentlemen, Hollywood whores itself to a special FX fest once again. Save yourself a trip to the theatre folks. This is a film that had a sickeningly large budget. I shudder to think what better things could have been done with this money. Instead it was wasted upon a film that is in every aspect, below average.