One x-men fan who doesn't love either of the films

Rating: 4/10 (13 May 2003)

I can appreciate comic books as much as the next guy (although I'm not a reader), and the X-Men, I have to admit, are probably the best team out there, if not the best superheroes, period. That said, the movie versions do not live up to mutant standards. Its okay, we can be honest, no one will hurt us here.
I think the only thing making these flicks so popular is the fact that comic book fans get to actually see live action interpretations of what they had only previously been able to catch in 2-D rendering--and not the quality of the films themselves. Why the special treatment?
I think all comic-to-screen attempts are hindered in one way--the filmmakers concentrate too much on the visuals and lose sight of the characters and the story. Those latter two qualities suffer as a result. There have been many movies that have done a good job of alleviating this obstracle (Superman and Spiderman, even Batman and Daredevil), but X-Men and X2 fail miserably. With as much criticism that the Star Wars prequels receive regarding their scripts and dialogue, you'd think more people would let the X-movies have it.
Furthermore, do they really do anything visually innovative? I like alot of what I saw in X2, but overall it was nothing on par with, say, The Matrix. I'm not asking for a Matrix ripoff by any means. What I am saying is that I would have liked to see the same level of quailty and commitment. Maybe it was just that the F/X were not effective because of the weak plot and character development; they were sort of wasted. Either way, they don't save the film.
Its not just me, the casual fan, that dislikes these films. I recently had an eye-opening discussion with my friend, the die-hard comic book geek. He confessed that he felt compelled to be a big X-Men movies fan because of its comic book roots. In actuality, however, he hated much of what they did to his beloved mutants, and was quite dissapointed in general.

So let all of us X-Men fans stand up, and speak our true feelings--the movies are not that good! There--no longer should we hide in disgrace. We are free, free at last!