Captain Zero (X-Men)
X-Men Episode I: The H.B Menace
Directed by Bryan Singer
Story by Tom DeSanto and Bryan Singer
Screenplay by David Hayter
As the first of the latter day marvel effort, X-Men was surprisingly… good. Granted, with almost forty years of history to draw on you’d think they could come up with a little better plot device, but a magnetically-powered mutant-creating device does leave room for a nifty light show. Something has to be there for all those fans of style over substance right? So what we have here is an attempt to introduce a few core characters to mainstream audiences with the hope of opening up a new media form for Marvel. And boy did that work…
Well, on to the plot. As I said earlier, it focuses around Magneto and a pseudo version of the Brotherhood using a device to create mutants out of baseline humans, giving them a taste of their own prejudicial medicine. I guess he didn’t have time for a million mutant march eh? Not the storyline I would have chosen, but its not like they could do something like The Dark Phoenix Saga as a movie. Think how silly a chopped up version of that would be. Knowing how much we see of Wolverine in this movie they’d probably find a way to make the whole thing about him. Anyway, it does give us a good chance to see how the X-Men play out on the big screen and it even manages to give something of an origin for characters such as Rogue so I’ll give it a 2.5 on the scale.
On to the acting. For the most part there was some good casting here. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen were no brainers—perfect for their roles. Anna Paquin as Rogue somehow works, even without the southern accent she should have had. James Marsden almost has testicles in this movie, unlike every other movie he’s been in. Hugh Jackman is okay as Wolverine, despite a lack of toughness apparent in the “boy from Oz”. Rebecca Romijn is a knockout no matter what color you paint her, and she can even act! The rest of the Brotherhood have very few lines, but we do have a chance for Ray Park to do a little of what he does best—fight. That brings us to Halle Berry and Famke Janssen as Storm and Jean Grey. As for Berry, she should pay for every drink Lindsay Lohan knocks down cause without her she would be the worst actress in Hollywood. I don’t care how good Monster’s Ball was, she punted every other role she’s been in and despite a lack of lines to screw up it’s no different here. She delivers one of the worst lines in movie history in this movie, and delivers it with a seriousness that should never have been involved: “Do you know what happens to a toad when it gets hit by lightening? The same thing that happens to everything else.” Not only the worst line of the movie, this gets the official “WTF” as well, as in what the fu** was anyone thinking when they let this off the cutting room floor? Which leaves Ms. Janssen.
Now, I like her as an actress in other things I’ve seen but she’s wasted here with even less of a role than storm. I’d have to give her a mark of incomplete for this movie. Overall, despite the Razzie Award-winning Berry in this movie I’d give the acting a 3 out of 4.
Not much action/explosions in this movie as the fight scenes are few and far between and reserved for the turning points. We have the required fight scenes between Wolverine and just about everyone, and honestly, not too much else. I’ll give it a 1 out of 4 for that. Special effects and visuals in general are good for the time. Cyclops’ eye blasts and Mystique’s shape changing work the best. Given the state of computer-generated effects at the time of this movie, I’ll give them the 3.5 out of 4.
As introductory movies go, this one does what is supposed to. It gives you a general idea of who they are and why they do what they do, leaving the big fights for the sequel. It ‘s success paved the way for all the franchise that followed, and proved that marvel can make a decent movie for its heroes. It’s anti-hero characters, however… but that’s a different review.
Overall rating for X-Men: 2.2 out of 4 . Enjoy it for what it is.
Review by Captain Zero