I ran through the three core X-Men films earlier this year.  To summarize, I found the first was okay, the second good, and the third poor.  And even though I more or less enjoyed the first two, I was never comfortable with the setting or the approach taken by director Bryan Singer.  In my lead-in, I mentioned I wanted to post my own thoughts on how I feel the studio should have gone about in bringing the franchise to the big screen.  Considering this weekend is the opening weekend for the Matthew Vaughn directed X-Men: First Class, it seems like now is a good time to do this entry.

First off, I did not make an entry for the X-Men spin-off X-Men Origins: Wolverine and that’s because I never saw it.  Not only did it look poor, but the plot also sounded bland.  It was not well-received by critics or by friends of mine whose opinions I trust so I saw no reason to see it.  And the suggestions to follow in regards to how I would have approached the series do not mean I think I could do better.  Far from it, I am no director and I’ve never had anything published.  I’m just a jaded fan.  And for the most part, I think die hard fans are bad for this sort of exercise.  They tend to be more rigid and regimented and incapable of distinguishing what’s important from what isn’t where a plot or character is concerned.  A neutral party is better able to look at the source material and identify the key components that makes the franchise important and bring those components out within the new medium.  Unfortunately, I think those who handled the X-Men did a poor job of that and even though I’m a fan I’m going to try to be objective.  Below are the components I believe would make for a good X-Men film:

Civil Rights – At it’s core the X-Men represent a civil rights story, and Bryan Singer and Fox acknowledge this.  One of the core conflicts is Professor X as a Martin Luther King Jr. figure to Magneto’s Malcolm X.  Both have the same goal but aspire to reach that goal through very different means.  The other conflict is human society vs mutants, what the canon refers to as homo sapiens and homo superior (a term coined by Magneto).  In the first film, the conflict outside of the good guys vs the bad guys is the Mutant Registration Act, a bill introduced by Senator Robert Kelly.  Kelly mistrusts mutants and wants to see each one register with the federal government so that the government knows what each mutant is capable of and where they are at all times, similar with sex offenders and common criminals.  Law abiding mutants of course bristle at this as it forces them out of the closet, so to speak, when some would rather live quiet lives and keep their mutant abilities private.

Graydon Creed worked so well for the animated series, it's hard to imagine him not working for a film franchise.

This a solid starting point for the franchise, but the initial plot gets lost in Magneto’s hijinks.  Kelly is removed from the picture early on negating his influence on the bill and it doesn’t pass, though that is irrelevant.  What Singer and company failed to do was create a hostile environment for mutants.  At no point do we get a sense of the contempt and fear humans have towards them.  We get a taste of it in X2 when Bobby Drake “comes out” to his family, but little else.  I wanted to see more fear from the general populace and from the government as well.  That’s why I think the films should have looked closer at the 1990’s animated series for inspiration.  Henry Guyrich and Bolivar Trask would have made for good secondary characters.  Perhaps the sentinel project could have been referenced in the first and carried over into the second film.  The sentinels from the comics likely wouldn’t have worked on film, but a military styled task force charged with controlling mutants could have stood in.  The Friends of Humanity could have also been used to give us the extreme end of the spectrum from the societal perspective.  Graydon Creed is a great character and one that’s easy to hate for audiences.  The villain of X2, William Stryker, could have been incorporated into the FoH as well in his priest persona as opposed to a military one.  Ultimately this would have better portrayed the X-Men as selfless heroes protecting a society that hates and fears them, as the main antagonist would still have been Magneto and his Brotherhood.

Small Squad – Another aspect the existing films recognized was the need to keep the X-Men small.  In the 90’s, the team became bloated and trying to carry that over to the films would have proved impossible.  The films reduced the X-Men to four actual team members; Cyclops, Jean, Storm, and Wolverine with Xavier and Rogue also in roles requiring extensive character development.  And while I think this is a solid foundation, the ball was still dropped in terms of developing these characters.  Wolverine was the obvious focus for character development as he’s been the most popular character for a long time now.  Jean exists as the strong female lead and to get between Cyclops and Wolverine.  The Wolverine character was handled mostly well (though I feel strongly a short actor should have played him) but Cyclops was butchered.  He comes across as the jealous, petty boyfriend rather than the victim.  Cyclops should be strong and honor bound where his duty is concerned, the obvious good guy where as Wolverine is a villain who happens to be fighting for the good guys.  Perhaps I’m in the minority, but I got the sense that the films wanted us to root for Wolverine to win the girl and to dislike, and even distrust, Cyclops.  Storm wasn’t developed hardly at all, and only once Halle Berry won an Academy Award did the writers see fit to give her more screen time.  Storm has an interesting back story in that she was perceived by her people as a goddess and perhaps would have worked better as a character recruited by Xavier, rather than just a secondary female member of the team.

I love you Beast but you just don't work on screen.

I have always felt Beast should have been included.  He is a good example of a mutant who can’t hide amongst people like most of the X-Men can.  The problem with the Beast character is that his look does not translate well to live action.  Would fans accept a non-blue Beast?  Probably not.  Iceman perhaps could have been a better choice as a fourth member given his character doesn’t need too much development as he’s the practical joker and a kid at heart.  The Iceman character as he exists in the current franchise is a throw-away, anyone could have been used in that role.  Nightcrawler is another great character that needed to get onto film, but I think Singer had it right in waiting for film #2 to introduce him, though I think the character needed more development.

One think I would not change is how the films utilized Rogue.  I’m a fan of introducing the X-Men as an already existing product and bring the audience along by having it introduced to the X-Men through the eyes of a new recruit, such as Rogue.  Rogue provides a good example of how super powers aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, something at the core of the X-Men mythos.  This aspect of her character makes her more interesting than the classic juvenile characters Kitty Pryde and Jubilee.

Wolverine – I said a lot about Wolverine in my initial post on the subject, so I’ll try to be brief.  In short, I feel Wolverine is best served as a secondary character.  He’s the prickly member of the team who doesn’t always feel like a member of the team because of his lone wolf nature.  Ideally, he wouldn’t be in the first film as his introduction to the team could have been handled in a second film.  One thing I really liked about Marvel’s Ultimate X-Men was how it introduced Wolverine as a mercenary hired by Magneto to infiltrate the X-Men, but he eventually is won over by Xavier (and Jean) and betrays Magneto.  That could have been used for the films but Fox would have never allowed an X-Men movie to be shot without Wolverine, he’s too important from a marketing perspective.  Therefore, keeping him off to the side and antagonistic would have worked best.  Ultimately, I want a character with a giant chip on his shoulder that Xavier and Cyclops constantly have to fight with to get him to stay the course.  When Magneto and his goons are raising Hell, Wolverine should be the one abandoning ranks to go after Sabretooth as opposed to working within the system.  As an audience, we should love his ferocity and his bad ass nature but feel frustrated with his obvious character flaws.

The Villains – Magneto is the obvious choice as the main arch rival for the X-Men, there’s really no other choice.  And I do like that the current films didn’t make the mistake the original Batman did and kill off the hero’s main adversary in the first film.  As long as Xavier is around, Magneto needs to be as well.  His Brotherhood was fine as well though it needs to be as big as the X-Men.  If the X-Men are 4 then the Brotherhood should be 4, not including Magneto himself.  Sabretooth and Mystique are good choices as well, but Toad kind of sucks.  If the films needed a slapstick villain he could have been used there, but otherwise I’d prefer Avalanche or Pyro.  Juggernaut is an interesting possibility as well and one that would have been worth exploring.  He presents obvious visual problems in bringing him to live-action (the look he sported in The Last Stand would not do) and balance issues as he’s a load to take down.  I like the step brother parallel though with Xavier, but he can’t be a mutant which also is an issue.  The magical nature of his powers wouldn’t fit the setting I imagine for an X-Men film franchise so his abilities would have to come from a suit.  Perhaps he could wear some sort of mammoth battle suit serving as a pre-cursor to the government’s own sentinel program.  Or he could be some sort of metal monstrocity created by Magneto.

The reality warping mutant Proteus represents a case of risk vs reward. In the hands of the right director, he'd end up an extremely memorable villain.

As the franchise would likely form a trilogy, new villains would be introduced.  I like the idea of keeping Magneto involved in all, but keeping him on sidelines at times would give the films some variety.  I already mentioned the sentinels and Friends of Humanity as potential villains.  Could they carry a film?  Possibly.  Other villains that could work include The Hellfire Club, who are also featured in the latest film.  They could be another Magneto, a villain seeking mutant supremacy but through different means.  While Magneto is confrontational, The Hellfire Club works behind the scenes and infiltrates the economy.  High-born and intelligent, they would pose a different kind of threat.  A really bold director could also turn to Proteus, the reality warping mutant.  His powers could be explained as being mental, an extreme take on Xavier’s, and his general origin could be kept intact (imprisoned bastard yearning for acceptance from his father).  His powers would be a visual delight, and his plight easy to grasp.  He’d function as a sympathetic villain, and also plant the seed in the audience’s mind that perhaps mutant control is necessary.

If a film must have a Wolverine-centric villain and plot, then I think Omega Red could be fun.  The Weapon X project would be introduced, and the Omega Project could be the Soviet equivalent.  After tangling with him in the past, Wolverine is angered to learn he’s been revived by the Soviets and takes off to stop him.  It would give the audience more insight into the mind of Wolverine after seeing him mostly as an ass in the first film, and the X-Men would come to his aid for a feel good moment.  Red is a visually interesting villain, and his death syphon makes him more than formidable.

The Plots –  The plots of the existing films can be simplified as:  Mutant Registration Act, “God Loves, Man Kills”, and The Cure.  The second was of course augmented to basically remove the God component from the original story, but all the same.  The Phoenix Saga was also worked into the third film.  I mentioned earlier that I feel the Stryker character as a priest could be worked into the cast of reoccurring characters.  The Cure plot is an interesting one and one I like because of its obvious societal parallels.  Phoenix I can do without.  I know it’s an iconic story but it’s overplayed.  One thing the films didn’t tackle was the The Legacy Virus which could be worked into all of the films as a pervasive thing and another reason humans fear mutants.

To summarize, the basic approach I’d take for a three film trilogy would probably go something like this:

1 – Mutant Registration Act, Government exploring ways to control mutants, Magneto as a mutant terrorist attacking government agencies (Cyclops, Jean, Wolverine, Iceman, Rogue as X-Men.  Sabretooth, Mystique, Juggernaut, Avalanche and Pyro as Magneto’s Brotherhood)

2 – Sentinel Initative unveiled to control mutants, Moira’s son Proteus escapes, Magneto is courted by The Hellfire Club (Nightcrawler is introduced after the X-Men save him from the FoH early on)

3 – Wolverine leaves the X-Men to confront Omega Red, X-Men are forced into a confrontation with The Hellfire Club, Rescue Wolverine, Magneto watches from the sidelines (Colossus introduced as part of the Wolverine side plot, some of Wolverine’s Weapon X buddies could be brought in as well such as Maverick and Silver Fox).

I’m not married to that, but it’s a start.  I’d aim to end the trilogy with Magneto posing as an immediate threat, perhaps him forming a film equivalent of his mutant haven Avalon.  What’s not developed is how The Hellfire Club would pose a threat.  Perhaps they would be behind the introduction of the Legacy Virus as a means of planting fear into the hearts of humanity.  I would also consider having their political connections leading to an abolishment against the Mutant Registration Act which would portray them as being a group with some positive benefit, but with ill methods.  Magneto would also reject their assistance as he wouldn’t care for their methods, preferring something more direct.  I’d also look for a way to introduce Storm, though at this moment I’m not sure how it would be done properly.  Either way, my head is swarming with other ideas such as building up the FoH.  Nightcrawler could be held hostage because of his connection to Creed and demonic appearance, which makes him an easy target for Stryker.  That could easily be turned into a much bigger plot.

As of right now, X-Men: First Class has an 87% rating on RottenTomatoes.com and has been fairly well received.  The general consensus seems to be that while it’s nothing special, it’s an entertaining enough summer film.  Unfortunately, that’s been the story of the X-Men on film; good but not great.  I’m waiting for the Batman Begins of X-Men to be created.  Because of the social commentary contained within the franchise, there’s no reason why the X-Men can’t be something bigger than just a comic book movie.  The franchise is currently broken, and even though it’s kind of the lazy way out, it needs to be blown up and redone.  First Class can’t cure its ills and a truly great X-Men film is still nothing more than a fantasy.

X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

I’m going to get it out of the way early and just say that this isn’t a very good movie.  I even debated with myself whether or not I even wanted to dedicate a blog post to the subject but since I had already done so for the first two I might as well see it through.

Director Brett Ratner seems to shoulder most of the blame from fans for the movie’s failure.  Truth to be told, there’s plenty of blame to go around.  From a questionable screenplay to a down-right poor script, there was little praise to be found for the finale to the trilogy begun by Bryan Singer.

I suppose I will point out the strengths of the film first.  The new characters added to the roster of mutants included original X-Men Beast and Angel.  Beast was portrayed on screen by Kelsey Grammer, who was pretty much every fan’s choice to portray the character.  His look remained faithful to the comic, being that he was blue and hairy.  His lines contained the appropriate poetic dashes and the emotions exhibited by Grammer were much appreciated by the fan base.  Angel, played by Ben Foster, ended up being just a minor plot device, which was a bit disappointing.  Kitty Pryde was re-cast with Ellen Page and her role was expanded.  Page plays the wide-eyed Pryde with an appropriate amount of fear and youthful exuberance.

"I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" - Yes, that line really appeared in the movie.

Some minor villains were added to the mix, namely Callisto and Multiple Man, but the major addition to Magneto’s Brotherhood was Juggernaut, portrayed on-screen by Vinnie Jones.  The choice to bring Juggernaut into the mix was one born of good intentions, but the pay-off was rather lackluster.  Jones is physically intimidating, but the costume looks like it’s made of foam, instead of steel.  His character is also merely a thug with no connection to any of the other characters.  In the comics, Juggernaut was the jealous step brother of Charles Xavier.  I will concede it was probably wise to make this version of the Juggernaut a mutant, as opposed to a human who obtained his powers magically.

The plot ended up being a mash-up of the Phoenix plotline and “The Cure.”  Phoenix was hinted at in X2 by showing Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) becoming consumed by fire when using her powers in the film’s climactic scene, while “The Cure” is a story that should translate well to the screen.  I’ll go into more depth on the film’s execution of the Phoenix soon, but first I want to focus on “The Cure.”  In the comics, “The Cure” was the generic name attributed to a drug that would cleanse a mutant of their powers.  It was used in the television series as well.  It’s a suitable plot because it forces the mutants to confront their differences from humanity and gives them the option to take the easy way out.  To take the drug is to concede defeat in the quest for mutant equality.  Of course, it’s not so black and white.  A mutant like Rogue cannot touch another person without doing harm, while a mutant like Beast can never enjoy a quiet stroll through the park without attracting unwanted attention.  For mutants like Storm or Iceman, they can easily pass for human and their mutant abilities are quire clearly no curse as they’re given access to unbelievable powers, to the point where it is hard to feel sympathy for them.

The film drops the ball with this plot device.  The existence of a cure is dismissed by most of the X-Men, while Rogue is, not surprisingly, tempted by it.  Angel’s father, Warren Worthington II, is the one behind it as he is clearly embarrassed and hurt over his son’s perceived deformity.  It’s never explained why Angel would need to take a drug to get rid of his wings, the audience is left to assume it’s not as simple as just having them removed.  Regardless, there’s little weight and the cure ends up being turned into a weapon by the government to use against violent mutants.  The cure as a weapon does add a more believable form of danger to the action scenes, but since the weapons aren’t aimed at the X-Men it kind of defeats the purpose.

Jean's crazy "Phoenix eyes."

Phoenix is introduced early as Jean Grey’s alter ego.  The Phoenix is apparently a part of her psyche that was sealed away long ago by Xavier to protect Jean.  When the personality manifests, she becomes a violent and all powerful entity that seeks only to be thrilled.  When she uses her powers her skin turns ashen and her eyes black.  She doesn’t hurl fireballs like her comic counterpart, but instead appears to rip her opponents apart at the atomic level.  The special effect used to show this resembles a turning to ash effect to keep some aspect of the Phoenix name relevant.

Phoenix’s first act is to take out Jean’s lover, Cyclops.  Emotionally, this carries little weight since Cyclops was practically written out of X2.  Here it was done because actor James Marsden wanted to take on a bigger role in Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns and Fox chose to accommodate his wishes.  When Jean comes to her senses and realizes she killed her man there’s a decidedly muted reaction before Jean goes into full-on Phoenix mode for the rest of the film.

One of my biggest issues with this film is how Charles Xavier is portrayed in the wake of Phoenix’s revival.  When it is revealed that Xavier had locked away portions of Jean’s mind as a child, the X-Men vocalize their disapproval.  Xavier’s reaction is not appropriate or consistent with the character we saw in the first two films.  Instead of defending his actions as unfortunate but necessary, he displays a great amount of anger and takes a very defensive position.  He becomes irrational, and his desired course of action is to find Jean and re-implant the psychic barriers that had broken away.  It makes the audience feel as if it were duped into thinking this was a benevolent man out to make the word a better place for mutants and humans.  He’s become a villain, and the point is driven home all too clearly with one of the film’s final scenes.

Phoenix becomes a pawn the two sides fight over, with Magneto wanting to harness Jean’s powers for his own benefit.  Phoenix ends up killing Xavier, and we get another memorial scene behind the mansion that is surprisingly small.  This is followed by the X-Men going after Magneto, who attacks a compound where the source of the mutant cure resides, the mutant Leach whose power negates mutant abilities.  There’s a battle, and the end result is Magneto gets hit with some cure darts and Wolverine is forced to kill Jean, cue another memorial scene.

The film was not without some bright spots, most notably the spot-on casting decision to go with Kelsey Grammer as Dr. Henry McCoy, aka, The Beast.

The film portrays Wolverine, once again, as a leader of X-Men.  In this particular film his attitude is all but gone and the character feels neutered to the point that no one is surprised when he sobs like a child after Jean’s demise.  Halle Berry’s Storm ends up being the X-Men’s true leader and her character is all right, certainly not a weakness.  The young mutants are pressed into action with mixed results.  Iceman is given a rivalry with former X-Man Pyro which results in a predictable fire vs ice stand-off.  Rogue is shown as a jealous lover over Bobby’s relationship with Kitty which pushes her towards taking the cure.  The film ends on a cliff-hanger, where a de-powered Magneto is shown using a hint of his lost powers, but by the time this scene rolls around no one in the audience cares.

The film carried on the tradition of sub par special effects.  For a big budget franchise like the X-Men, the special effects have surprisingly never been a selling point.  The studio chose to take a stab at The Danger Room this time around and the result makes it clear why Singer chose to never attempt this.  The film is rather short and moves at a brisk pace, so it is at least not guilty of being boring.  It’s just lacking in depth, and following the weighty X2, it was an unwelcome change.  The film just ends up being irrelevant, and effectively killed the franchise.

X2: X-Men United (2003)

The first X-Men film was a commercial success and a sequel was naturally just assumed.  In light of the first film’s success, director Bryan Singer was given almost free reign over the sequel with a bigger budget and a longer runtime.  When it hit theaters in May of 2003 it was met with critical praise and raked in the dough, beginning a trend where suddenly sequels were topping their prequels.  The X-Men found themselves in the conversation over what was the greatest super hero brought to film.  Spider-Man 2 would kind of quiet that discussion, but in general, it seems X2 is highly regarded by fans of both the comic and of the first film.

Anticipating a trilogy from the beginning, Fox wisely had locked up the key cast members for multiple films.  This proved especially smart considering between the first two films, Halle Berry became an Academy Award winning actress and found the role of Storm well beneath her by the time X-Men 2 came around.  To sort of appease her, X2 would expand upon Storm’s role from the first film, where she was mostly an after thought, and put her in more of a leadership role this time around.  Her role would be increased even more when it came time to film X-Men 3.

The cast for X2 was even larger than the one for the first film.

Considering Wolverine is such a dominating, yet polarizing, figure it makes sense to start off with his character.  When the first X-Men film ended, Wolverine was taking off to check out a location he believed would turn out to be the Weapon X facility.  It is actually never referred to by the film as the Weapon X project but it’s the same thing; the place where Wolverine obtained his fantastic skeleton.  Finding little to appease his curiosity, he returns to the X-Men where the film’s plot takes off.  In the first film Wolverine was an outcast, in this one he’s forced into a leadership role when the mansion gets attacked while everyone else is away.  We get to see a little bit of Wolverine’s berserker persona as he takes out numerous military types.

It is refreshing to see a hero go all out with little regard to human life, and that is how Wolverine approaches the encounter at the mansion.  There’s no negotiation or even the slightest hint of mercy and it’s one of the cooler scenes in the film.  Beyond that though, Wolverine is portrayed as a bit of a reluctant guardian to Iceman, Rogue, and Pyro for a good portion of the film.  His character is a little jokey, with a dry sense of humor that is probably brought out too much.  Wolverine would be better served to be shown a little more irritable, and more of a loner.  He does run off during the film’s climax to seek out answers regarding his past, which was a smart move, but his toughness is kind of undone by his over the top reaction to Jean’s death (and if I just spoiled anything for you I don’t care, you’ve had almost 8 years to see the thing).

Ultimately, Wolverine’s past isn’t completely revealed, a wise move considering the comics had always resisted doing the same (though they have since given us the Wolverine Origin books).  His character is again consumed by boyish lust anytime Jean is present.  Another aspect of the character that I think was focused on too much in the films.  Especially in X2 where Cyclops is barely in the film so the whole love triangle aspect is kind of irrelevant.

The film’s main villain is Colonel William Stryker, played by Brian Cox.  Comic book fans know Stryker as an evangelist who believes mutants are the work of Satan.  He was introduced in the excellent graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills which was created in 1982.  When fans learned that both Stryker and Nightcrawler would be included in X2, it seemed to make a lot of sense.  After all, Nightcrawler is known for both his demonic appearance and his faith.  The two characters play off one another quite well.  Perhaps Singer got cold feet over the idea of tossing religion into the mix, or maybe they just felt Stryker would work better for their story as a military man.  As a military man, he is given access to the president where he’s able to get clearance to raid Xavier’s mansion.  He’s also given access to an imprisoned Magneto where he’s able to utilize some sort of drug that functions as both a truth serum and mind control device.

This mind control drug sets up the film’s first scene, where Nightcrawler attempts to assassinate the president against his will.  Though I suppose assassinate maybe the wrong word as I’m pretty sure Stryker wanted the president alive, but who knows?  This leads to the X-Men seeking out Nightcrawler which gets him involved in the plot.

Nightcrawler was a welcomed addition to the roster of mutants.

Nightcrawler, played by Alan Cumming, is the big addition to the cast of mutants for X2.  He’s long been a fan favorite and was a welcomed addition for the sequel.  He’s played pretty much how one would expect, the only real addition to his character the film makes are the scars that appear all over his body.  These are the result of self-mutilation, with Nightcrawler claiming he carves an angelic symbol into his flesh for every sin he commits.  Otherwise, his look is pretty much identical to his classic comic book look, save for the costume.  Here he’s given a black trench coat and striped pants.  The coat makes sense considering that someone of Nightcrawler’s appearance would probably try to conceal it as much as possible.  He still has his teleportation powers, though if he leaves behind a stinky odor the film doesn’t let us know, he just disappears into a puff of blue/black smoke.  He’s also shown to be able to stick to walls during his attack on the White House.  Singer chose to show this using wires instead of special effects and the results are mixed.  His trademark faith is represented and on display most prominently during a conversation he has with Storm.  Storm is shown to be quite bitter towards humanity, something not really consistent with her character, while Nightcrawler displays an inner peace and instructs her to have faith.  This of course leads to a moment later in the film where Storm expresses faith in Nightcrawler and it is as corny as it sounds.

The basic plot is a little hokey, but works given the film’s setup.  Stryker detests mutants and fate saw fit to give him a mutant son.  He sought out Xavier’s help to “cure” him, which Xavier told him was impossible, so he took the boy home.  The boy’s name is Jason and he is basically the movie version of the character Mastermind, a villain capable of creating powerful illusions to corrupt his foes.  Stryker claims his son resented he and his wife and drove her to suicide.  He’s kept his boy restrained ever since and aims to use him to get to Xavier.  Obtaining all of the X-Men’s secrets from Magneto, Stryker creates his own Cerebro.  His intention is to use Xavier to kill all of the world’s mutants with his Cerebro.  It is explained that Xavier’s telepathic powers are so adept that he can kill with a thought when connected to Cerebro.

Mystique springs Magneto using an ingenious plan of seducing and drugging one of

Magneto seemed a little more dangerous this time out, but still looks like he belongs in a retirement home.

Magneto’s guards while at a bar and injecting him with iron.  Magneto rips the iron from the poor sap’s body and uses it to create his escape.  Which is where the “X-Men United” part comes into play, as the X-Men are forced to team-up with Magneto and Mystique to stop Stryker.

The cast is particularly large for this sequel, which might explain why Cyclops is taken captive early in the film.  There’s some timing issues as well that harm the film’s credibility.  Jean and Storm take the X-Jet to Boston to find Nightcrawler early on and are away when the mansion is attacked.  In the amount of time it takes them to fly back to New York, Wolverine and the rest drive from NY to Boston to the home of Bobby Drake (Iceman).  Apparently, Jean and Storm decided to take the scenic route.  Also, an awful lot happens in the amount of time it takes Jason to lead Xavier to the false Cerebro which makes it hard to take the film’s threat very seriously.

The acting is pretty solid overall.  I was especially surprised by the Iceman and Rogue characters, portrayed by Shawn Ashmore and Anna Paquin, as teen romance is hard to pull off on-screen without looking corny.  The two handle their roles, and sometimes silly, dialogue quite well.  Not award winning stuff or anything, just not a low point.  Aaron Stanford does a good job portraying Pyro, the young mutant that doesn’t buy into Xavier’s methods and ends up siding with Magneto.  He is the focal point of one of the film’s more memorable scenes.

Patrick Stewart is called upon less in this film as Charles Xavier, but he is always up to the task.  Ian McKellen is a more convincing and ruthless Magneto, which I enjoyed, though he still looks like a harmless old man most of the time.  Famke Janssen reprises her role as Jean Grey and her on-screen chemistry with Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine is capable, if a bit over dramatic.  During the course of the film Singer teases the Phoenix plot line several times, setting the stage for the third film (which he would not direct).

Deathstrike ends up being the latest disposable villain utilized by Singer.

The film ultimately works given the set-up created by the first film.  The characters behave in a logical way and remain consistent.  There isn’t any dead weight and ultimately my main gripe is with the film’s other villain, Lady Deathstrike played by Kelly Hu.  She’s actually never given a name by the film and is merely a silent lackey for Stryker.  I believe she has just one line in the whole film.  She’s also given Wolverine’s healing factor and her own adamantium skeleton, which is teased throughout the film before being revealed before the big fight scene with Wolverine.  She is brain-washed by Stryker so we never learn anything about her.  Like Sabretooth in the first film, this villain apparently has no history with Wolverine.  Where as in the comics she despises him and is out for blood.  She was never a great villain, and following this film the comics would even start to adopt this look for her where he claws are retractable, but still feels wasted here.

There’s a lot of little bits of fan service sprinkled throughout the film.  We get our first glimpse of Hank McCoy on a television show in human form.  There’s also the computer screen accessed by Mystique which contains files labeled Omega Red and Nathaniel Essex, among others.  Several X-Men receive cameos during the mansion attack, most notably Colossus who apparently is not Russian in the film-verse.

In the end, I can’t complain too much with this film.  I would have liked to have seen a more true to the comics portrayal of Stryker as I think he’s a fascinating subject and one that would add considerable weight to the plot.  His character in X2 feels interchangeable, Singer could have used someone less important and achieved the same effect.  This would have saved Stryker for another and more worthy story.  The cast is also too big, which is something the first film struggled with.  It’s hard to say where things could have been done better but it is a shame that Cyclops had to be pretty much written out of the film all together.  The addition of Nightcrawler did work, and it’s a shame Alan Cumming could not be convinced to reprise the role for the sequel (not that it would have made it much better) as he added a nice dimension to the team.  If anything, too much time was spent on the Bobby Drake side-story where he “comes out” as a mutant to his parents.  The whole scene is full of cliches and the X-Men present come across as being extremely (no pun intended) defensive.  So while the film works, I’d still like to blow the whole thing up and start from scratch.  For now though, this is the best X-Men film we’ve received, I just think there’s a better one that has yet to be made.

X-Men (2000)

The X-Men hit the big screen in the summer of 2000.  And while their arrival wasn’t a colossal hit like Batman or Superman, it was a critical and commercial success for Marvel and 20th Century Fox and served as the successful first entry for a whole new movie franchise.  Fans seemed genuinely satisfied with the big screen adaptation of their favorite mutant heroes, even though the picture contained some obvious flaws.

Casting is always a big deal for a well-established franchise making the leap from one medium to the motion picture one.  X-Men was no exception and while the casting of Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier was a fanboy’s wet dream, an aussie for Wolverine and a natural brunette for Jean Grey left many unsatisfied.  That was before the movie’s release and the general perception after the dust had settled seemed like most of the fears going in about the casting were alleviated.  Hindsight is 20:20 though, and hindsight tells us that the casting was far from perfect.

Wolverine was going to be the focal point during casting and the character who would be the most challenging to find an actor for.  This is not due to the character’s many emotional complexities.  While the Wolverine character has evolved from a trash-talking tough guy to a character with legitimate depth, he still isn’t an overly difficult person to portray from an acting standpoint.  When a director chooses an actor for a role, looks should be secondary to general ability.  Especially when looking for a lead actor as any shortcomings with his ability will be hard to hide.  The Wolverine character is a short, stocky, hairy Canadian with an aggressive disposition.  The hairy aspect and accent can be accounted for easily, but the stature and build is something an actor can’t accommodate if he’s 6’2″ and long-limbed.  Director Bryan Singer clearly felt that the character’s height and build were not essential, so Hugh Jackman received the part.  Jackman was able to bulk up, especially for the later films, and at least look the part of a tough guy, but his height and smooth talking delivery made him less than ideal.  Following the film’s release it seemed that most fans were happy with this Wolverine but I personally have never been among them.  Wolverine to me has always been a character with a tremendous chip on his shoulder and his short stature is a big part of that.  It’s always been an easy target for his foes to go after with arch-enemy Sabretooth often referring to him as “runt.”  A rough and more gravelly voice would also suited the character better than Jackman’s delivery, though I’m willing to concede that part of my opinion is heavily influenced by voice actor Cal Dodd who portrayed him in the 90’s animated series.

Hugh Jackman as Wolverine.

Beyond the appearance of the character, I’ve never been all together satisfied with Wolverine’s personality on screen.  Part of this is due to the director being unfamiliar with the source material.  In the comics, Wolverine is a loner who is difficult to work with.  His teammates tolerate him because, as he is often willing to point out, he is the best at what he does.  The movie franchise asks Wolverine to be more noble and a leader for the X-Men, which just doesn’t suit the character.  The downside to this is the affect it has on the Cyclops character, who is reduced to a childish brat insecure over the inclusion of Wolverine in the X-Men.  Cyclops merely serves as Wolverine’s foil in the first film, and then hardly even appears in the sequel and is hastily killed off in the third film.

A large part of the film’s plot focuses on the pairing of outsiders Wolverine and Rogue.  In this film Rogue is portrayed by Anna Paquin, who at the time was a teenager and portrayed a girl on the run trying to find a way to cope with being a mutant.  Rogue is used in the same manner as Kitty Pryde and Jubilee from the comics.  The relationship Wolverine and her develop is close to the one he has with Jubilee in the 90’s comics and cartoon.  They both feel like outcasts who only have each other once they end up at the intimidating X-Men facilities.  Rogue is an excellent character for the franchise because her powers clearly make her an outcast and are as much a curse as they are a blessing.  She is incapable of skin to skin contact with other humans and mutants.  When touching a human, she drains their energy and can leave them comatose.  With mutants the same occurs but she also absorbs their special powers for a short time.  She also can gain access to the memories of those she touches, though the film doesn’t really make good use of this.

The decision by the film makers to reduce Rogue to a teenager did not initially sit well with movie goers.  If the purpose of the character was just to have a young person trying to cope with their identity, why not use Kitty Pryde?  The answer of course lies in the fact that Rogue’s abilities make her a more sympathetic character and her abilities end up being a focal point of the film’s conflict.  While the decision to force this role on Rogue didn’t initially sit well with me, I do think it works out well though the execution could have used some work.

Famke Janssen and Halle Berry were the other leading female roles.  For Janssen this meant a dye job for her hair to play the redheaded Jean Grey.  Her hair naturally does not look right but it is nit-picking.  She’s a capable actress and the casting is suitable.  Berry required a wig to play the snow-haired Storm.  Berry would see her star become much brighter following roles she took after X-Men so she wasn’t cast as a big name at the time.  Her part is largely ignored by the film and a general weakness throughout the franchise as it was never able to adequately deal with a large cast.  The size of the X-Men in this first film seems like a good choice, but Singer proved incapable of even managing a meager squad of five which made the decision to include more mutants in the sequel all the more puzzling.

As with most of the characters, the film makers chose to go in a different direction with the look for Mystique. In this particular case, most of the male-dominated fan base didn't seem to mind.

The villain chosen to oppose the X-Men was, naturally, Magneto.  Ian McKellen was chosen to portray the X-Men’s most dangerous foe and he was given a band of mutants to lead as his Brotherhood (the film wisely dropped the tag line of “evil mutants” from the name).  Assisting Magneto was the shape-shifting Mystique, feral Sabretooth, and the…sticky?… Toad.  Wolverine may have been the focus for fans when it came to casting, but easily the most difficult role to cast falls on Magneto.

Magneto is nearly impossible to cast given his age and appearance in the comics.  He was a young boy during World War 2 who found himself imprisoned by the Nazis for being Jewish.  As a result of this early form of prejudice on his life, Magneto has hatred for humanity who further hates him for being a mutant.  He feels humans cannot create peace among themselves, so why assume they could ever co-exist with mutants, whom he views as homo-superior.  This viewpoint on life makes Magneto comic’s greatest, and most engaging villain.  Unfortunately, comic artists do not feel an old man is a suitable villain for the X-Men.  In the 60’s Magneto could be portrayed as a middle-aged man and still look fearsome, but a holocaust survivor in the year 2000 is not a formidable looking man.  McKellen is suitably aged to portray such a character, but he is not very threatening.  The comics in the 90’s chose to portray Magneto as a man in his physical prime.  The only aspect of his appearance that makes him appear old is his silver hair.  The film makers, probably rightly, felt they could not cast a young man in this role and simply give him white hair.  The comic book audience would have been satisfied by the casual movie goers would have probably felt insulted.  The film could have tried to go with one of the gimmicks proposed by the comics to explain Magneto’s appearance, but probably felt that would be too confusing or too silly.  And while I do feel that Ian McKellen is an excellent actor, he does come up short as Magneto, through no fault of his own.

This guy was around for the Holocaust. Seriously.

Magneto’s henchmen are mostly undeveloped and serve merely as goons.  Rebecca Romijn’s Mystique gets the most face time and is incorporated well into the plot.  Toad is best left as a simple henchman and his updated appearance works for the film, as the comic’s version of Toad was always subpar.  Sabretooth is the biggest casualty on the villain side.  Tyler Mane was chosen on looks alone, and the character is given minimal lines, just one silly threat.  His talons are cheap looking, and his character has no history with the Wolverine character, a huge swing and a miss by the film makers.  Perhaps they felt the movie had too much going on to make Wolverine and Sabretooth arch enemies, but if that’s the case then why go with Sabretooth?  They could have easily replaced him with another brute from the X-Men’s long line of villains and made everyone happy.  The fight sequence between Wolverine and Sabretooth should have been a highlight point for the film, instead it’s severely lacking and results in a quick “death” (with comics, one can never be sure) for Sabretooth.

Beyond casting, the other major bane of contention for any comic book film is the look.  While characters like Superman and Spider-Man were able to mostly keep their comic book, others were not.  Batman is notable in this regard as his costume went from blue and gray to all black.  Since he was able to keep his defining “horns” and cape, it seemed to work just fine.  The X-Men mostly favored bright colors in the comics and Singer felt that would not translate well to the big screen, and probably rightly so.  Instead the costume designers went with all black.  Storm was able to keep her cape, and Cyclops his visor, but everything else was mostly dropped.  And while yellow and blue spandex would have looked silly, these black costumes aren’t exactly fashionable either.  It would have been nice to see more of an attempt to re-create the comic look.  Cyclops and Jean could have been given cowls and the costumes could have contained at least some color.  Wolverine’s costume has a hint of the stripes from his comic counterpart but dropped the mask.  I don’t know if the film could have pulled off a mask on Wolverine, but I would have liked to have seen some test shots to confirm that.  These outfits come across as mostly pointless.  The costumes should give the team an identity but they kind of do the opposite.  Wolverine, for example, comes across better in his street clothes than he does in costume.

Singer didn't think much of the yellow and blue, so black leather became the choice for the costumes.

The plot for the movie focuses on mutant oppression and one senator’s attempt at creating mutant control.  The Mutant Registration Act would force all mutants to register as mutants with the federal government and would force them to identify themselves and face public persecution.  The merits of the act, presented by Senator Robert Kelly (played by Bruce Davision) are easy to understand; some mutants possess enormously destructive abilities and the government feels it needs to know who these people are in order to safeguard the general public.  The argument against this is that most mutants have committed no crime, but are being treated as if they are criminals.  It also calls into question the right to privacy and ends up being very un-American.  This is a plot lifted directly from the comics and one that was also the focal point for the animated series’ first season.  It’s an excellent choice for the film, but like most of the aspects of the film, it is not exploited as well as it should be.

Kelly’s backing of the bill makes him an easy target for mutant terrorist Magneto and he quickly sets out to abduct the senator.  Magneto has created a machine that draws on his own powers of magnetism and, somehow, can turn normal humans into mutants.  He tests it out on the senator and the end result is that Kelly becomes some sort of amorphous creature that can’t even hold itself together.  The machine is physically taxing on Magneto and if he plans to use it on all of New York it will likely result in his death.  Learning that the X-Men possess a mutant capable of mimicking his abilities, he and his followers set-out to abduct Rogue.  The X-Men need to work together as a team to save her and all of New York.

Could the Sentinels have been successfully incorporated into the plot? Maybe, but probably not as giant mutant hunting robots.

The part of the plot that does not work is Magneto’s plan.  It’s campy and poorly executed.  The Mutant Registration Act is kind of forgotten until the film’s conclusion and could have been a much bigger part of the plot.  In the animated series, a young Jubilee is registered by her well-meaning foster parents which makes her a target of the Act’s secret backers, the Sentinels.  The Sentinels are mutant hunting robots created by Bolivar Trask and are sent out to abduct dangerous mutants for imprisonment.  The X-Men learn of this and set out to destroy the files held by the organization behind mutant registration which lead to them being branded as mutant terrorists as well.  This film’s plot never puts the X-Men at odds with humanity.  In the comics the general public often views Magneto and the X-Men in the same manner, but here the X-Men aren’t really given a public identity.  What could have been a movie about social injustice with no clearly defined path of right or wrong turns into a summer popcorn flick with little depth.  There’s no one on the X-Men who questions why they should risk their lives to protect people who hate and fear them.  Critics new to the X-Men ended up being somewhat impressed by the depth here, but veterans of the franchise felt it to be shallow and in no way represents the complexities inherent in not only the comics, but also a cartoon crafted for children.

I’ll likely save my further suggestions for how the X-Men could have been better treated by the film industry for another post, but here it is obvious things could have been handled much better all the way around.  My review here is of a negative tone, but despite that I can acknowledge that the movie can be an enjoyable experience.  If one goes into it with no expectations and takes it on face value alone, it’s pretty good.  It doesn’t rival previous comic book adaptations like Superman and Batman, but it doesn’t come close to matching the futility of The Punisher or Judge Dredd.  For me, the film feels like a wasted opportunity and really setback the X-Men film franchise.  Because any sequel had to remain consistent with this one, they’ve never been able to realize their full potential.  A lot of people were happy when it was announced that Bryan Singer would oversee the upcoming X-Men First Class and blame the poor quality of the third film on his departure.  I personally have never felt that Bryan Singer was the right choice to helm the X-Men.  The X-Men, more than most comic to film franchises, needed someone who was very familiar with the source material to do it justice.  Singer merely scratches the surface of what makes the X-Men so unique, but ends up leaving most fans wondering “what could have been?”