X-Men Meets my Expectations:

On Friday morning, July 14th, X-Men was released nationwide and this is a day that I had awaited with some anticipation.  I had honestly looked forward to this movie more than any other that I can remember.

Why?  Well, I'm certainly a fan, and I know that filmmaking has the technology to do justice to the presentation of superheroes without the effects looking cheesy.  If the story is solid, this should be a good film, I thought.  I was disappointed when both of Chicago's daily newspapers' reviewers gave the film a less than stunning review.

Roger Ebert of the Sun Times was the more generous, giving it 2 1/2 stars, a lukewarm endorsement, while Michael Wilmington, of the Tribune panned the film with 1 1/2 stars.  Everyone's a critic and I think both these reviewers missed the mark.  Wilmington described the story as being so bad that the script must have been written in crayon.  This from a person who gave "Titan A. E." 3 1/2 stars!  (If you enjoyed "Titan A. E." please do not take offense.  While I thought that movie was visually appealing, I thought its story was weak in numerous places.  Hey, everyone's a critic, right?)

I think Roger Ebert touched on two points that indicate that he failed to follow the story and does not appreciate the feel of the comic, nor the film.  He wondered openly why Magneto would risk empowering his enemies by turning them into mutants.  This was clearly explained in the movie.  Magneto's motive in turning everyone into mutants was that he reasoned if everyone were a mutant, the need to persecute persons on the basis of their differences would go away.  (This is arguably a good plan.  I, for one, assume that if the world were all mutants, we would find some other way to discriminate.  Like, we would decide that some types of mutations were better than others.)  Later, he allows that he does not understand the appeal of Wolverine and what would make him a major character.  Afterall, he reasons, Storm can control the weather and is the most powerful of the bunch.  Wouldn't that make her more important?  Surely, Mr. Ebert should understand the appeal of the laconic hero, such as Mifune Toshiro's Yojimbo, or Clint Eastwood's the man with no name.  Like Wolverine, these are people who might easily be bad, but choose to fight on the side of good, more or less.  They are ultimately more interesting than well defined good guys and play a pivotal role in the story.  Not that you wouldn't want Storm or Cyclops on your side!

But, I'm not here to critique the critics.  I say all this merely to provide the backdrop against which I took Friday afternoon off and went to see the matinee performance of "X-Men."  I was not disappointed.  Was I blown away by the movie?  No.  It was like seeing "Raiders of the Lost Ark," which left me worn out from its seemingly non-stop action.  Nor was I as impressed as I was with "The Matrix," whose fresh story and astounding special effects caught me unprepared.

In the case of "X-Men," I can say simply that my expectations were met.  The effects were good, convincing, but did not dominate the story.  They got Wolverines claws just right, sound and all.  Storm and Magneto both manifested their control over the elements as you might expect and Cyclop's power blast was perfect.  The story was straight from the comics in that it was true to the theme of the X-Men, but it's about bad guys versus good guys.  It wasn't Victor Hugo nor Herman Melville, but it was a good enough story for you to care.  And, I thought they did a good job of introducing characters and getting people, who wouldn't know anything about the X-Men, into the framework of the film.  It wasn't an easy job, given that there was a wide ensemble to be introduced.  They had to compress a lot of history into what is just a few minutes.  I thought the sets were good, and the dialog was decent, no speeches, but the few lines being distributed fairly evenly across a number of characters.  Finally, just as the effects did not dominate the story, nor was it all out action.  There was a story in between the fights and the effects.

Were there downsides?  I suppose that I was disappointed that we didn't get to see a lot more interaction between mutants and non-mutants, to bolster the sense of the strained relationship between them.  Similarly, we are basically trapped in the Mansion or Magneto's lair for much of the film.  What we do see of the outside world indicates that it is not so different from our own and that is a plus for this film versus the comic book worlds of films such as "Batman" or "The Crow."  All in all, though, I would say they did a credible job in the time allotted to the film.

Perhaps this doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement, and it's true that I am not going around telling people that they cannot afford to miss this film.  Rather, I would say that if you think you might like the "X-Men," then you will.  They did a good job on this film, and I'm looking forward to their adventures in the future.

7-17-2000