The idea came to me last night when a friend of mine and I were watching the trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine for the ten billionth time when he casually mentioned that he had all three X-Men movies at his house and that we could watch them all if I wanted.
I recently had a similar experience with the Spider-Man films (which we will explore at a later date).
So, for the first series we'll be looking at the X-Men trilogy: X-Men, X2: X-Men United and X-Men 3: The Last Stand.
Today we'll start with X-Men.
I suppose I should go easy on this film, seeing as how it came out even before the sadly gimped Spider-Man and before Spider-Man 2 established that it was possible to make a good film out of a superhero's mythology. But bollocks to that, a lousy film is a lousy film.
And don't think I say that without a heavy heart because I have a lot of affection for superheroes and the X-Men cartoon from the early 90's holds a special place in my heart for introducing me to the wonderful world of laser vision. Not to mention Wolverine is, next to Spider-Man, Marvel's best character.
Unfortunately the film suffers from just about every problem I can think of. In fact, I'm a bit overwhelmed by the task of cataloguing every one of the problems, so let's start with what's good before I deliver the finishing blow to its skull with a tire iron:
- Hugh Jackman
Now that we've got that out of the way, let's move on to what's wrong:
The characterizations are some of the worst I've ever seen. We were off to a great start with Wolverine's introduction. Hugh Jackman has the perfect look for the part, the perfect attitude and he has the berserker rage down. The opening with him cage fighting for money is very appropriate and his character gets a great start with some well-written dialogue between him and Rogue. Unfortunately, I think at this point the writer was killed and replaced by a cylindrical robot with pincers for hands. Suddenly all characterization stops and we get characters that literally have no motivation, no personality and the audience has no reason to give a shit about them. When the movie ended, I asked my friend who Storm was. Why was she there? What was her stake in the plot aside from going along with Professor X's Bambi-eyed obsession with protecting the people who want him dead (an interesting angle that was never really explored). She could have been anyone. Any one of the X-Men could have played that part. She could have been removed the script entirely and it wouldn't have changed the story at all.
After his introduction Wolverine just becomes a vessel for Professor X to go on and on about the expansive mythology which weighs down the plot more than anything I could have imagined.
Talented actors and great characters in this film give new dimension to the word "waste" that I never could have fathomed. Cyclops, Magneto, Sabretooth, Rogue, Jean Gray, essentially every character in the film was well cast and savagely betrayed by the script.
The script is so heavy with exposition and explanation that when the plot finally kicks into gear we're given contrived set-ups and terrible fight scenes until the movie ends on an especially stupid note.
I've never seen a climax set up in such a contrived manner. Ever. And with the sheer number of action films I've watched, I think this will be one of those whiteout moments I'll never forget.
The way they seperate the X-Mans so they can all have their own little personal battles reminds me of how I set up climactic duels with my action figures when I was five. I probably would have loved this movie when I was five.
Anyway, I could go on about Brian Singer's terrible direction and the dated production, but I won't go there. I've said what I need to say, but I would like to mention that I was disappointed when I rewatched Spider-Man recently, but the second film turned out even better than I remember.
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