Anthony's Film Review - X-Men (2000)

The character development is great, but the plot is thin and almost nonexistent...

I was never surprised that the comic superheroes known as the X-Men were brought to life in the movies. What did surprise me, though, was how long it took. I remember how popular the X-Men were in the 1990s, a decade when the X-Men animated TV show aired. I myself wasn't a big fan, though I had friends who were. And they were saying that an X-Men movie was in the works. At the time, I found it hard to believe.

My friends and I were all correct. An X-Men movie didn't come out right away, but it eventually did. In the year 2000. I saw it with some excitement, and I say "some excitement" because I wasn't a big X-Men fan even though I had a basic understanding of who each character was. Still, I was ready to see what fans of this comic were waiting years for.

It seemed interesting enough. It starts with a prologue about a boy who has the ability to control magnetic forces. Fans know that this is the one who will grow up to be Magneto, the arch nemesis of the X-Men played by Ian McKellen. We also get to meet characters on the side of good, including Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, James Marsden as Cyclops, Famke Janssen as Jean Grey, Halle Berry as Storm, Anna Paquin as Rogue, and Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier. As for the villains, you also have Tyler Mane as Sabretooth and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos as Mystique. These characters, who are all mutants with special powers, are interesting and present enough uniqueness on screen.

Yet, something is missing. Something that I had expected to see at the start of this movie. Something I always look for in any movie I watch. It's the plot! This X-Men movie is one of the few movie experiences where I sat waiting for a long time for any elements that constituted a plot. Instead, I got stuff like a long narrative about Wolverine trying to find out more about his past. The only real excitement in this movie is a climactic action scene at the Statue of Liberty. Even then, the absence of a plot, and therefore context, makes it almost meaningless.

X-Men could have been a good movie if it had that element that is just as important as character development. As it stands, I can only say the movie deserves a negative rating, though a marginal one. Then again, knowing how Hollywood thinks, the filmmakers probably didn't care, because if it's common for film franchises to have a series of sequels, then it would only be a matter of time before another X-Men movie would come out, and maybe then we would have a good one. Still, I would prefer that quality be considered priority number one early on in a film series, not later.

Anthony's Rating:

For more information about X-Men, visit the Internet Movie Database.