I grew up with the X-Men don’t you know?, its true - every Saturday morning I would rush down stairs to watch Wolverine, Cyclops and the gang have a good ole fight with other Mutants and/or a couple of Humans thrown in for good luck, and I’ll let you all into a little secret of mine - when an X-Men marathon appears on Fox Kids, I feel all warm inside and still sit back and watch it.
But this is 2001 and cartoons just aren’t that passe any more, so now we move onto the live action movie, and I’m still sat there watching all my old pals on the screen, but this time instead of it being a few drawings with tonnes of sound effects - its real-life actors with tonnes of sound effects AND special effects.
Quick run-down of the story, (If you’re a fan of the comic-book or the TV show then skip this bit - its all very akin to its predecessors) The Mutants are among us, they could be anyone, your teacher, your next door neighbour even your child. Now naturally, this scares all the humans in town and this is where we meet Senator Robert Kelly - of course being a Senator he loves the chance to gain a few extra votes and starts a proposal to make it mandatory for all Mutants to sign a register saying who they are and what they can do.
This is the interesting part - the Mutants are divided on this, both sides want to see this plan scrapped, but they have different ways of going about it. One side led by Magneto, wants to use force against the humans to make them change their ways, of course this movie wouldn’t be called X-Men if there wasn’t a group called the X-Men in it and so lets meet - The X-Men, a group of mutants who tend to reason with the Humans rather than fight them, and heres where the story starts.
Now thats also where my story-telling stops, wouldn’t want to ruin the story for everyone and get a barrage of Not Reccomendeds from you all now would I?, so then - is it any good? in a word yes, in two words damn yes, in three words aaaaaaaah you get the idea.
But as always with my movie reviews, we’re going to have a character list, ready?, then we shall begin..
Rogue/Marie (Anna Paquin): Oh dear, I think I’m in love with someone I’ll never meet, erk... see Anna is one of those whatchamacallem, ah yes - beautiful people, and shes not a bad little actress either - showing off her abilities to their highest in this movie is easy for her - to be honest she was made for the part, playing the confused teenage girl whos just found out that shes a Mutant, so she runs away and this is where she comes into her own - a brilliant performance throughout - just hope we never meet her in real life, I may make a fool of myself (again).
Wolverine/Logan (Hugh Jackman): Now when I watched the cartoon series, this man was my hero - now we’ve seen him in the movie hes still the same Mutant with spikes in his hands. See Jackman portrays the grumpy, angry womanizer Wolverine perfectly - grouching around the screen with intent and always maintaining an air of coolness about himself.
Cyclops/Scott Summers (James Marsden): The weakest link of the movie, but thats no bad thing - hes still a good actor, just not 100% suited for the part, a little bit wooden but still good enough that he doesn’t drag the quality of the movie down.
Jean Grey (Famke Janssen): A Quiet, performance from Famke, with not *that* much of a part to play, what times you do see her she makes you aware of her presence by filling the screen with her talent, with that voice, always instantly recognizable and although shes officially the love interest for both Cyclops and Wolverine, she makes the character into so much more than that.
Professor X (Patrick Stewart): Well there was only one person they could choose for this part, heck the guy even looks and sounds like his cartoon-show equivalent. Playing the boss of the X-Men couldn’t have been an easy part to act out, but he somehow makes it seem like he’d been born to play the part, never once appearing out of place.
Storm/Ororo Munroe (Halle Berry): Not the best performance on screen by a long shot, but not the worst either - this is a part which was more of an on-screen rather than speaking character - Storm was never the most talkative of people in the cartoon and this has shown in the writing of the character as well, Halle Berry does well in her portrayal of Storm, but with limited material like she has, they’re always going to struggle.
Sabretooth/Victor Creed (Tyler Mane): He growls a lot, he doesn’t say much and hes a beast of a man, not much can be said of the acting since he literally grunts his way through the movie, but still hes as realistic as a big hairy grunting man can be, so we’re not going to grumble.
Toad/Mortimer Toynbee (Ray Park): remember, Mr.Park? of course you don’t - he played Darth Maul in Star Wars Episode 1, and now hes playing a man whos also a Toad, different eh? when I headr they were incorporating this character into the movie I panicked, its not the sort of Character we were all expecting but it works well and Ray Park only makes the character even better.
Mystique/Raven Darkholme (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos): One of the more used characters in the movie, and sometimes not by the same actor, you see Mystique is a shape-shifter, at what times we do see Stamos on screen, she plays it well, but we don’t see much of her, what the writers do with the Character is absolutely brilliant they take her to the very edge of her capabilities.
Magneto/Erik Magnus Lehnsherr (Sir Ian McKellen): Final main character to read about folks, hes the uber-evil-boss of the Brotherhood of mutants (the guys who want to hurt the mutants), Sir Ian in my eye was a strange choice for this character and at times he seems just a little bit out of place, but thats not often and he usually fits in to the backdrop of the movie quite well.
So those are the people you’re going to be watching but where are you going to watch them, hows New York for your likings? Good? - thought so, then if you like the sound of New York then I promise you, you’ll love the amazing scenes set atop the Statue of Liberty, its an action movie, its not too much about where they are, but what they do and believe me it all works perfectly.
Musically wise, well there isn’t going to be any names you know, because its all one big musical score, sadly the original theme-tune of the cartoon series is not there, in fact its all a slightly classical and it fits in quite well.
So in finishing its a brilliant movie, the acting is superb, if you’re a fan of the Marvel comic-books/cartoon series/etc then you’re going to love this movie, I did, I do - I’m off to drool all over Anna Paquin - later!