X-MEN

I saw the X-Men movie last Saturday night. Thought I'd indulge a ramble.

SPOILERS. RUTHLESS SPOILERS.

But first, I think anyone who critiques this movie should open by acknowledging potential biases. Here are mine:

For starters, when someone says "X-Men", here's the team I IMMEDIATELY think of: Cyclops, Angel, Beast, Iceman and Marvel Girl. (Yeah, you heard me, Marvel Girl. Calling her Jean Gray in the context of codenames is very strange to me.) I guess that shows my age.

So when I first heard about this movie, I was sure it would suck, because I was sure it would include characters like Wolverine, Gambit, Rogue, etc. That is, characters that came MUCH LATER in the contintuity. I was sure they'd attempt, as the T.V. animated series attempted (as most tv animated series based on comic books attempt) to have it both ways. To attempt to intro a series as a new concept and yet simultaneously try to slather decades worth of continuity at the audience. The pilot to the X-Men animated series did this. And I thought it was god awful. Later episodes were much better, and for a while I was really enjoying the show. Then it began to suffer from all the things that had made me STOP reading the comic book. So I dropped it.

Contrast that with the Batman animated series. Batman, a single character with a MUCH cleaner, clearer origin, is introduced as a guy already on the job. (The folks at Warner Bros. had a HUGE, if flawed, movie to use as a jumping off point.) He exists. Joker exists. Most everyone else is introduced either through flashback or right there before our eyes. In essence, they started the continuity over -- nearly from scratch. And WHAT A DIFFERENCE that makes. TV, comics, movies. They're all different mediums. They have overlapping audiences, but not duplicate audiences. They also have differing strengths and weaknesses regarding how continuity is handled. Comics are largely a serialized medium. TV is largely episodic. Movies are single stand alone events. In a movie, you have one shot and only one shot to tell your story. Even if it becomes a franchise, all that means is that maybe, once a year or so, you get one MORE shot to tell one BIG story. You don't get to do change of pace "episodes" in movie series. Each one has to go great guns.

Mindsets need to alter when dealing with these different mediums, or the work will wind-up sub-par. The makers of Batman TAS realized this and capitalized on tv's unique strengths and needs. They created a viable and dynamic interpretation of the Batman Universe that wasn't dependent on continuity, but utilized the best of what that continuity had to offer. [They did the same thing when creating MASK OF THE PHANTASM as a movie. Talented guys.] One might question individual choices made here and there, but overall, I thought it was a smashingly successful show creatively, and it was without doubt a smashing success series commercially.

But back to X-Men. Don't want to make it sound like I gave up the book when Lee and Kirby went their separate ways. In fact, I think I was reading X-Men in its real HEYDAY. Post Len Wein/Dave Cockrum: The Claremont/Byrne years, followed by the Claremont/HotArtist of the moment years. This was the days of Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Collosus and Nightcrawler. The death of Phoenix. The introduction of Sprite. VERY POWERFUL STUFF. That one time travel Sentinel story was chilling indeed. I thought the time travel theory presented in it was gobbledy-gook, but the story was so powerful, I didn't care. This was great comics. (And yes, I think "Future Tense" was influenced by that story.)

And then, I believe X-Men became a victim of its own success. Let's start with the multiple books. New Mutants, X-Factor, X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, X-Calibur, Generation X, X-Treme, X-Lax, whatever. It was impossible for me as a reader to keep it all straight. ME. The comic book geek who worked for DC Comics and got ALL his books -- back then -- for FREE. I've got the whole Gargoyle Universe more or less locked in my head, and I couldn't keep the X-portion of the Marvel Universe straight even with the books right in front of me. No Big surprise as the creators pretty much couldn't either.

But the number of books wasn't the only problem. The stories seemed out of control. What was legitimately a mutant power was stretched way beyond my ability to suspend belief. That future storyline that I praised so much above seemed to spawn an entire universe of alternate characters that rendered anything that followed moot. Jean Gray came back to life, undercutting her sacrifice and horrible death. Hell, everyone seemed to die at one point or another. Two characters I really hated were Rogue and Sabretooth.

Rogue is intro'd like Athena, fully grown. She's been a villain for years. Or so we're told. But in fact, her first appearance is in that awful comic when she permanently steals Ms. Marvel's powers. Ms. Marvel?! An admittedly mediocre character with vague mini-Supergirl abilities. Rogue now has these same vague but potent abilities. They have nothing to do with being a mutant. But they make her very powerful. And one story later, she's joined the X-Men. WHAT?! There's a convoluted backstory with Mystique, who's like a mother to her? But why? Why not do that with Nightcrawler? Well, because Mystique was an afterthought, relatively speaking. It was too late to do THAT story with the Mystique and Nightcrawler. So we get Rogue. I never got the appeal at all. Just maybe, she might have been great if it had been intro'd over time. Actually been a young villainess for a couple years. But instead it's force-fed to us like -- well -- like it's an animated series that has to forcefeed us continuity. And on top of all that she just seemed obnoxious to me, with her exagerated dialect.

Sabretooth just bugged me for a different reason. He seemed unstoppable and I could never understand why. Eventually, they seemed to be heading toward the notion that he was Logan's father. That seemed kinda interesting -- and it would explain a lot, but they never would get around to culminating all those heavy-handed hints. I gave up before ever finding out whether or not that was the case.

And that was often a problem. Like early seasons of X-Files, answers in X-Men never seemed forthcoming. EVER. Wolverine is a terrific character, and we kept learning more about his interum history without ever really answering any real questions about his origins. (Admittedly, I gave up reading the X-Books over a decade ago, years before I gave up comics cold turkey in 1996 -- so maybe some of my questions have been answered since. But not in the TEN YEARS I was reading the characters.)

And finally, I got tired of the basic X-Theme. As timeless and true as it was and is, one begins to ask how many times do these characters have to publicly SAVE the world before someone in the Marvel Universe would acknowledge that mutants didn't suck. I'm not talking about an end to prejudice, just an end to near-monolithic prejudice. Finally, when all was said and done, I got bored and I got exhausted. So I gave up. Gambit. Jubilee. I've heard of them, but I don't know who they are. Don't much care either.

And so the movie approaches. As I said above, I'm so sure I'm not gonna like it that I have ZERO intention of seeing it. That's not an idle statement either. Never saw Godzilla though I loved Godzilla movies as a kid. Never saw Phantom Empire, though I loved STAR WARS. Never saw Titanic. Never saw a lot of movies these days. And what I have seen, I've mostly disliked. The first Batman movie is horribly flawed but fun. Every Live Action Batman movie that follows is unwatchable. (Except possibly this last one with Clooney, which I didn't bother to see.) Loved Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back. But Return of the Jedi -- HATED IT. E.T. -- Hated it. Loved the original "CLOSE ENCOUNTERS". Hated Spielberg's Director's Cut. Independence Day - Hated it. Made me angry. Jurassic Park - Hated it. Made me VERY ANGRY. Lost World - Had to see it for work. Had very low expectations, which were basically met. I think it's awful, but at least it didn't make me angry. Gladiator - Was enjoying it as a kind of guilty pleasure - until the last ten minutes which were SO STUPID that they ruined the movie for me. TITAN A.E. really pissed me off, because it will indirectly have an adverse effect on my career.

Okay, I did enjoy Matrix. It was flawed. But I liked it. So I guess I don't hate everything.

So why would I go see X-Men? How could I possibly like it? Why should I torture myself. O.K., sure it's got Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart as Magneto and Professor X. They're both great, and that's perfect casting, but it's not like great people don't appear in bad movies. That's not enough of a reason. Okay, sure I liked USUAL SUSPECTS, so the director has ability. But I've seen bad movies by great directors before too. And yet... And yet...

I think the marketing was great. Not overwhelming. Smart. That helped. Pictures of the various characters in magazines helped too. Finally, however the general good buzz got to me. And when Kenneth Turan of the L.A. Times gave it a positive review (even if the review did read like he was slightly afraid to give it a negative review for fear that X-fans would attack him), I was hooked. Turan is pretty tough generally. I'd give it a try.

So I went with my wife. (Who has NO comic book or X-background of any kind.) We also went with another couple. The husband Mike is an ex-comic book geek like myself. The wife Rosie is like my wife.

And drum roll. I liked it. I feel like the guy in GREEN EGGS AND HAM, but I like it, Sam I Am. No, it's not perfect, but it avoided a TON of pitfalls. Low expectations may seem to be influencing my stance. But that's not really fair. I don't LIKE Lost World. I simply wasn't angered by it because I knew it would be awful in advance. I actually like X-MEN.

And the MAIN REASON without a doubt is that they started their continuity clean and from scratch. Yes, there's some backstory, but it's a VERY CLEAN backstory. And what mysteries do exist are clear. No, we don't know Wolverine's "origin". But at least we know what questions to ask. And what we do know TIES RIGHT IN with the theme of the movie. Ties in so well, in fact, that my wife thought, based on the comment that they couldn't assess Wolverine's true age, that perhaps the Nazis gave Logan his adamantium skeleton during WWII. (When I explained that in the comic it was <oh my> the Canadian Government, she was extremely non-plussed and I felt quite silly.)

Charles and Eric are old friends, now at odds. Charles has his school. And Cyclops, Jean and Storm are SOME of his first students. (I like to think Angel and Beast were a couple of the other guys in that first class. They graduated and unlike the other three, chose to move on. But time will or won't tell.) Now, I could see how this would immediately put some diehard X-fans on edge. It makes Scott, Jean and Ororo contemporaries. And all three much younger than their comic book counterparts. But this worked for me. Captured the spirit of the early Lee-Kirby stuff and the early Claremont stuff. And still allowed the film-makers to make the movie that the majority of their audience wanted to see. I.e. one with Wolverine in it. Face it, he's cooler than Angel and Iceman.

But the real cool thing is that when the movie begins, Scott, Ororo and Jean are not the X-Men yet. Not really. They don't have heavy combat experience. They've had some training. And maybe a skirmish or two. But this isn't a super-hero team -- except by necessity. And we're seeing that necessity here for the first time at the Statue of Liberty, by which time they're joined by Logan. Now for the first time, they aren't Scott, Ororo, Jean and Logan. They are truly Cyclops, Storm, "Jean Gray" and Wolverine.

[The only flaw in that thinking is that Scott and Ororo already have silly super-hero names when the movie begins. And Jean doesn't. Either they're prepared for the coming combat, in which case they should ALL have codenames (in order, I assume, to be able to communicate with each other quickly while still maintaining some ability not to blow their secret i.d.s.) or none of them should have it yet. The only in continuity excuse I can think of for Jean not having a codename is that Jean wasn't supposed to ever go out and do battle. That she was only at the school as a teacher and openly mutant mutant-expert. Jean only ends up going into battle because of what is legitimately a HUGE crisis. But I wish that idea had been spelled out a bit.]

{FYI - The codenames for Sabretooth, Toad and Mystique don't bother me at all. But -- in movie -- Magneto's does. What does he need a codename for? And such a silly one at that? And no, I NEVER found it silly in the comics, but that's a different medium. Not better or worse, just different. In live-action, Magneto is a silly enough name that when it's first mentioned in the movie you can hear the silly twitters from the non-initiated audience. And the resulting mass cringe from those of us "who know".}

Then there's the youngest generation. I got a kick out of Kitty Pride. A real kick out of Bobby/Iceman. I didn't mind at all, that just as Cyclops was youthified, so to was Bobby -- even more. Because Bobby was conceieved by Lee and Kirby as a kid. Placing him in that younger generation was true to his original dynamic. (I'm told Jubilee and Pyro were in there too. Of course, I don't know anything about Jubilee or Pyro. I guess Pyro was that guy who created the little fireball, but don't ask me who Jubilee was. Don't know. Don't much care.) And of course, Rogue. Now, as I mentioned above, I never much cared for Rogue, but the character became VERY compelling to me absent those dopey, dopey vague Ms. Marvel powers. And younger. Making her part of that younger generation was brilliant. Yes, it could be argued she was filling a Kitty Pride roll. But her power suited the roll better than Kitty's power. So to me, it seems like the best of both worlds. Hell, they even gave her that bit of gray hair at the end. Nice touch.

Of course, it's an ensemble piece, so not every character has a lot of space or time to shine, but I think they did a good job of introducing THREE Major characters, EIGHT supporting characters, and a couple of nice cameos. So perhaps it might help if I went through it character by character:

THE LEADS
MAGNETO - NAME - Well, as I've mentioned, I don't think they did a very good job of integrating his name into the show. COSTUME - I think they did a great job of integrating the helmet however. I mean why would he wear that silly helmet? I thought that would be embarrassing. (And no, in comics, I never thought that great Kirby-designed helmet was silly. Again, different medium.) But hey, it protects him from Charles. Cool. I didn't miss the rest of his costume at all. INTERPRETATION - I thought the prologue was nice. Some critics have argued that using the Holocaust in a super-hero movie is insulting. But I think it went right to theme. Worked for me. CASTING - I thought McKellan was great. I loved his interaction with Patrick Stewart. Loved his mature villain read. It was refreshing to have someone older be this crucial to story. CONTINUITY - As to how true he was to the Magneto of the comics, well, sorry folks, but that's gonna depend on WHICH Magneto of the comics we're talking about. Magneto's been characterized so many different ways (just in the years I was reading alone) that choices for how to portray him run the gammut. So as choices go, I liked this. Smart. Semi-noble. But an ends justify the means kind of guy, who, as Logan points out, when push comes to shove isn't prepared to sacrifice himself over a young mutant girl that he theoretically should want to protect at all costs.

WOLVERINE - COSTUME Let's get this out of the way up front. I didn't miss the costume (and after all which costume) one bit. Don't give me Superman, Batman and Flash. Batman didn't even use the Batman costume. Not really. Just enough of it to make it recognizable. Flash's costume wasn't exactly the cojmic version either. Sure it was closer, but, frankly, it looked silly, icon or no icon -- I could have done without it. (Give me the lightning bolt emblem. That would have been enough.) Superman pulled it off. But that was mighty powerful ICONIC writing and directing in service of one of the most powerful icons in pop culture. So Wolverine's costume? Hey, from my point of view it WAS there. Because seriously, what you really remember about him ICONICALLY is the hair, the sideburns and the claws. And they nailed all three. I never thought that hair would work, but they pulled that off. NAME - The Wolverine name sort of worked. Mysterious dogtags with one word that he uses as a stage name for cagefighting. Hey, in this era of pro wrestling, I'll buy it. CASTING - Well, I thought Jackman was terrific. But I'll admit to being wistful about his height. Yes, I was glad he was still shorter than Cyclops and Jean. But one of the truly archetypal qualities that Len Wein built into Wolverine was his height -- or lack there of. It was so "kid-relatable" (a phrase I usually despise). The short guy (and almost all kids are short relative to someone) who when pushed, kicked ass better than anyone. So yeah, I missed that he was average height and not flat out short. But I've cast a fair amount of shows. Even in voice, when you don't have to worry about what the actor looks like, you still make compromises. So in live-action... Well, yes, if you search the globe I'm sure you can find some guy who looks EXACTLY like Wolverine. But what makes you think that guy can act? Jackman looked eighty plus percent of the part. And he could REALLY act. INTERPRETATION - I did miss the berserker rages a bit. I didn't mind that we were seeing the kinder gentler side of the Wolverine character. That was always there. It be idiotic not to feature it. And we saw the sly bastard who was also part of the package. And we saw the guy who nine times out of ten exercises strict control over himself -- cause if he doesn't watch out. But there's that one time out of ten left, when he should just go nuts. Animalistic with rage. We never saw that. And I missed that. Still overall, he's an incredibly engaging character here. No real complaints. CONTINUITY - Suitably clean. We know very little. But we know what we're missing. An event fifteen years ago where he was cut opened and rebuilt. Very cool.

ROGUE - COSTUME - This worked fine for me, I guess. NAME - A real stretch, but I guess you can buy this kid trying to sound tough and cool. If having a one-word name is really tough and cool? CONTINUITY & INTERPRETATION - See above. Since I wasn't a big fan of the comic character, I didn't mind any of the changes they made. So CASTING - She was great for the part she played.

SUPPORTING
PROFESSOR X - CASTING - O.K., Patrick Stewart has been playing Charles for years, even if he didn't know it. So you couldn't cast this one better, in my opinion. COSTUMING - Fine. Duh. NAME - Did anyone ever actually call him Professor X? If so, it was so casual and easy and natural that I didn't notice. Good. INTERPRETATION & CONTINUITY - This is the Prof. X I know.

CYCLOPS - NAME - See above. COSTUME - Okay, all those black battle suits were a little cheezy, but I can live with them. If the alternative was some (even non-spandex) version of one of the upteenth variations on their comic book costumes, I can live with what they did. Again, I didn't miss the blue and yellow thing at all. Frankly, I would have preferred no hokey costumes at all. CONTINUITY, CASTING & INTERPRETATION - Of all the characters, Cyclops (probably the one I know the best) was the most disappointing to me. I didn't mind his youth at all. That fit with their general reconfiguration of the continuity, which I admired. But I still don't think that that particular actor captured Cyclops enough. He was a bit callow for my tastes through most of the movie. He didn't seem quietly worthy of Jean's love. And I almost would have preferred a guy who was almost entirely HUMORLESS, except for the occasional very dry "Did Scott just actually tell a joke?" moments. Less of a pretty boy, I think. Still, by the time we got to the Statue of Liberty those things didn't bother me as much. Still, he was the weakest link for me in the entire movie. I've heard people speak badly of Storm, Rogue, even Wolverine. But I had no problem with them. But I would have liked a Cyclops who had that tragic, I MUST STAY IN CONTROL quality. That near military officer's edge. Less of a punk. I think that also would have boosted the Scott-Jean-Logan-Marie-Bobby love pentagon too.

JEAN - NAME & COSTUME - See above. CONTINUITY & INTERPRETATION - I liked the roll she had here. The public face. Perfect. CASTING - Famke didn't wow me. She never really has. But she was fine. No complaints, except maybe did I hear a slight touch of accent in there? (TRIVIA: Incidentally, Famke is currently renting Brigitte Bako's house while Brigitte is shooting a movie in Canada. And I once briefly met Famke in 1995. She was exiting Todd Garner's office as I was coming in. Todd was, at the time, the Touchstone executive in charge of -- among other things -- the Gargoyles Live Action Feature.)

STORM - NAME - See above. COSTUME - The cape seemed a little silly. I guess you could pretend to justify it based on the need to catch the wind or whatever, but.... CONTINUITY - See above. I had no problem with moving a fundamentally mature/responsible character like Storm into Cyclops & Jean's generation. CASTING & INTERPRETATION - Well, Storm was the hero who got the least screen time. (Unless you count Iceman.) That's inevitable with a cast this big. But I thought Halley Berry was fine playing a young, inexperienced but fundamentally mature/responsible Ororo. She isn't too great in battle at first, but when she cuts loose... Toads fly. All that worked for me. It was her first real fight.

MYSTIQUE - NAME - See above. "COSTUME" - we were supposed to think she was naked, right? CASTING - She looked great and kicked ass. Not much else for her to do AS Mystique. CONTINUITY AND INTERPRETAITON - We learn almost nothing about her. But I thought she was effective, and I think they left the door open for some interesting stuff. Nightcrawler for example could take the roll that Rogue had in the comics. (Since Rogue isn't using it.) It would suit both Mystique and Nightcrawler better. Cleaner, less confusing.

SABERTOOTH - NAME - See above. COSTUME - Yeah, whatever. CASTING - Great. Fine. CONTINUITY & INTERPRETATION - I think they made a clear connection between Logan and this guy. Not one that Logan remembers in this continuity. He clearly DID NOT remember Toothy, assuming they have ever met before. But the film-makers still made the connection. Start with the dog-tags. But even if you asssume that Tooth just took those as souvenirs or trophies, there's still another connection. Tooth was unstoppable. Wolverine kept stabbing him to ZERO effect. Wolverine stabbed himself and it hurt. Sabretooth never slowed down. That suggested to me a healing factor that creates another connection to Wolverine. As for Sabre's "death", c'mon. We never saw the body of either him or Toad. There's no reason to assume either is dead. In pop culture you must see the body, and even then....

TOAD - NAME - See above. COSTUME - Fine. CASTING - Good. Never saw Darth Maul, so any in-jokes there were lost on me. CONTINUITY & INTERPRETATION - Well, they certainly made him a more effective henchman. Maybe down the line there may be time to see the tortured side of him. No room for it here. But that didn't bother me.

SENATOR KELLY - All fine. I was a bit surprised they killed him off. But it all worked. And Mystique can do interesting things with Kelly if they chose to bring "him" back.

CAMEOS:
BOBBY - See above. This worked for me.

KITTY - Nice little touches with her.

GYRICH - Well, he's dead. I'm fine with that actually. But I can see both sides of this argument. If you're gonna kill off a minor character than why use someone you may have real use for later. OR We've got a minor character. Let's give him a name that will make the fans smile. (I fell into the latter category, I guess.)

PYRO & JUBILEE - See above. (Who are these two?)

STAN LEE - Him, I recognized immediately on the beach when mutant Kelly comes ashore. How could you miss him? (And yet, I never noticed he was a hot dog vendor. I just thought it was Stan Lee.) Was Claremont in there anywhere? Len Wein? Roz Kirby (in lieu of Jack)? Dave Cockrum? Byrne?

DIALOGUE: O.k. This wasn't stellar. A few nice touches, but it wasn't sharp, and Storm's line to Toad was pathetic. I'd have loved the dialogue to be sharper. But it served.

PLOT: Rogue as Magneto's true target was telegraphed a bit heavy-handedly for me. At one point Xavier even suggests that Logan might not be the target, yet doesn't make the obvious connection to Rogue that follows. Not until after it's too late. But overall, I was pleased. The story held up. It wasn't an "idiot plot". The motivations all made sense. In fact, they were compelling to me.

ACTION - Worked for me. I don't need to see the White House blown up in every movie. The action seemed appropriate to the story. Some of the choreography in the final battle (which may be editing as much as writing or directing) was problematic for me, but not very.

CHARACTER DYNAMICS - Largely great. Loved the interaction between Logan and just about everyone. Loved the interaction between Magneto and just about everyone. Loved the interaction between Xavier and just about everyone. Cyclops' overall weakness weakened his dynamics. And again, we didn't really get enough screen time with Storm to judge one way or the other, but overall I give high marks.

LENGTH - the movie was mercifully short. No one trying to squeeze three hours of angst and bad plotting and padding in. It moved at a nice tight pace. (And even then, the couple we saw it with thought it moved a bit slow.) Makes me nervous about a director's cut though. Sometimes those are great. (BLADE RUNNER.) Sometimes not. (CLOSE ENCOUNTERS).

So overall, and after all the above exercise in me being a wind-bag, I'd recommend it. It's not a great film. But it's a fun movie. And I had fun rambling about it.

In my next ramble, I'll talk a bit about the Gargoyle's Live Action movie in light of X-Men.