X-Men, No. 4 - X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

Following a Part Three that was then the most expensive film ever made, overstuffed with characters and complications and grotesquely dangling plot threads, Part Four was conceived as a pared down simplification, ditching ongoing escalation for a contained story focusing more wholly on the breakout character, in hope of recapturing part of the original’s charm.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides thus makes Wolverine front and center, ditching the rest of the mutant cast that – My mistake, this movie is actually called X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

To Fox’s credit, they realized that what X-Men: The Last Stand did couldn’t be sustained further. To their fault, they insisted upon continuing this cinematic X-Men tradition nonetheless – not that the “X-Men” cannot yield assorted worthwhile adventures borrowed from their storied comic run, but the motion picture universe is more specifically Bryan Singer’s. Asking a newbie director to continue on in that style, minus legitimate passion for the endeavor (or possibly even the larger genre), hinders much of what could otherwise be done. No longer, by 2009, was the X-Men franchise predicting the path of future superhero movies. Now, with Batman Begins having legitimized the idea of multiple filmic incarnations of one hero, maintaining fidelity to the trumped-up continuity Brett Ratner largely queefed out seems a self-defeating act.


In concept (cooked up by producers, then tossed over to creative types to make something – anything – of it), X-Men Origins was to be a new pseudo-series spun-off from the “central” X-Men backbone. Thus X4 might still come to be, if executives meet Halle Berry’s latest unrealistic requests for a satin-lined castle of gold filled with acolytes. Rather than weather that storm, the Origins label would cut through the chaff of inflating X-Men rosters by focusing solely upon individual mutants, whomever deserves a solo outing as a proper, name-recognition superhero.

Really, this is a roundabout way of admitting that Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine was undoubtedly the fan favorite, so why limit him to a single scene of animalistic slashing? Plus, with reputable storylines like Wolverine in Japan – No, wait, they’re just making it a prequel. How…redundant. It’s all there in the Origins label – The one thing that the X-Men movies didn’t do, among the clichés of the 21st century superhero movie, was tell an origin story. And all the better for those movies! As the nominal lead of three movies, Wolverine’s past is sufficiently filled in – his creation as Weapon X under William Stryker, and subsequent amnesia. That amnesia really seals the deal, since this new Wolverine – directed as if at gunpoint by Gavin Hood – is contractually fated to lead in to 2000’s X-Men. Prequels are challenging enough, when filmmakers fail to advantage of prior knowledge about inevitabilities. Making an entire movie of introductory character development, only to reset it at the very end – this is contemptible, the clearest sign that there was no point in making this beyond the financial.

Still, a prequel has the potential (one I’ve rarely seen acted upon) to use inevitability in the form of a Greek tragedy, maybe highlighting the pointlessness of Wolverine’s pre-Weapon X-istence to fashion an X-istentialist X-amination. Nolan could do it! If Hood could, Fox doesn’t want to know, because they’d rather willingly antagonize their new director – Wolverine has so many willfully perverse X-amples of X-ecutive meddling (when it works in other movies, we don’t even notice it), one truly gets a sense that the old ‘90s fashion of comics contempt has returned. Treading lightly for now, there’s no reason to introduce brand new beloved mutants, then completely misrepresent them all simultaneously.

With so many handicaps against Wolverine from the get go, it can only manage to entertain on the most superficial of levels, as an actioner. With a whole film to bask in, it’s a shame Wolverine isn’t allowed to rampage anywhere near X2’s glorious army assault, still the character’s grandest moment in film. The PG-13 rating is partly to blame, as is Wolverine’s inclination to be as generic an action movie as possible, serving up CGI-assisted throw downs with little sense of character. It even has Wolverine walk casually away from an explosion, done with a sense of obligation, not playfulness. Sorry, but though I do love that action cliché, it isn’t an end in itself.


So for the second time, there is an X-Men movie with many glaring fundamental issues, yet made (by certain team members, at least) as if at least trying to be good. Hood is a big question mark, who perhaps meant well enough, though his utter apathy towards superhero stories prior cannot be to Wolverine’s benefit. The MVP is, with a complete lack of surprise, Hugh Jackman himself, even if – with completely no justification – Wolverine is less ferocious than ever in this, his creation myth, where ferocity is to be most expected. Even so, Jackman knows the character almost too well, and brings in just the slightest hint of a young Clint Eastwood in his performance. Honestly, if someone were to pointlessly remake Dirty Harry, or any early Clint, Jackman would be perfect for it.

Jackman is equaled by Liev Schreiber, bulking up to play Victor Creed, aka Sabretooth (the mutant names are, fittingly, not the focus in this prequel). This character is needed; Sabretooth is another of the supersoldiers turned out by the Weapon X program, and Wolverine’s longtime comics nemesis. He represents what Wolverine could be: his purely animal side…conceptually, at least. It’s a little lost in film, as though they were afraid to commit to these concepts. And for as well as Schreiber counters Jackman, the fact remains that he’s being asked to play the earlier version of pro-wrestler Tyler Mane. Asking De Niro to channel Brando in The Godfather: Part II was a meaty challenge; asking a studied thespian to mimic the future Michael Myers is not.


The half-brother duo hales from the 1840s, with mutation so assumed now in Part Four that their incredibly early emergence isn’t even commented upon. It barely matters anyway, because it takes X-Men Origins: Wolverine all of eight minutes to gloss over more than a century of storyline. So desperate to get right to Weapon X, are we? The credits chronicle this passage of time, rushing Wolverine and Sabretooth (or, I should say, Logan and Creed) though every major war. This is the best part of the movie, taking advantage of the canvas it’s given, even if it accidentally recalls something Zack Snyder had already done better with Watchmen (d’oh!).

The movie is indeed impatient to get to Weapon X, so we can all act surprised when Wolverine (er, Logan) volunteers for Stryker’s (Danny Huston, no Brian Cox) adamantium skeletal graft. This creates a weird structural dilemma, because logic dictates that Wolverine’s present story ends when he becomes Weapon X, simultaneously gets amnesia, then runs off only to eventually discover Rogue, and we’re back at Part One. There’s one problem: No one cares about that Wolverine.


I don’t mean just that this story is thankless (it is), but that fans want berserker Wolverine, gifted with his iconic adamantium claws, and otherwise exuding all those powers of omnipotence and immortality which make for such compelling drama (sarcasm). There isn’t enough material in a pre-clawed Wolverine to sustain an entire movie.

The movie “resolves” this problem in a couple of ways. First of all, Logan, on top of being a super-healer (recall, his only original God-given strength), already possesses retractable bone claws. This is asinine on the surface of it, and embarrassing to boot. No such thing happens in the comics, to my knowledge, and altering a character’s biology is a pretty fundamental change. I suspect Spider-Man’s switch to organic web-slingers goes a way towards legitimizing this move, in Fox’s collective hive mind; it’s hard to argue for what’s wrong with claw-bones, though there is something wrong with it. Forced decisions like this should be the first sign that this isn’t a story worth telling.

But claw-bones must’ve seemed pretty stupid even to those who invented them, because they’re traded out with all due haste for the classic adamantium deal. Actually, the movie’s barely half over by the time Wolverine as we know him emerges indestructibly from Stryker’s sci-fi glass coffin – and escapes. No amnesia, though, not yet, though Stryker already promises such things in Logan’s (er, Wolverine’s, now) future.


The rest of the movie is living on borrowed time, squeezing in a few mediocre fight scenes until inevitable amnesia – courtesy, incongruously, of an adamantium bullet. (In a deleted scene, Stryker wipes away C3P0’s memory.) And the movie takes on a strange metamorphosis. Previously, Logan sought Stryker’s experiment on the promise it would help him overcome Creed – because Logan seeks revenge (how novel!) over the murder of a loved one (Lynn Collins). (The quarter hour devoted to this chintzily lovey-dovey romance is time wasted, because it highlights most egregiously the tragedy that might have been made of Wolverine’s past, here rendered generic instead.)

So, Wolverine wants to kill Sabretooth…until Stryker gives him the means to do so, then promptly (and with an utter lack of foresight) betrays Wolverine. Now Stryker is the designated bad guy, and Wolverine’s new target. Even when half-brothers meet up again in the interim for more fights (where one grows truly tired of their unvaried scrapping tactics), it feels desultory, as though Wolverine has forgotten all about his revenge ahead of schedule. Could be brotherly love – that could be another promising emotional avenue, so naturally it’s addressed in the broadest possible terms. And regardless of whatever conflict the movie is concerned with now, it’s inevitable (by continuity) that Wolverine, Sabretooth and Stryker all must survive. Because Wolverine’s functional immortality doesn’t already put the stakes precipitously low, there’s that narrative immortality to go with it.


The climax attempts to reconcile these disparate threads – Logans’ dead love, Sabretooth, Weapon X, assorted things I haven’t mentioned – into a satisfying whole. It does nothing for the bipolar film so far, and I feel bad for those tasked with trying to make something of this. Stryker thus becomes a standard supervillain, with a Weapon XI and an evil lair and whatnot. That lair is Three Mile Island, meaning…

Oh right, as a prequel this is a period piece, isn’t it?! Yeah, the 1979 core meltdown was actually caused by dueling mutants, didn’t ya know. That’s cheeky enough, no more than an udating on the old time travel joke where someone knocks off the Sphinx’s nose. Too bad period is never otherwise addressed. It’s as though, with all the claw-bones and odd characterizations and plot holes, the filmmakers were embarrassed of the past itself! Stryker’s computer technology, for instance, is made to look roughly modern, and a complete disregard for the greater historical context doesn’t help matters. That’s because X-Men Origins: Wolverine has zero, zilch, nada, bupkis to do with the “mutants-as-minorities” metaphor which Singer made his own. Boy, what could’ve been done with historical civil rights movements explored alongside mutant parallels. What says “we didn’t really care about this project” more than that? Wolverine is only a delivery system for juvenile action (and distractingly CGI metal claws, a problem even the 2000 version didn’t contend with – why?!).

Oh man, the things they focus their hard work on. Computer-rendered metal, when prosthetics worked just fine. And all these cutesy little prequel hints, not even remotely to do with Wolverine himself, just to remind everyone that, yes, this is a part of those movies you loved so much (also The Last Stand). A young Cyclops appears to get smacked around (his only movie function, seemingly), and the Three Mile Island nonsense concludes with Professor X recruiting a motley crew of anonymous mutants filling out space. This being days of 1970s yore, X possesses the undeniably creepy hovering de-aged face of Patrick Stewart – that they actually considered this technique for an entire movie is laughable. It looks worse than the CGI Arnold in Terminator Salvation!


As for that paring down which seems to be the Origins modus operandi? The piles of sideline mutants here say otherwise. Gambit, The Blob, Silverfox, John Wraith…Deadpool. At times the movie becomes a travelogue, sending Wolverine to fight/chat each new mutant, tossed in just in case someone, anyone without interest in Wolverine might spend money to see Gambit instead. After a while, this X-Men compulsion to wedge in as many extra cameos as possible just becomes tiring, and it no doubt hinders potential future continuity to some extent.

The truth is that they’re sowing the seeds for future Origins past, spinoffs of this spinoff. In that interest, any X-man or otherwise unaffiliated mutant from throughout the series is eligible for a one-off. Quick, who wants a Blob movie? Okay, more pertinently, who wants a Deadpool movie? Ah hah! And that one wouldn’t even need to be under the X-Men label! Surely, back in the enlightened days of 2003, when X2 was doing the series proud, it was Ryan Reynolds’ proud honor to headline this would-be movie (good casting). Then…nothing came of it, and I dunno why, leaving a dangling Deadpool retooled by uncool fools. Yup, Deadpool is in Wolverine, even serving as the “last boss,” in perhaps the juiciest example of producer perversity. The Merc With the Mouth, far from a motor-mouthed destroyer of fourth walls, is made wordless, and otherwise nothing like his inspiration. (Makes ya wonder why they did it at all.) It doesn’t help that Deadpool, mouth sewn shut, lumpy and bald, perfectly resembles the big bad in Uwe Boll’s House of the Dead.


They knew this one was a mistake immediately after fans proved surprisingly hostile towards the wholesale misappropriation of a beloved icon. Therefore, Reynolds is still onboard for a proper Deadpool movie (Dead Pool, that’s another Dirty Harry movie!) – it won’t be for a while, though, because against all odds DC got its shit together and put Reynolds in Green Lantern first!

As for other Origins? Merely two years later, it’s hard to pronounce this intended label dead, though the release of X-Men: First Class (being neither an X4 nor a proper Origins, but something indefinably other) suggests the idea has been abandoned. There had been talk of an X-Men Origins: Magneto, a notion with some potential, because of Magneto’s pertinent history (no amnesia for that magnetic personality). This project is now inarguably forsaken, reportedly with much of its material going towards First Class.

Boy, there are a lot of so-far nonexistent movies somehow tied in with X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The brand is schisming without clear guidance. Though with multiple projects in the works, splitting apart like an inverse of the Avengers situation, there are nuggets of hope. Such as the eventual Deadpool simply ignoring this movie’s missteps altogether. Or like The Wolverine, the movie the original Origins ought to have been – Logan in Japan! Development seems pretty well along by now, with Darren Aronofsky directing. All involved, including Jackman, seem politely inclined to move as far from Origins as possible. So perhaps this seemingly purposeless movie did what it needed to – kept the franchise active. Enough that decent things may come yet – and I’m moments away from discovering what is largely reputed: That First Class is indeed the salve this franchise so desperately needs.

X-Men, No. 5 - X-Men: First Class (2011)

Director Matthew Vaughn was at one point to be Bryan Singer’s replacement for X-Men: The Last Stand. Then he became absolutely fed up with the asinine producers behind it, and abandoned the project to the demented grasp of…uh, whatsisface (Brett Ratner). We know how that turned out: a mediocre movie at best by its own terms, and a complete travesty to the X-Men series. Vaughn has gone on record to say, in no uncertain terms, that he (Vaughn) could have injected ten times the emotional gravity in what ought to have been the definitive X-Men.

Now Vaughn has his second chance, with X-Men: First Class, and that’s ceased to be hot air! He’s inherited the increasingly dire prospects of the cinematic “X-Men,” and created something which doesn’t’ simply meet Singer’s initial high plateau – Vaughn’s entry arguably exceeds it, nearing Iron Man and The Dark Knight in the superhero pantheon, while splitting their tonal difference.


Conceptually, First Class isn’t necessarily such a promising prospect. It is another godforsaken X-Men prequel, after X-Men Origins: Wolverine demonstrated the complete uselessness of that notion. In fact, First Class shares many of the same likely difficulties of Wolverine: as a prequel, events and arcs are preordained. Furthermore, there’s a notoriously complex cinematic continuity to pay lip service to, for as much as First Class has every right to do like the eventual Amazing Spider-Man and reboot, it’s still of a piece with X-Men, X2, and all the rest…mostly. Amongst nerd arguments, there are certainly timeline discrepancies, though mostly with the latter, Singerless X-Men – and First Class gets the benefit of the doubt for disregarding The Last Stand, frankly.

Again, conceptually, First Class potentially shares some of The Last Stand’s problems too. Basically, it is as overstuffed as an “X-Men” movie could wish to be, not merely trumpeting a ridiculous panoply of supporting mutant characters, but featuring mostly new mutants on top of that, with an unwieldy mess of subplots and motivations to keep straight and make clear. In fact, First Class is by a significant degree the most out-of-control X-Men, featuring not just a new location, but a new continent for damn well every scene of its first half.


Against all these odds, these hindrances barely register – I only pick up on them for having recently re-endured the lesser entries. It is to Vaughn’s inestimable credit, a youthful vigor and energy, that First Class’s hyperactivity is exciting and not tiring. I cannot fully identify just what Vaughn does differently to accomplish this, though no doubt he has a greater genuine enthusiasm for the “X-Man” brand than Ratner or Gavin Hood ever did. It helps to take advantage of the preordained facts of First Class as schemed up by Fox: a period piece detailing how Magneto and Professor X begin the X-Men, in light of mankind’s upcoming struggles against mutanthood. For one thing, First Class isn’t merely set in the 1960s, it embraces this era in precisely the way Wolverine totally refused to. It helps that the ‘60s are infinitely cooler than the ‘70s, especially when filtered through the James Bond, “Mad Men” vibe.

Combine with that the freedom to play up the outdated Stan Lee, Jack Kirby feel of actual period “X-Men” comics – not that I have even a remote knowledge of them, but First Class feels as one pictures Silver Age comics. This is kind of a turning point with superhero movies, I’d wager! Singer’s X-Men is notable for seriously engaging the potentially sillier aspects of the comic medium. For all that, it still pragmatically redesigned the X-Men’s costumes from bright blue-and-yellow to black leather – as was the style at the time – alongside other such half-measures. First Class uses the ‘60s milieu to its advantage, giving us the original costumes in all their cheesy, two-tone glory – unashamedly too! What is silly in initial concept remains so, without apologies, but also without that toxic Batman & Robin above-it-all parody. In fact, Vaughn embraces the very comic-ness of his film so much, he actually gives us the first successful use of in-film panels, as seen in Ang Lee’s Hulk. We’re one step not only from a return to on-screen visual KAPOWS, ala “Batman,” but to the point where they’d actually work.


This is sort of the Iron Man half of First Class’s blood-soaked Nazi coin. As for The Dark Knight, well, First Class isn’t even remotely that dark (far from it – it’s maybe even frothier than Iron Man), but there’s the same degree of wonderful subtext. This is true to the Singer line, and the comics too (naturally). Mutants remain forever a metaphor for “otherness,” a neato sci-fi tool to examine ideas of ethics, segregation, discrimination, and (more usefully) philosophies regarding those issues. The ‘60s offer up a heady deal of loaded topics – civil rights, gender inequality (leading to the film’s one truly awkward moment), the Cold War. Elements like the Cold War are exploited openly to fuel the action plot, while others are mostly just alluded to – but it is the strength of a period piece that filmmakers gain efficient visual shorthand, for subtle hints to old cultural touchstones carry a great deal of weight. Plus, ‘60s fashion is just groovy.


X-Men: First Class is an origin story…kind of. Most origin movies are saddled with the handicap of delaying genuine superheroics – though, flipside, there’s that emotional elation when a hero discovers newfound powers. The X-Men, as a team, carry a different dynamic, letting some powers coming into play right off the bat (for all your Nazi-murdering goodness), while other characters can simultaneously occupy different points of the origin continuum – we get all the advantages at once.

Central to First Class are Magneto and Professor X – though for now we must think of them as Eric (Michael Fassbender, of Inglourious Basterds) and Charles (James McAvoy, of Wanted). Much of Eric’s magnetic emergence is even lifted from the never-to-be X-Men Origins: Magneto, pragmatically reworking Eric’s Holocaust childhood in a new light. But the focus isn’t upon him alone, but on Eric’s new alliance with Charles Xavier, a friendship destined to turn antagonistic. There are a lot of checklist points, prequel Stations of the Cross, to run through – we know Eric and Charles will have a falling out, and not to belabor that inevitability, First Class takes us all the way there. In the meantime, distinguishing icons shall arise – Magneto’s helmet, X’s wheelchair (and throwaway jokes about baldness), their mutual accumulation of mutant recruits. Because again we know a particular clunky helmet has future importance, its introduction in the villain’s possession carries a weight beyond immediate text – and Vaughn doesn’t belabor the point, letting his audience connect the dots as they wish.


It helps First Class that it is not bogged down with casting strictures, as was The Last Stand. No need to lose sight of the fundamental emotional story (which is moved along by a more surface-level tale of villainous Bond-style megalomania). No need to wedge in studio-demanded Wolverine antics, or time-hungry scenes of Storm doing nothing of any value whatsoever. None of that! Vaughn avoids the multitudinous issues with bringing back former actors in known roles – Magneto, X, Mystique, Beast, Emma Frost – especially sparing us the creepy CGI youthenizing of Patrick Stewart yet again. Subtly, this turns old characters into new discoveries, especially with Eric – Fassbender merges his own approach with Ian McKellan’s, doing what MacGregor ought to have accomplished with his Obi Wan. This, as much as anything, gives First Class its bounce, though direct sequels won’t have this advantage.

Charles Xavier is as much of a revelation as Eric Lehnsherr. Eric isn’t a “bad guy,” and his eventual embrace of mutant militantism is intellectually defensible, even if we know it leads to potential omnicide. Charles is likewise not a “good guy,” and far less ascetic then Stewart’s bald monk. With McAvoy, the young Charles is brash – not simply sexually opportunistic, but selfish in his apparent mutant cohabitation idealism. Most damningly, Charles is privileged as mutants go, invisible, wealthy, and dangerously quick to “out” fellow mutants. Neither Charles nor Eric is faultless in the mutant “issue,” which muddies the film’s moral waters considerably – to its benefit. The mutant scenario proposes at best an end result of peaceful human extinction, and asks the ethical question of how this is best handled. It allows for greater conversations post screening, the sign of a thoughtfully constructed popcorn flick – that, or you can just gush over how awesome the climactic naval battle is, which is equally valid.


Acting as lynchpin to the central duo is Raven (Jennifer Lawrence), someday to become Mystique. She grew up with Charles, but is destined to side with Eric. This, along with Raven’s shape-shifting lack of identity, ground the emotional trauma as successfully as Singer’s Rogue. With inevitability, her scenes of soul-searching carry the air of prequel tragedy, accomplishing the emotion Vaughn so desired of The Last Stand.

Emotion goes double for the quieter scenes between Charles and Eric, where First Stand truly earns its keep. There is a moment where Charles, attempting to mentor Eric’s magnetism, leads him to embrace the place between – if I can remember this correctly – rage and serenity. In other words, to temper Eric’s vengeful myopia. Huge kudos to Fassbender in particular! This is the most profound moment in the franchise, for how it underscores Magneto’s humanity, etc. – it’s also simultaneously corny as hell, a part of that wonderful comic booky line First Class treads.

Let me pause to run through some more characters – especially since an X-Men X-cells (er, excels) by its mutants, and so it is here…

Eric, Charles, Raven, we know. They’re all fine. Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult) carries whatever tragedy Raven cannot, as the man doomed to become Beast – in a surprisingly efficient homage to Robert Lewis Stevenson, which never gets bogged down in what could well be its own movie. As the genocidal Sebastian Shaw, Kevin Bacon is present and functional – because a villain is needed, to fuel immediate (lesser) plot, and to suggest what Eric might become. Though Shaw has little value on his own. Emma Frost (January Jones) is perhaps the weak link, though it’s hard to fault Frost for appearing an ice queen.

Others include Havok (power: fires off energy whatnots), Banshee (he screams), Angel (has bug wings – I suspect there’s some comic discrepancy here), Darwin (evolves, naturally), Azazel (teleporting demon, nicely recalls Russian propaganda with his red skin and Soviet uniform), and Riptide (Storm the Lesser). Plus a generous helping of actual, honest-to-Lee humans, giving the other side a face, best represented by mutant sympathizer Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne).


I am surprised by how much X-Men: First Class does right, given a franchise predicament where one might expect nothing at all. Surely with the latter X-Men atrocities a recent memory, it’s all the more substantial for its effectiveness. Whatever could have been a hindrance becomes a benefit – First Class fulfills the oft-ignored dramatic function of a prequel, such a rarity that many even doubt it possible. It build upon the work of its formers, understanding this universe’s mutation enough to couch the needed X-position (er, exposition) in Charles’ professing, and not directly to the audience. It respects its comic origins, compounding the goodwill of a decade’s superhero movies to combine heroes, themes, a cool setting, and further details one wouldn’t have even once thought necessary for this genre. Now more than ever I yearn to know what a Vaughn-helmed Last Stand might’ve looked like, though I’m also quite satisfied with First Class as its first class (ahem!) substitute.


The only concern is talk that First Class might lead to a potential Third Class (or whatever), lunatic Fox X-ecutives famished for a goddamn trilogy. This in addition to Aronofsky’s proposed The Wolverine, which looks to more fully embrace discontinuity – i.e. rebooting, or flat out ignoring. Eh, plus a likely X-Men Origins: Deadpool (look, just drop the “X-Men” title thing already!), and even (shudder!) X4, Berry be blessed. Yeesh, are cinematic Marvel movies becoming so like the comics that innumerable spin-offs are that acceptable?! Is a ridiculous DC/Marvel intercompany crossover an inevitability in our distant future now?!

The issue is, for First Class as another X-Men sub-franchise, the ever-diminishing dramatic gap between First Class and X-Men. I don’t mean chronologically (X-Men is in “the near future,” leaving things nicely wide open), but…well, the tale of Charles’ and Eric’s friendship is mostly a done deal now. Stretching this out in sequels, with continued reverence for Singer’s original continuity, can only diminish artistic returns on Vaughn’s unlikely success. This suggests a future of dramatic trivialities to rival Origins: Wolverine, and while I presently trust Vaughn and crew, it seems a road fraught with peril. But First Class proves it can be done.

X-Men, No. 2 - X2: X-Men United (2003)

One truism about many superhero films – of which X-Men is the primordial progenitor in the modern movement – is that the sequel is often surprisingly superior. This comes of the subgenre’s unique properties, where Part One must needs be 70% exposition, leaving little room leftover for superheroics. But this was not known upon the release of X2: X-Men United, which predates even Spider-Man 2 (but not Spider-Man). That this sequel wound up being incontestably better than the original was a mighty shock at the time.

The fact is that the mutant world is now well known, effectively established. About the fundamental issue with human mutation, only the briefest introductory scene setting suffices for X2. As for the X-Men, their existence and motives and personalities and powers, all this is mostly assumed as well. When the time comes to reestablish that, say, Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) is telepathic/telekinetic/photogenic, it’s simply shown, and viewers are left to deduce the meaning. Could be partially that director Bryan Singer has become more comfortable in the ways of Marvel storytelling. It helps that matters are grounded come X2, and audiences will accept teleportation or super healing or shapeshifting far more readily than before.


Actually, there is no question Singer has grown accustomed to this setting – as have the moneymen at Fox, X-Men having proved incontrovertibly that money spent on superheroes is money well spent. There is a healthy dosage of action in X2 – I wager at least 5x more X-action. It is quantitatively better as well, now that Spider-Man has shown how much CGI assistance the genre can successfully employ. X-Men mutants now freely exploit their powers, feeling far closer to the actual superheroes of the comics…a good sight removed from X-Men’s occasional “stand around and debate endlessly the viability of using your powers” approach, necessitated by what budget and effects technicians then allowed.

The special effects are noticeably better, much more uniformly integrated. They lack the shiny, plastic sheen of Part One – with the exception of Magneto’s (Ian McKellen) plastic prison, which ought to look plasticky. At some point in the early ‘00s – not reducible to a single set of movies, in my mind – CGI effects became more reliable as movie-wide tools, and not simply occasional grace notes. This distinction is there between the first two X-Men movies, with X2 unquestionably a part of the cinematic superhero revolution, and not merely a glimmer of promise.

The (mostly returning) cast is well served too, with a few lesser X-Men now promoted to semi-lead. There is not a weak member in this bunch (and bear with me): Wolverine (breakout star Hugh Jackman) – power: healing. Cyclops (James Marsden) – power: laser eyes. Jean Gray (Famke Janssen) – power: telekinesis. Mystique (Rebecca Romijn) – power: shapeshifting. Rogue (Anna Paquin) – power: absorption. Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) – power: ice, man. Pyro (Aaron Stanford) – power: FIRE!


And of course there’s always Storm (Halle Berry) (power – the weather, except interesting), who gets the mightiest screen time promotion, for a fairly one-note character, owing to Berry’s interim superstar success with Monster’s Ball. I don’t want to dwell upon this for too long, but it seems Berry got a little full of herself in the light of that and Die Another Day, arguably the worst of the James Bond movies. She wouldn’t even appear in X2 unless Storm was promoted to Berry-level prominence, and made to represent all the light and the goodness in the world. Lucky for Berry she humbled herself enough to reprise Storm, for it left her intended Gigli role open for J. Lo’s self-sabotage instead. …And then Berry later did Catwoman!


Meanwhile, there is but one central new mutant among the cast (I’m ignoring the somewhat tertiary Lady Deathstrike and Mutant 143). That would be Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming, another Bond veteran alongside Berry and Janssen), teleporter. One newbie is enough, as the roster is rather overstuffed as it is – it’s a marvel (heh?) Singer balances things as he does. The “X-Men” premise has always threatened filmmakers with its scope.

So X2 takes the promise of X-Men, and runs with it. For all these masses of characters, they’re mostly preset, so a movie-long story becomes the focus instead – where X2, like most superhero sequels, really succeeds. Running with the notion of strained mutant-human relations, especially as a metaphor for otherness and prejudice, X2 flips the villainy coin around and posits a new threat – not Magneto, but rather human Colonel William Stryker (Brian Cox). Stryker is this series’ metaphorical equivalent of a white supremacist, militarily opposed to an entire group on principle, and without reason. Unintentionally backed by the U.S. President into suspending mutant liberties (and kudos to the film for not making some lazy, undercooked War on Terror parallel out of this), Stryker has one aim, and one aim only: KILL ALL MUTANTS

Achieving this worldwide, omnicidal scheme, Stryker needs a few things – a replica of Professor X’s Cerebro machine…oh, and Professor X himself! Thus begins, elegantly enough, his involvement with our heroes. It then becomes a matter of the X-Men piecing together Stryker’s plan (as each member knows only a part of it), then discovering Stryker’s base of operations.


This central premise comes of the comics – reportedly, the “X-Men” series “God Loves, Man Kills.” It seems the prerogative of superhero movie commentators to either claim encyclopedic nerd-like omniscience on all things comic book, or to play incredulous elitist who scorns the genre. I am neither, for while I respect many comics, I don’t have enough intimacy with “X-Men” to know really any of its plots – to my detriment. However, as adaptations, comic book films have the advantage of decades’ of writing to borrow from freely, and it becomes a dire temptation to steal freely from all over at once. Singer and his writers are wise to limit their adaptation to a contained, logical thread. In the interest of perpetuating cinematic X-Men, in doing something akin to serial comic development, pragmatic adaptations seem wiser than willy-nilly appropriation.

Delaying the climax, X2 separates the X-Men group early on, only to reunite them after sufficient individual adventures. This guarantees moments for every character (and every character’s powers) to shine, without Storm’s storming negating Pyro’s pyromania, or some such. That’s a simple enough solution to the challenge of a superhero team story – where, as in X-Men, writers often struggle to create the perfect scenario demanding one use of each player’s powers.

(This separation also gets beyond the plot-ending ultra-superpowers of Professor X, who takes on brainwashed damsel duties for much of X2, leaving his charges without their greatest asset. The films on either side of X2 do something similar as well.)


Singer describes this division as an intentional echoing of The Empire Strikes Back, which is telling. In retrospect, X2 is the middle chapter of a trilogy, though this wasn’t wholly intended at the time. Unlike Lord of the Rings or The Matrix or Pirates of the Caribbean, X-Men is resolutely not a macro-movie, filmed at once with artificial divisions. Each entry is reasonably standalone, even while the series-wide arc escalates the mutant/human conflict for all its worth. Aping Empire isn’t some high-fallutin’ attempt at mythmaking, but simply Singer’s acknowledgment that the second Star Wars is among the greatest of sequels – and a great template for the X-Men mold, for how it deepens established characters, widens its universe, and ups the stakes.

The situation with Stryker is a unique one – odd that the central villain of a superhero story is not a supervillain, but a reasonably pudgy guy with no powers. Stryker does have a few select brainwashed mutants, but his antagonism is almost wholly “us vs. them.” In light of this, the X-men unite, as the title promises, with the normally villainous Magneto and Mystique joining forces with Wolverine, Jean Gray, Storm, Rogue, Iceman, Pyro, Nightcrawler… All this following a remarkably cool – and cruel – Magneto escape from plastic prison, involving the ingenious smuggling of metal. Needed because Magneto is not wholly heroic, is still the series’ central villain, despite this one-film truce. That he can ally with his enemies on occasion is a testament to the flexibility of the core X-concept, and the strength of Magneto as character.


Summarizing events as such passes over notable moments. Naturally, Wolverine gets the opportunity to go all badass against Stryker’s men, shrugging off their bullets while using his adamantium claws as God best sees fit – within the realms of a PG-13 movie. Even in this bloodless form, it took Singer some doing to get X2 negotiated down from an R, because stabbing deaths are apparently that much more taboo than gunshots. Would that a more proper vehicle for Wolverine existed (be careful what you wish for).

Another worthwhile scene involves Iceman’s mutant “coming out” with his parents – one of X2’s lone moments of obvious metaphorics (in this case, phrasing mutation as homosexuality, in no uncertain terms). Overreliance upon this approach was one of X-Men’s crutches, and to do it but once in a film (and to simplify the metaphor into a single form of otherness) increases this moment’s potency. Besides, the scene ends with a raging sequence of explosions, which is always nice, and there is also an alarmingly hilarious adamantium-licking kitty cat.


Then eventually X-Men team up, character dynamics are tested, and everyone reaches Stryker’s evil lair…Alkali Lake. Waitaminute! This place has meaning! Indeed, pragmatically adding new elements to the “God Loves, Man Kills” framework, here X2 fulfills that niggling promise of X-Men, to examine Wolverine’s amnesiac origins with greater care. Now we can unequivocally state it: Wolverine’s adamantium skeleton is the result of a secret military experiment, in film continuity headed by one Colonel Stryker. And not only that, but there are other super-healers under Stryker’s present employ, to add a little action sequencing to all this backward-looking soul searching. What a nifty way to incorporate necessary character revelations into the greater plot! For those knowing the answer, Wolverine’s past could’ve been steeped in tedium and hand-wringing, but Singer anticipates and sidesteps that issue. Though, let it be known, the term “Weapon X” has yet to enter the cinematic X-Men lexicography.


X2 is a good movie, most enjoyable, but it doesn’t lend me many more avenues of discussion. Maybe just taking a few more plot points as they come about… (Potential spoilers)

Stryker himself proves easy enough to foil…but there remains the issue of Professor X and Cerebro. As Magneto sees it, this is an opportunity for genocide, one way or another, and it’s simple enough to switch X’s polarity to KILL ALL HUMANS. Thus Magneto returns to his baseline villainy at the tail end. And don’t fret your pretty little head about humanity – hardly a summer blockbuster would actually eradicate the human race in such a way. Though there’s still the unremitting pain which every person on Earth endures at the finale of X2, which is kind of surprisingly cruel (mostly unaddressed), and potentially even fatal – I can’t imagine anyone driving at the time, or operating heavy machinery, endured Professor X’s unwitting psionic attack with flying colors.

Though perhaps that’s the point – X2 concludes with the promise of greater antagonism to come, in that classic middle chapter sort of way. Similarly, anything following the Empire Strikes Back guidebook must identify a Han Solo stand-in, a character to (presumably) perish, only to return shortly in the sequel. I won’t say just who that is, though it’s perhaps oblique enough to reference the “Dark Phoenix Saga.” Yeahhhhh…that was something I knew nothing about in 2003 when first watching X2, and only know of now largely thanks to X2. My cinema-going buddies had to fill in those blanks, but the intimation is the same nonetheless – some badass stuff is about to go down! And…credits!

Yeah, it’s a cliffhanger, but not in a way which makes X2 feel truncated, ala The Matrix Reloaded or some such. For the self-contained Stryker story is nicely resolved, and it’s only the greater, series-spanning arc which is still in the air. Which is right and good for this sort of a franchise. It ups the stakes with each entry to maintain interest, without becoming too enamored of its own continuity.

X-Men, No. 3 - X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

There should’ve been NO difficulty in making a third X-Men movie – X2 saw to that, laying the foundations in advance for an adaptation of one of “X-Men’s” most reputable story arcs: “The Dark Phoenix Saga.” It’s now safe to say that the main character killed at X2’s end was Dr. Jean Grey (Famke Janssen). One presumes, even during X2’s end credits (if armed with the proper knowledge of comic history) that Jean is thus fated to return, alive and newly imagined as the Phoenix – the most powerful entity in the cosmos, seeking godhood.

Early on, when director Bryan Singer was still connected to this project, indeed this was the planned direction, up to debating new characters integral to the “Phoenix Saga,” such as Emma Frost – who would’ve been played by Sigourney Weaver, had things gone through. But then Singer opted to go do Superman Returns instead, which is a story for another time.


The Fox that we all know and dread then started to flex its own unholy might, most Phoenix-like, demanding production of an X3 come hell, high water, or 2006. Multitudes of directors to rival the X-Men themselves were considered: Darren Aronofsky, Rob Bowman, Joss Whedon, Alex Proyas, Zack Snyder, Matthew Vaughn. Switching directors is no simple feat in the best of times, especially with a series as personally felt as this one evidently was for Singer. For one reason or another, none of the proposed helmers was capable. Vaughn went the furthest in the process, until he butted heads with Fox – not a good sign. (There is more to the Vaughn story later in the franchise.) The studio wasn’t even remotely concerned with shepherding this project, or ensuring its quality – unless you consider the then-priciest budget in history to indicate “quality.”

And who eventually inherited that limitless checkbook, along with the outsized expectations of a trilogy capper built on the exemplary X2? Why Brett Ratner, a director with the uncanny ability to cause movies to exist. That’s it…there’s nothing else to distinguish him, except perhaps an ability to shallowly imitate better directors (Red Dragon), or create films I’m convinced I must’ve actually seen at some point, but maybe I didn’t (the Rush Hour series). Ratner is the rat you turn to when you simply need a movie made, no questions asked. Hoo boy! (Though consider it a partial bullet dodged; Ratner was in some dark age considered for the first X-Men as well, which might’ve snuffed out superhero cinema as a whole in its cradle.)


But wait, the problems don’t stop there! “The Dark Phoenix Saga” wouldn’t suffice, presumably because some myopic producer got too big for his britches, and didn’t like it. (Recall archaic tales told of Cannon Films trying to make Spider-Man a horror movie villain, and weep.) Therefore, while the slightest kernel of “Phoenix” remains (less, indeed, than exists even in X2), new adaptations come into play. With 50 years of comic back issues to carefully choose from, the recent Whedon-penned “Gifted” arc was chosen, because the notion of a “mutant cure” opens up that same thematic arena of civil liberties Singer dabbled in quite well – now selected cynically by makers not actually concerned with Singer’s thematics.

On its own, a “mutant cure” is a potent idea, allowing individual X-Men to debate abandoning their powers for good, and provoking a far more militant response from hardliner Magneto (Ian McKellen). It somewhat keeps the series’ wheels spinning, recycling ideas already in place circa Part One, while “Phoenix” might’ve evolved (or mutated) the series to the next level. But there are more problems to come, nascent issues inherent in a filmed “X-Men” universe, bubbling to the surface now for the first time – I am struggling to avoid further similes to Phoenix.

In the comics run, there are innumerable X-Men (and other mutants), dozens upon dozens. Yet the comics do not struggle with an overloaded cast, partly because of the serialized medium, and partly by picking and choosing. The central X-Men roster alternates with time, much like the Avengers, keeping the focus forever manageable. Film franchises, alas, do not work that way, as escalation is the perverse norm (amongst producers only thinking of making the next one the biggest, with no long-term schemes). Casts accumulate, without anyone willing to make some difficult culling decisions. X-Men: The Last Stand (a loopy “title: subtitle” name sans number, a false indicator of finality retroactively making X2 an anomaly) tips onto the wrong side of the casting scale, cramming in an unfathomable pile of new mutants, lest they never make another entry.

Therefore we have our mutants, new – Beast (Kelsey Grammer), Kitty Pride (Ellen Page), Colossus (Daniel Cudmore), Angel (Ben Foster), Juggernaut (Vinnie Jones), Multiple Man (Eric Dane), Callisto (Dania Ramirez), Psylocke (Meiling Melançon), Arclight (Omahyra Mota), Quill (Ken Leung), Leech (Cameron Bright) – and old – Jean Grey, Magneto, Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart), Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), Storm (Halle Berry), Rogue (Anna Paquin), Cyclops (James Marsden), Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), Mystique (Rebecca Romijn), Pyro (Aaron Stanford). Strangely absent – Nightcrawler.

(That some of those actors are distractingly famous doesn’t help one’s attention span none.)


It’s a struggle to find something worthwhile for each of those players to do…and sometimes myopic producer insistence plays a hand. Cyclops is mostly out, killed off twenty minutes in, as part of some misguided grudge vengeance against Marsden deciding to play a minor role in Superman Returns. So…you’re willing to sabotage the entire emotional fabric of your movie, and murder a lead character, over that? Surely waiting, like, half a year would’ve made Marsden available again (plus, that would’ve been time well spent fixing the story). Or there’s always recasting – Iron Man 2 wasn’t scuttled by the departure of Terrence Howard. (You’re a $210 million movie! Surely there are other options?) But noooo, for zero reason that’s justifiable in-film, Cyclops is blinked from existence. Ta!

(A counterargument says it is a brave move to assassinate a presumably “safe” character. It’s taking a risk, the challenge being that risks often fail. If audiences do not go along with your wholesale slaughter of recurring icons, you’ve got the majority of a movie they’ll be against from this point on.)


Recounting the ways returning characters are marginalized would be an exercise in futility. Professor X is himself killed dead before midway, probably just because Ratner’s crew has no clue how to use him. Before even that, Mystique is…well, not “killed,” but “demutated,” which has the same basic effect upon her relevance to this story. A shame that Ratner and Magneto both abandon her, newly made human, as one might swat a fly. There is the potential for drama in Mystique’s new plight, but either Ratner doesn’t see it, or he just doesn’t care, as he’s too busy getting to the next special effects moment.

About those special effects: In X2, effects technology passed to the point of being obtrusive, and effects are no worse – technically – in The Last Stand. What does distract, though, is that X2 carefully used those necessary CGI moments to tell a story. Here, they are the story, as moments of grandeur occur sans context, and sans emotional payoff.

Take for instance new mutant Angel. He is, against his will, placed first in line to receive the cure, to thus shear away his chintzy angel wings. Rather, he lets said wings spread open, then flies off to effectively never appear again, except for maybe in portions of another two scenes. That’s a lot of work to no end, except to create an image for all the trailers, and also blog screen caps...


Similarly, I didn’t even realize Kitty Pride was in this movie until an hour in, when she finally gets a pertinent character scene – I find myself asking “Wait a minute, since when is Juno an “X-(Wo)Man’?!” Kitty then gets a major portion of the climax, something that surely couldn’t have gone to, say, Rogue.

Oh, Rogue! (I swear, I’m not simply trying to discover random nitpicks.) Since she is unable to touch anybody, she is another character anxious for the cure. Certain questions are brought up, like if this is true to her innate mutant self, or if it’s right for a mutant like her less capable of existing in society. Once again, all potential is squandered immediately after it’s broached, leaving just another loose end that could’ve been done away with altogether (except we’re interested in Rogue, as opposed to New Mutant #509). Actually, Ratner’s myriad efforts to do Singer proud instead highlight his deficiencies far more than mere foolish schlock ever could.


There are, however, certain mutants – obvious ones – who get sufficient attention, for various reasons. Magneto is among those fortunate figures, partly because his new villainous quest to amass as many eeeevil mutants as possible, which allows The Last Stand a window to new characters, potentially new toys, potentially spin-offs involving earth-shakers like, oh, Arclight. Plus, a conflicted villain is valuable asset – called Jean Grey!!! Honestly, Famke Janssen isn’t going anywhere! Use her!


Wolverine also escapes unscathed – at least, whatever wounds he receives heal quickly enough. It’s as it’s always been, ever since the character’s introduction in 1974; Wolverine’s uncouth, working class, cigar-chomping antics appeal to fans, even when wholly divorced from the greater “X-Men” whole. To that end, in The Last Stand Wolverine gets to race around a forest slashing people with impunity, much like Jason Voorhees. This moment feels almost contractual, for how little energy it possesses. Even with a beefy role, Wolverine is lost in the shuffle…compared to what he could do.

Making it out with the king’s ransom of focus, however, is Storm – I couldn’t name a less deserving character. Honestly, Cyclops is more interesting than her! But Halle Berry’s narcissistic megalomania had, if anything, grown since 2003, to the point she was convinced it was she, and she alone who made X-Men important. Even with Catwoman already having earned her a coveted Razzie (to go right alongside her Oscar, no doubt)! But don’t tell Berry I question her endless value, or she’ll say I’m racist. And she’ll point to her People’s Choice Award for “Female Action Star” (as if 2006 offered that much variety), then orchestrate a letter-writing campaign demanding X4, “for all the black women out there.”

The emotional stories, the characters – all are lost in the sheer complexity of it all…At least The Last Stand is easy to understand. The plot line may not be crackerjack, but it is itself never lost in side-motivations or anything.

Ultimately, X-Men: The Last Stand succumbs to the same issues which plague many trilogy cappers – oddly, since X2 didn’t openly aim to be a middle chapter, and avoided all those potential pitfalls. Mostly, The Last Stand gets caught up in its own hype and ambition, convinced of the essential grandiosity of its tale. And whenever a multi-entry Hollywood property gets that in its noggin, that means extended epic battle scenes are sure to follow. So it is for Ratner, though it’s a danged strange thing to stage an X-Men action sequence as the superhero version of a Lord of the Rings siege – Magneto’s Brotherhood misuses the Golden Gate Bridge to gain access to Alcatraz, incongruous site of the cure (this landmark decision lacks the portent of Part One’s Statue of Liberty, but all its surface gloss). The X-Men, alongside several humans, oppose the Brotherhood. An all-superhero battle is a viable idea, as the comics have shown for decades – particularly in their all-continuity crossover “crises.” That remains a fantastical idea that’d be far harder to capture on film, with budget and technical limitations which never plague an ink artist.


And at last, adding insult to whatever injury preceded it, the final shot of The Last Stand undermines all the de-mutating finality before it – with a hint that an ex-X’s powers are, for no reason, back. It’s probably meant as cheeky (and no doubt sequel baiting), but it just seems contemptuous – as if the people who couldn’t take the changes of Rogue or Mystique seriously cannot take any of their premise seriously. This is dangerous ground, for all of The Last Stand’s pseudo-seriousness, a sort of dismissal more akin to the poisonous pre-X-Men adaptation output, exemplified by Batman & Robin.

Well, The Last Stand can sequel bait as much as it wants, for all it wants to be an ending. The fact remains that the X-Men model as it stands here is unsustainable. It’s just too expensive! And the cast is too big! There’s nothing in here which increases The Last Stand’s worth, certainly nothing which puts in on a level with the much more controlled X2. Obviously, moneymen still see value in this franchise, especially when The Last Stand was able to mint a pretty penny, but not at the increased risks they’ve now incurred. Paring down is the next option. Just remember, guys: There are decades of material available, plus the comics’ example of how it works best. Follow that lead.

X-Men, No. 1 - X-Men (2000)

The superhero movie is the lone substantially new (sub)genre of our generation, something which has gone from nonexistence to proliferation with great efficiency. Credit special effects, finally able to effectively convey the outsized heroics of comics-derived heroes. Credit a sudden seriousness with which filmmakers regard the genre. Credit mere copycattism on producers’ part. And also credit X-Men, which earns praise as the real trendsetter in this form.

Oh, trust me, there were plentiful superhero films before X-Men and the new millennium. To simply look at their larger history (hopefully with some swiftness)…

Superhero cinema started almost as soon as superhero comics themselves. During the heady heyday of WWII, comics stories were regarded – rightly or not – as children’s stories. Hence superhero films were themselves childish, Saturday matinee serials: The Phantom, Batman, Captain America, all these from ‘43 and ‘44.

Then the movie serial died out, and with it super-cinema. The dogoodnik dogoodery of the Comics Code sapped the comic medium of its essence, as meanwhile Hollywood lost all respect for the genre – too good for comics, they were, with their atomic bug movies and whatnot. For a great long while, the only noteworthy filmed comic adaptation was TV’s “Batman” and its spinoff The Movie – that campy gag-factory shows what opinion most people still held on the matter.


Meanwhile, Marvel Comics started making a name for themselves in the ‘60s, Stan Lee’s assorted creations addressing notions the more classical Golden Age comics wouldn’t – like the possibility of social metaphor, such as with the X-Men and civil rights.

Meanwhile, Star Wars broke one barrier for comic films – special effects. Along came Richard Donner’s 1978 Superman, a serious hagiography of the DC hero, well ahead of its time…because most subsequent comic movies remained the purview of lesser studios, like Cannon and New World Pictures, with Superman IV and The Punisher, respectively.

Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman reignited major studio interest. Actual output of superhero films was still a trickle – DC was content with the Batman sequels, mostly, and once Batman & Robin sharted itself out, we were back at a dismissive, tongue-in-cheek ”better than the comics” mentality. Meanwhile, most comics movies (Steel, Barb Wire, Tank Girl, Judge Dread, god the ‘90s were a cesspool!) derived from more minor comics companies, suggesting little promise.

What of Marvel? For purely legal reasons, whatever of their properties were filmed (a 1993 Captain America, Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four) remain unreleased, largely to this day! But Marvel bade its time, and when they did inspire a film – 1998’s Blade – it was in a less overtly “superhero” form. If any film has the edge over X-Men in inaugurating the present superhero trend, it’s Blade, which is so serious about its subject, it’s actually R-rated! But X-Men wins out by featuring recognizable superheroes – not only are the X-Men better known, what with their ‘90s TV cartoon and video games and all – but they better fit the public’s impression of superheroes. It was just a matter of doing this notion justice on screen, and not spending millions of dollars to undermine the subject matter, all Joel Schumacher-like.


X-Men’s development is nearly as convoluted as superhero films themselves. James Cameron initially had a hand, until he decided to go fail to make a Spider-Man movie instead. This was around 1990. Marvel retained their film rights, and went straight to the big studios. Ultimately it was Fox which bit, the unlikeliest of places for a property to be lovingly shepherded to artistic and financial success. This is 1994 by now, and that six year delay prior to the film’s actual release suggests Fox had a hard time of it. X-Men went through at least half a dozen scripts, it would seem, each with a slightly different approach – some no doubt frivolous and cavalier, much as Cannon once considered making Spider-Man into an honest-to-Lee horror movie (which still sounds less ill-advised than “Turn Off the Dark”).

Let us ignore all these complexities, and jump ahead to the point where Bryan Singer directed X-Men, with a screenplay credited solely to David Hayter. It’s 2000 now, and suffice it to say X-Men was a…perverse choice to kick start the superhero fad. For what it has over most other Marvel entities is the necessity to showcase many, many, many different heroes, each with a separate back story and powers and personality, and all these elements united together in a way that makes sense to “X-Men” neophytes while telling a captivating narrative. Hmm, it sorta starts to make sense why development took so long. And introductions are pretty much all X-Men has the time for, for even as streamlined as it is.

Nothing says “things would otherwise be altogether too confusing” than opening narration, so we get one courtesy of Professor Xavier, as embodied by Patrick Stewart. Mutations happen, it is posited, in a characteristically Stan Lee-style willful misinterpretation of evolution, resulting in a new class of humans – the mutants. All at once, people start appearing with hugely varied superpowers and – now this is the kicker – are victims of prejudice.

It is to the inestimable credit of X-Men that it takes this premise seriously, for as potentially silly as mutations could be (see Troma). This is old hat nowadays, with The Dark Knight among the cleverest metaphors for modern politics put out by a major studio – and X-Men’s thematics aren’t nearly as developed as those that’d come, but things have to start someplace. For instance, X-Men loads itself up with unmistakable references to historical events, of a most varied sort.


Central is the underlying concept of civil rights, particularly the distinction between Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X (an over-explored notion already, without my help). That name, “X-Men,” it’s no accident! Mutants are “an other,” a means to explore racism without actually exploring racism – look to “Star Trek’s” alien races, or Night of the Living Dead’s zombie class, for other ‘60s media with this notion. In “X-Men” (and X-Men), Lee, Singer, Jack Kirby and whomever else posit two elder states-mutants, Professor X and Magneto (in film, Ian McKellen). While each craves equal mutant rights, one prefers peaceful means (that’d be X, counter-intuitively re: Malcolm Little), and the other is militant (Magneto, of the Brotherhood of [Evil] Mutants). They are our hero and villain, respectively, and because their differences lie mostly in tactics, this is a far more rich relationship than many foes share. Indeed, Magneto and Professor X are old friends, which as of 2011 is again an inescapable fact. And for all that X-Men is an action movie, its heart belongs to a wheelchair-bound headmaster and an elderly Holocaust survivor.

Oh yes, the Holocaust – CGI-assisted narration aside, that’s what opens this popcorn blockbuster, ensuring no one misses the point about prejudice. And the metaphor doesn’t simply stick with segregation or anti-Semitism. The very next scene rephrases anti-mutant fervor in McCarthian terms – “I hold in my hands a list of mutants” (paraphrased), says an asshole senator (in other words, a senator). At other times, it’s an immigration debate metaphor . Or sometimes homosexual rights – no mistaking on this one, given Singer and McKellan (X2 furthers this particular thread). Oh, and when the movie climaxes, it’s at the Statue of Liberty, alongside an international conference on Ellis Island, gateway to America. Subtlety isn’t X-Men’s forte.


Neither is story, really. Because before we can get to story, first the world of the X-Men must be further elaborated, for the sake of newbies. To be established: The X-Men exist, a team of superheroic freedom fighters based out of Professor X’s Westchester institute. Merely plopping us in there, then moving on with matters of superheroism, would be sort of disorienting even for one schooled in all matters mutant – because mainstream film demands certain things, and one of those is emotional grounding. It’s best, in a sci-fi/fantasy world as developed as this, for a character to enter it gradually, just as we do. Enter Rogue (Anna Paquin).

As a teenage girl, Rogue (aka Marie, because there are mutant monikers, and then there are human handles, in the way all superheroes have alter egos) has just become aware of her mutancy – oh right, there’s also a metaphor for sexual maturity in here. Specifically, Rogue learns her touch can steal another’s essence, and mutant powers (provided said someone is a mutant). Her physical separation from the rest of humanity, that’s another of Singer’s eleventeen dozen metaphors. It’s effective enough, however.

In short order, Rogue joins with Wolverine (Hugh Jackman’s breakthrough role), not an original X-Man, but a fan favorite you just can’t do an X-Men without. Wolverine is our other access character, and while mutation is nothing new for him (making him an effective action hero, for our vicarious thrills), his recent amnesia leaves him just as confused. And while amnesiac heroes are usually a lazy writer’s trick, Wolverine’s history (a mysterious experimental adamantium skeleton, on top of preexisting super-healing) sort of necessitates it. It’s all there in the comics, after all, and speaks of greater Alkali Lake developments this Part One hasn’t the time to explore.


That’s became what we do now know of Wolverine takes long enough to establish, without further complications. Seeing as he knows so little himself, it’s up to the X-Men to examine him, and vice versa. For Rogue and Wolverine are soon the guests of Professor X, where the rest of the film is mostly devoted to putting forth more X-details.

Professor X we know, though the extent of his psionics, and his Cerebro machine, still need to be explored.

Then there’s the X-Men, and even with a reduced roster, this’ll take some time…

Team leader Cyclops (James Marsden) shoots lasers from his eyes. Personality wise, he is a boy scout, a straight man to counter Wolverine’s animalistic temper (right, I forgot, Wolverine has a bad boy thing going for him, hence his popularity).

Cyclops’ gal, Dr. Jean Gray (Famke Janssen), a more pathetic telepath than Xavier. Wolverine feels perfectly understandable lust for her, and…well, with powers and relationships and everything else, that mostly suffices for persona.

But your greatest cipher is Storm (Halle Berry)…who makes storms. This power is mostly assumed by the preexisting naming convention, because Storm doesn’t kick up a namesake until action demands it.

Keep in mind, initially screenwriters intended for Beast, Gambit, Angel, Colossus and Nightcrawler to also show (which they do not). Meanwhile, characters like Pyro and Iceman appear without fanfare, and it’s wholly up to fan speculation to assume that anonymous background extras might be Kitty Pride, etc.

To say nothing of Magneto’s crew. Of Magneto himself, well, if that name doesn’t say to you “magnetic powers,” this isn’t the franchise for you. Aiding him are shapeshifter Mystique (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos in a painted-on skin-tight blue non-outfit ahhhhhh – excuse me), toad-like toady Toad (Ray “Darth Maul” Park), and lesser Wolverine clone Sabretooth (pro-wrestler Tyler Mane).

[Deep breath.] Whew!


Where were we? Oh right, once we know all this stuff, there’s barely any time left for a climax, for in the Third Act the X-Men (now counting Wolverine among their ranks) first don their heroes’ outfits to go battle Magneto – in an eleventh hour scheme to turn humans into mutants via special effects. It’s curious, X-Men follows the “first superhero movie” sort of template (minimal action, plot, for all the world-building) even though it’s not an origin story, and thus lacks the usual excuse. The “X-Men” universe is just that complex, though!


Most of what I’ve related would’ve been a list of screenwriter’s challenges, and an outline says little of what actually works in X-Men. Much of what it does right isn’t even noteworthy after a decades’ worth of formula improvements, how it translates a comic book world to film mostly intact. That doesn’t mean unchanged, for among X-Men’s huger liberties are a change in outfits from yellow spandex to trendy black leather – something Cyclops even points out. This is no idle switch, done by an executive’s confused notion of toy sales or quadrants or not understanding the source material; Singer et al tested out more traditional “X-Men” duds before realizing, film being what it is, what seems normal is different. It’s hard now to fault this decision, or even approach it critically, since the black-clad X-Men have become so commonplace themselves since 2000.

Much of X-Men is hard to approach over a decade later. Future superhero epics have embraced CGI far better, making the dated 2000 effects curiously underwhelming. The action in total feels stagebound and unkinetic, like even earlier superhero efforts. Moments such as Wolverine floating via Storm’s and Jean Gray’s combined storming and braining, these feel just slightly silly now, like a guy on strings indoors. I don’t remember things looking this cheap a decade ago. Seriously, while the basic contour of this movie is familiar, my brain had somehow updated the visuals. And I don’t mean this as a slam, by no means, because I think X-Men is phenomenally instructive of how superhero movies have evolved, even since then.


There is far too much in “X-Men” for a single movie (or a single franchise, even), so sequels are pretty much a necessity. X-Men seems to be written with sequels in mind – partly by ending with a cliffhanger of Magneto imprisoned in plastic, partly just to cash in on the endless introductory exposition. Plus the truth about Wolverine’s past, Iceman and Pyro awaiting larger roles, and the vast swaths of popular “X-Men” characters not even alluded to thus far.

Given all that, there’s no evidence a sequel was guaranteed. Given X-Men’s position at the very start of the superhero upswing, two years before even Spider-Man, there’s no way success was guaranteed. Recall, Batman & Robin was still a vomitous taste in audience’s collective mouths, a climate where X-Men would seem a revelation. A “surprise hit,” it must be called, and a good thing too. With the exception of Batman and Superman, their franchises already defunct by then (oh, and Blade, who hardly seems to count), no superhero was yet engendering sequels. X-Men did, and then some, so that in ten years we’ve gone from “a sequel is a remote, outside rarity” to “we’re making prequels four years in advance” (The Avengers). Mutation indeed!