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07/14/00- Updated 08:49 AM ET |
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'X-Men' falls short in leap to silver screenBy Andy Seiler, USA TODAY
Fans of The X-Men, the long-running best-selling comic book about good and bad mutants battling over the fate of Earth, have waited for a movie adaptation for an excruciatingly long time. For that reason, X-Men has to rank as the most disappointing movie in a summer season full of disappointments. It has some style, thanks to director Bryan Singer (Apt Pupil, The Usual Suspects). It has expensive and impressive special effects. And it is a pleasure to watch two superb stage-trained British actors Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier (aka Professor X ) and Ian McKellen as villain Erik Lehnsherr (aka Magneto ) give their sometimes banal lines nuance and subtlety.
But missing are well-choreographed action scenes, likable characters and involving plot twists all the elements anyone ever asks from this kind of film. And although there are a few funny lines , there's not a lot of fun. It was all, apparently, x-pendable. X-Men, originally set for a holiday release, was shot on a schedule so rushed that it could have stressed a superhero. To speed things up, the filmmakers broke down each scene into parts that could be farmed out to different effects companies. The result feels like exactly what it is: a collection of fragments, not sustained sequences. X-Men takes place in the near future, when the next stage of evolution begins and mutants of all stripes appear around the world. Bruce Davison plays Sen. Robert Kelly, who is leading a political campaign to force mutants to register with the government. Two groups of mutants one good, one evil oppose him. The good guys include the optimistic professor and his school of gifted mutant youths, who want to enlighten the senator. The cynical Magneto and his mutant minions are the baddies, who want to destroy him. Not exactly an exciting plot line for X-Men neophytes. Meanwhile, fans may not recognize what has become of their beloved heroes and villains. In an attempt to make the characters more realistic, the filmmakers have dulled them down. These monochromatic misfits no longer have the colorful pizazz that is the essence of their comic book appeal. Though some popular characters are missing no Gambit and no Beast, for instance that's understandable. There have been, after all, more than 300 in the X-Men story since it started in 1963. But credited screenwriter David Hayter nevertheless seems to have tried to squeeze in as many as possible. With the exceptions of metal-clawed Wolverine (hairy Hugh Jackman, channeling Bill Bixby) and untouchable Rogue (pouting Anna Paquin), we barely get to know them. There are so many characters that it even seems as if Hayter will be introducing characters even when the movie is over! That means Stewart and McKellen don't get enough screen time together, leaving too much room for actors who don't seem to be able to act at all. Rebecca Romijn-Stamos , who plays Mystique, and Halle Berry, who plays Storm, make it seem as if the ultimate superpower is the ability to recite dialogue.
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