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  Matt
  
Willis
X-Men
USA, 2000
[Bryan Singer]
Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Famke Janssen, Sir Ian McKellan, Halle Berry
Action /
  
Planned as a trilogy and certainly feeling like it, X-Men is nevertheless a fantastic adrenaline rush and a brilliant introduction to those not sad enough to collect the comics, live the fantasy etc. Utilising the X-Men universe director Bryan Singer and screenwriter Tom DeSanto have discarded several prominent characters, Beast and Gambit for instance, and focused almost excusively upon a select band on either side of the good/bad divide. Most of the important ones are here though and one feels that this focusing in on just the few is a very good idea allowing their talents and personalities to be explored without a hundred other characters also clamouring for attention. Plus, their powers compliment each other and bar Sabretooth and Wolverine are completely different.

Unsurprisingly the film centres on fans favourite and all round tough bloke Wolverine and starts so far back we get to see the first inklings of anti-mutant behaviour and his acceptance into Prof. Xavier's (Patrick Stewart) group, which includes Cyclops, Storm and Dr Jean Grey.After Dr Jean Grey's unsuccesful attempt to put at ease the US government against Senator Kelly's anti-mutant rhetoric, the 'normal impaired' have to hide their powers. Rogue (an all-grown up Anna Paquin) runs away from home after kissing a boy and nearly killing him. She meets up with Wolverine near the Canadian border and after a brief skirmish with Sabretooth they find themselves taken in by Prof. Xavier, a man hopeful for the future and committed to fight his erstwhile friend, the heavily pro-mutant Magneto (Ian McKellan, teaming up with Singer again after
Apt Pupil).

I found the plot rather secondary to the character building, a clear pointer to a future for the series, and it certainly didn't seem as life-threatening or important as other action films. Nevertheless it works very well and shows that you don't have to be an MTV-style director to make magic in the genre. Singer, a director yet to fail, is equally at home helming this as he was with his previous, and considerably more cerebral,
The Usual Suspects.

The actors, bar Stewart and McKellan, are a motley collection if ever I saw one. Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and Anna Paquin are both very good and have impressive reputations (even if Paquin's only look throughout the movie is open mouthed, big eyed, constantly gulping fear) but James Marsters (Cyclops), Famke Jannsen (Dr Jean Grey) and Halle Berry (Storm) are hardly top notch thespians. Regardless of this, and Berry's unforgiveably poor accent, they all perform well and make an excellent team. The villains, including Darth Maul himself Ray Park, are also suitably cast and one can only hope they also return for the sequel. If not, there's always another thousand or so characters to use from the
X-Men universe.
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