Special Coverage Comic-Con 2008Pop Culture Classics (The EW 1000)Sound BitesBox Office Game
  • --
X-Men | x_l
PSYCHIC FRIEND As ''X-Men'''s resident telepath, Stewart thinks big

Credits

Release Date: Jul 14, 2000; Rated: PG-13; Genres: Action/Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-fi; With: Shawn Ashmore, Halle Berry, Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen and Anna Paquin...; Distributor: 20th Century Fox Film Corporation

All About

X-Men
C+
By Ken Tucker
Ken Tucker
Ken Tucker
Ken Tucker is critic-at-large for EW
Director Bryan Singer's take on Marvel Comics' mutant saga is a murky superhero spectacle, visually and narratively, and what was atmospheric in the theater seems dim at home. Weighed down with an overarching Holocaust metaphor its script cannot quite support, X-Men does as good a job as it can streamlining the comics' vast soap operatic mythos into a movie pitch: the lives of superpowered humans seen as ''gifted'' by their mentor, Prof. Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), as a public threat by a squawky senator (Bruce Davison), and as tools for world domination by the most potent mutant gone bad, Magneto (Ian McKellen).

The only time Singer displays his ''Usual Suspects'' knack for making conversation crackle is when Xavier and Magneto square off in silkily toned insult matches. The rest of the time, the film is like one long intro to a movie franchise: Enter character; character displays his/ her power; exit character. Hugh Jackman, as the gratifyingly sarcastic Wolverine, adds much needed wryness to this humorless adolescent boy epic, which will likely have its core audience freeze framing the DVD to get a closer squint at blue gunk drenched villainess Rebecca Romijn-Stamos.


Posted Nov 28, 2000
 

Add Your Comments

The rules: Keep it clean, and stay on the subject or we might delete your comment. If you see inappropriate language, e-mail us. You must have javascript enabled to submit a comment.
--
Change/Edit your grade
characters remaining