X-Men (film)
X-Men is an
action movie, first released in
Australia on
13 July,
2000. The film features a group of
comic book superheroes called the
X-Men. It formed a major part of the current revival in comic-book adaptation movies.
The movie was directed by
Bryan Singer and explores the ideas of prejudice and discrimination in the
United States. The
screenplay was written by
David Hayter (who has a cameo appearance in the film as a police officer in the Statue of Liberty area).
It wasn't until
1998 when young director Bryan Singer, known for his critically acclaimed thriller
The Usual Suspects, signed to direct the movie. In
2000,
20th Century Fox released
X-Men, a $75 million
film adaptation of the comic book, directed by the innovative young director. The film features
Cyclops (
James Marsden),
Jean Grey (
Famke Janssen) and
Storm (
Halle Berry) as leather-clad X-Men who also serve as teachers of
Professor Xavier's (
Patrick Stewart) School for the Gifted.
Wolverine (
Hugh Jackman) and
Rogue (
Anna Paquin) are two mutant wanderers who cross their path. The team battles
Magneto (
Ian McKellen), who has created a machine that turns humans into mutants and plans to affect a congregation of world leaders. His Brotherhood of Mutants includes
Mystique (
Rebecca Romijn-Stamos),
Sabretooth (
Tyler Mane) and
Toad (
Ray Park) The film gathered good reviews, approval from fans, and earned $157.3 million at the box office, helping usher in a new era of Marvel movies including
2002's
Spider-Man and 2003's
Daredevil and
Hulk.
A
sequel,
X2: X-Men United, was released in
2003, and a third film,
X-Men: The Last Stand, was released in 2006.
Taglines:*
Join the Evolution.*
Change is coming. The evolution begins July 14th.*
Protecting Those Who Fear Them.*
The time is coming when all that we are afraid of will be all that can save us.*
Trust a few. Fear the rest.*
We're Not What You Think.*
The future is here.Mutants (
Homo sapiens superior) are the next
evolutionary step in the chain of
humanity. Some children are born with an X-Factor (a unique genetic
mutation). These usually manifest themselves at puberty and grant individuals special powers. These mutants are almost universally feared and loathed by rest of mankind.
Professor
Charles Xavier (the world's most powerful
telepath) takes gifted individuals and teaches them to control their powers for the good of mankind in his
school for gifted youngsters. Opposition to them includes
United States Senator Robert Kelly (
Bruce Davison), a
McCarthyesque politician trying to pass
legislation crafted to expose the dangers of mutants, and
Erik Lehnsherr (also known as Magneto), a mutant who blames humanity for the death of his family
at the hands of the
Nazis.
Though they are formerly friends, Lehnsherr and Professor Xavier have different aims. Xavier is trying to convince humanity to accept mutants and put an end to
prejudice against his kind. Lehnsherr, believing that homo sapiens and homo sapiens superior can never coexist peacefully, aims to teach humanity that mutants are the heirs to the future. Toward this end, Magneto builds and tests a machine that develops mutations in "normal" humans.
Marie D'Ancanto, a teenage girl, almost kills her boyfriend when her life-draining powers emerge. She runs away to northern
Alberta, taking the alias
Rogue, and meets mysterious brawler
Logan / Wolverine, who makes a living out of
cagefighting. When the two drive away in Logan's trailer, they are ambushed by
Sabretooth, but saved by
Storm and
Cyclops and taken to the
Xavier Institute. There, Wolverine and Rogue are introduced to a team of mutant superheroes known as
X-Men.
Meanwhile, Senator Kelly is abducted by
Mystique and
Toad. His true captor is revealed to be Magneto, who uses a machine on Kelly and turns him into an adaptive mutant able to polymerize his body. Kelly escapes imprisonment in Magneto's stronghold by squeezing himself through the bars of his cell and washes up on a beach.
Rogue sneaks into Logan's bedroom at the Xavier Institute one night, prompted by the noises he makes while having
nightmares about the implanting of his
adamantium skeleton. Waking up in a blind rage, he accidentally impales Marie on his claws. She touches him, using her power to imprint his healing ability and save herself. The strain of the experience causes Logan to have a seizure.
Mystique, posing as
Iceman, a fellow mutant, infiltrates the Institute. She poisons Xavier's
Cerebro machine and tricks Rogue into thinking that Xavier is angry at her, causing her to run away. Logan goes after her and catches her train, but then Magneto appears, easily repelling Logan's defense (his adamantium skeleton makes him helpless against Magneto) and abducts Marie. The other X-Men and the
Brotherhood battle briefly; Cyclops is incapacitated when his battle visor is snatched by Toad's tongue, Sabertooth strangles Storm, who retaliates with a lightning blast but may still be unconscious from the strain, and Xavier and Magneto engage in a battle of wills where the Professor uses his telepathy to control Sabretooth and Toad and stop Magneto from controlling the guns the police have brought to the scene. (Magneto seizes them all & points them at their owners.) Despite the valiant efforts of Xavier's team, the villains escape.
Kelly, slowly dying from this unnatural mutation, brings himself to the Xavier Institute (instead of a hospital because he fears he may be shunned as a mutant) and tells Xavier of Magneto's machine before dying. The X-Men find out that Magneto wants to transfer his power to Rogue (using her power as an amplifying force) and place her in his mutation machine. A
UN summit is taking place in the nearby
Ellis Island, and by turning the world's leaders into mutants, Lehnsherr reckons to solve the mutant problems by force. The operation will result in Rogue's death.
Xavier uses the tampered Cerebro to locate Rogue and is rendered comatose.
Jean Grey restores Cerebro and uses it herself, nearly killing herself in the process, but finding out that Rogue is imprisoned in the flame of the
Statue of Liberty on
Liberty Island. They arrive at the scene in a specialized jet and soon find themselves battling the Brotherhood again. After battling and defeating both Toad and Mystique, the X-Men locate Rogue and the mutation device at the top of the Statue of Liberty. They are promptly captured by Magneto. Wolverine frees himself, engages in a lengthy battle with Sabretooth and frees his partners. All four work together to free Rogue; Logan is levitated to the mutation device by Storm and Jean Grey, allowing him to provide Cyclops an opportunity to destroy it with an optic blast. Rogue is near death when Logan saves her by touching her, thus using her life-draining powers to transfer his healing powers to her.
Professor Xavier recovers from his coma. Senator Kelly reappears on the news as a more mutant-friendly politician. Careful scrutiny of the news footage by Xavier and the X-Men reveal that Kelly is actually Mystique in disguise. Wolverine journeys to
Canada, to find answers to his origins, but promises to return. The film ends with Xavier playing
chess with Magneto in a completely
plastic jail cell. Magneto tells his old friend that he will continue fighting "by any means necessary", while Xavier replies he'll always be ready to meet the threats.
Charles Xavier has summoned a group of individuals (the X-Men) possessing great abilities that protect a mankind which fears and hates them, hoping for peace in the future. The X-Men roster includes
*
Cyclops / Scott Summers, whose eyes constantly emit beams of concussive force
* Dr.
Jean Grey, who has telepathic and telekinetic abilities and is in a relationship with Scott Summers.
*
Storm / Ororo Munroe, who can manipulate the weatherLater, Xavier also recruits two other individuals,
Logan / Wolverine, a mutant who cannot recall his past, who possesses amazing healing and regenerative powers, a skeleton that has been bonded with adamantium and retractable claws) and
Rogue / Marie, a young female mutant with the power to drain others' lifeforces and mutant powers).
Erik Lehnsherr has formed the mutant terrorist group "The
Brotherhood of Mutants". Their members are:
*
Sabretooth, immense physical strength and cat-like agility
*
Toad, with a harpoon-like tongue, toxic saliva and superior leaping power
*
Mystique, a shapechanger and supreme martial arts fighter
Other appearances include:
*
Pyro / John Allerdyce, who can control fire
*
Iceman / Bobby Drake, who can freeze his environment
*
Shadowcat / Kitty Pryde, who can walk through walls
*
Jubilee / Jubilation Lee, who can create explosive plasmoids, similar to fireworks
Some fans were not entirely pleased with the first large scale adaptation of the X-Men. Many fans complained about the change in costumes and the overall depiction of Rogue as frightened, naive, and defenseless - even with her powers. Another overall complaint was that the other X-Men, featured so prominently in the comic books, were relegated to playing second fiddle against Wolverine. Many fans felt that Cyclops in particular, the field leader of the X-Men, and his long-term romance with Jean Grey were minimalized to emphasize Wolverine's role in the group, and Wolverine's infatuation with Jean.
The film went on to become one of the biggest hits of 2000, taking in more than $296 million worldwide and becoming the 8th highest grossing film, domestically, of that year. The film is also considered to be the patriarch of the current "Comic Book Movie Age" that Hollywood is experiencing, as this film's box office success helped such films as
Spider-Man and
Spider-Man 2,
Daredevil,
Fantastic Four,
The Punisher,
Constantine,
Batman Begins,
V for Vendetta,
The Hulk,
Superman Returns,
Ghost Rider, and of course the X-Men sequels,
X2 and
X-Men: The Last Stand.
MSN Movies ranks
X-Men as the best superhero movie to date.[
1]
*
Dougray Scott was originally cast for the role of Wolverine but was forced to pull out at the last moment due to an injury suffered shooting
Tom Cruise's
Mission Impossible 2. Singer went to his own first choice, Jackman. Jackman soon won wide praise for the role and launched himself as a Hollywood star.
* Although Wolverine is 5'3" in the comic books, Hugh Jackman is 6'3", forcing the other actors to wear platform shoes and stand on risers to make Wolverine look shorter. [
2]
*
George Buza, the voice of Beast in the
X-Men animated series, has a cameo as the truck driver who brought
Anna Paquin's
Rogue to the bar at the beginning of the film.
* According to
Joss Whedon, only two parts of his draft of the screenplay appeared in the final film. The first is the exchange between Wolverine and Cyclops ("It's me." "Prove it!" "You're a dick."); the other is Storm's, "Do you know what happens to a toad when it's struck by lightning? The same thing that happens to everything else." Whedon was disappointed with
Halle Berry's over-dramatic delivery of the latter line, which he imagined as an offhand, casual comment.
[Nazzaro, Joe (2002). Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy Television (ISBN 1840233834)]*
Ray Park and
Tyler Mane who play
Toad and
Sabretooth in the movie were signed up for two movies, as is standard in franchise production, but were not in
X2 or
X3. It is unknown if they will reprise their roles in any future X-Men films.
* Originally, in this film Halle Berry's character Storm had an accent. On reviewing the scenes with Storm's accent, the director decided to pull it, though it can still be heard faintly in a few lines throughout the film.
* The relatively unspectacular scene where the X-Men leave the X-Jet and hop over a wall to step into the Statue of Liberty caused much hilarity. The reason was that the actors Berry, Janssen, Marsden and Jackman wore such tight fitting costumes that they simply could not make the jump over the small ledge. Another problem was that they were supposed to hold their breath to avoid clouding in the cold weather, a point which Berry forgot at least once. This can be all seen on the blooper reel of the DVD
X-Men 1.5.
* During the film, as Logan mocks the X-Men's black uniforms, Cyclops replies: "What would you prefer? Yellow spandex?" This is a reference to Wolverine's
blue-and-yellow uniform from the comics.
* When appearing at Wondercon 2006 to promote
Superman Returns (2006), Bryan Singer mentioned that he originally approached composer
John Williams to compose the score for
X-Men, but Williams was too busy composing the score for
Saving Private Ryan (1998). [
3]
*A blooper available on the Internet and also in the DVD release as a hidden Easter Egg features a take of Storm, Cyclops and Jean Grey running inside the Statue of Liberty; however, instead of Wolverine following them, the fourth member of the group was someone wearing a
Spider-Man costume. When the other three realise this, they (and the crew) burst out laughing. [
4]
* At one point in the film, Toad grabs an iron pole and proceeds to twirl it around in a fashion not unlike that of
Gambit. In actual fact this was in reference to the
Star Wars character
Darth Maul, whom actor Park had portrayed in
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
*
James Caviezel was originally cast as Cyclops, but had to pull out due to a scheduling conflict with
Frequency.
* Professional wrestler
Kevin Nash was originally contracted to play Sabertooth, but when scheduling conflicts came up the producers moved his stuntman Tyler Mane in to the role.
* When Wolverine is introduced to the X-Men in Xavier's office, the line "What do they call you -- Wheels?" was improvised by Jackman himself (stated by Singer during the commentary).
* At the end when Wolverine heads for the door, Rogue runs up to say her farewells. It can be heard on the television that the body of Senator Kelly's assistant was found and he was reportedly "mauled by a bear", referencing Sabretooth's killing of him.
* Originally Toad was supposed to wear his goggles throughout the whole movie, but he only wears them at the first part he is in.
* At the scene when Senator Kelly comes from the water at the beach the hot dog vendor that can be seen is
Stan Lee, X-men creator.
*
*
TheXverse.com: X-Men Movie News
*
.png.htm){kind=link}