X-Men (film)
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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, , 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.
Plot
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, 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 Bobby Drake, 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 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.
Featured Mutants
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 weather
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
- 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
Reactions and box office
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.However, many critics praised the film for sharp storytelling and slick style [[Citing sources citation needed]], while other comic book fans as a whole embraced and accepted it as a more serious approach to their genre. 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 .
MSN Movies ranks X-Men as the best superhero movie to date.[link]
Trivia
- 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. [link]
- 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). [link]
- A blooper available on the Internet and also in the DVD release as an 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. [link]
- 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 .
- 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 throughtout the whole movie, but he oly 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.
- When Senator Kelly falls out of Magneto's lair and Sabretooth grabs on to him, he only grabs his sleeve, yet all of his clothes are torn off.
Cast
References
External links
- [X-Men Movies] hype at the [SuperHeroHype!]
- [TheXverse.com:] X-Men Movie News
| X-Men | |
|---|---|
| Bibliography | Uncanny X-Men | X-Men vol. 2 | Astonishing X-Men | Exiles | New Excalibur | | X-Factor | X-Men Unlimited | Ultimate X-Men |
| Major | "Dark Phoenix Saga" | "Mutant Massacre" | "The Fall of the Mutants" | "Inferno" | "The X-Tinction Agenda" | "X-Cutioner's Song" | "Fatal Attractions" | "Phalanx Covenant" | "Age of Apocalypse" | "Onslaught" | "" | "E Is For Extinction" |
| In other media | : X-Men | X2 | ' : Generation X | Mutant X | Pryde of the X-Men | X-Men: The Animated Series | ' |
| Locations | Avalon | Asteroid M | Genosha | Madripoor | Muir Island | Savage Land | X-Mansion |
| Things | Cerebro | Crimson Dawn | Danger Room | Fastball Special | Legacy Virus | M'Kraan Crystal | X-Jet |
| Other | History | Teams | Bibliography of X-Men titles | Comics | Video games | |
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