|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A A A | |
| Review by Xibo | Date seen: July 14, 2000 |
| Viewing Location: Battery Park City, NYC | Grade: A |
| Summary: Best comic-book adaptation I've ever seen. | |
| Usually when I see movies that are based on a comic book, a lot is lost in the translation and the result is a cruddy movie. But X-Men is given an excellent treatment. Okay, they took some liberties with the characters, but for the most part they're very well treated.
Patrick Stewart as Professor X was an excellent choice, as was Ian McKellen as Magneto. Hugh Jackman gives a truly outstanding performance as Wolverine, and a star is born fans, because Hugh's going places after this, I can feel it. Anna Paquin does well in her role as Rogue, although the Rogue character has been drastically altered. James Marsden, Famke Janssen and Halle Berry also do wonderful jobs in their X-Men roles. The special effects and stunts looked wonderful, which is a 10,000% improvement over the trailer I saw eight months ago, so this movie gets an award of excellence for editing. The movie left me wanting more, hoping for many sequels. As it was, I was a little disappointed there wasn't more to the movie, as they do back history, plot setup, and resolution in only 95 minutes. I wanted more! The depth of character history available from 30 years of comics books is pretty excessive, so there's plenty of things to explore in the sequels. What really pleased me was that this was treated as a quality action flick, you didn't have to be a comic book fan to appreciate. Of course, there were a few in-jokes for the fans to appreciate as well, but it's pretty subtle. The theater I saw it at was brand-new, which was a treat. They also handed out a comic book related to the movie, which more back history on Wolverine. A nice little extra. This is one of the best movies I've seen this year, I'm giving it an A, and still hoping for an A+ movie down the road (maybe this Fall). | |
| B+ B+ B+ | |
| Review by Jigen | Date seen: 0, 0000 |
| Viewing Location: Big screen originally - DVD recently | Grade: B+ |
| Summary: Good comic adaptation | |
| If I recall correctly, when I first saw this, it was the first attampt a film based on a comic book since "Batman and Robin" which caused viewing audience deep hurting on so many levels. It was also Marvel studios first attempt at a mainstream comic title since "The Punisher" (yikes!) unless you count "Blade". This one is head and shoulders above all these except maybe "Blade". It does have a bit of a sanitized feel to it that may be present due to the heavy editing that was done to put this movie together (Detailed on the X-Men 1.5 DVD release). Still, a fun movie that develops the characters, but doesn't get bogged down in exposition. Some good action scenes, but I couldn't quite call this an action film. Recommended. | |
| A A A | |
| Review by Finrod | Date seen: 0, 0000 |
| Viewing Location: theater | Grade: A |
| Summary: Good comic book -> big screen adaptation | |
| This is a good movie, with a couple of heavyweight actors slugging it out (Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen) and a good cast overall. From what I've heard from fans of the comic they took a good deal of liberties with the source material, but perhaps no more than the source material has within itself at various points. We don't get to see a lot of the background of many characters (mostly Rogue), which gets us into the action right away, but it means that a lot of long-standing relationships end up having to be summarized fairly quickly. But it's done well overall, and it sets up everything pretty well for any number of sequels to come. | |
| A A A | |
| Review by tmon | Date seen: August 4, 2000 |
| Viewing Location: New York City, Empire 25 | Grade: A |
| Summary: Cool, despite discrepancies. | |
| There were some departures from the actual comic, but you can over look them. The story did not take forever to start as such movies usually do when you have so many characters involved. The casting was right on. I am a Patrick Stewart fan, but was glad to see him in a not-captain-picard-like role. There are so many opportunities for further movies and great story lines. I just hope they don't screw up with a mediocre sequel, getting lazy with confidence with the success of the first one. | |
| A A A | |
| Review by Orion | Date seen: January 30, 2001 |
| Viewing Location: Orion's Bedroom | Grade: A |
| Summary: Woo! X-Men! | |
| If you like the comic, watch the movie. It obviously can't wrap everything from the comic into a 2 hour flick, but it does well enough. This is a Wolverine/Rogue movie, and although Rogue is more Jubilee-like in personality sometime, it's still excellent. There are some goofy spots... 'What happens when a toad gets struck by lightning' and Toad doing a Darth Maul flourish with his staff, but overall, excellent casting, special effects, and a decent story. | |
| B- B- B- | |
| Review by Moondancer | Date seen: March 31, 2003 |
| Viewing Location: Home | Grade: B- |
| Summary: Hollywood got lazy with this one! | |
| All in all, this is one of the better comic book movie presentations, but there are a few things that bothered me like the need to scratch an itch. Firstly, the portrayal of Storm. Not only were here eyes the wrong color (Ororo Munroe’s eyes are blue. Lazy effects. How hard would a pair of contacts been?), but Ms. Barry spoke with a southern accent (Ororo lived a great deal of time in Africa, not down south. Dialect couch Ms. Barry). Secondly, the character Wolverine was well done, but when Logan loses it (berserker) I just didn’t see the wildness that should have been in his eyes in this version. All in all this was a fun movie, but these and several other small details missed make it less that it could be in the eyes of this comic fan girl. | |
"I should put quotes here."