Xmen Movie

Yes, we read comics, not exclusively, but regularly. Yes, we are geeks. Yes, we can quote issue numbers. If you can't live with that, go read Sartre or Stroustrup or something, 'cause the rest of this page is for us. NuffSaid.

It was just marvellous. Jackman is 100% perfect as Wolverine. Famke Janssen's Jean Grey was also superb. The dialog and action sequences tended toward the turgid once or twice, but mostly worked just like the books. The plot wasn't stellar but the writing and direction were lovely. The Wolvie FX work so well you don't even think of them as effects.

On the downside, Halle Berry looked embarrassed to be there. The blackbird FX looked like something out of the old thunderbirds show. Sabertooth looks like a B-grade wrestler in fake furs. And Patrick Stewart just walked through his role (sorry) - he worked as Prof X, but never had to work at Prof X.

My wife, who had never read a comic book in her life, is currently twenty issues deep in my old X-Men stash after seeing the film. She usually prefers to read lumpy hardbacks written by self-exiled african-americans in 1950s Paris, or anything by Quentin Crisp or Sinclair Lewis, so you can see how this movie had quite an impressive effect. I am flatly astonished at this result.

In short, yes, go see it, it's worthwhile. --PeterMerel

Dittos. Thumbs up. -- JeffGrigg

I didn't mind that none of villains besides Mageneto were characterized. They were essentially presented as thugs anyway. However, I would have preferred more development on the side of the X-Men members as well as the relationship between Professor X and Magneto. This is somewhat pointless to expect though since this would require the movie to be several hours long (but then again... why not!). I'm not sure if it would have been a more effective plot if it was focused even more on Prof X and Magneto or alternatively even more focused on Wolverine and Rogue.

Hugh Jackman was great. Halle Barry didn't really have anything to do. Famke Janssen and James Marsden were good (if only for their interactions with Hugh Jackman). Ray Park, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Tyler Mane were thugs... 'nuff said. Anna Paquin, Patrick Stewart, and Ian Mckellan really didn't have enough time or content to work with (again, can't really be helped with such a large cast and limited time). I was disappointed that Senator Kelly was not developed more as the third side to the conflict given www.mutantwatch.com and all that.

Best scenes (careful not to give away spoilers): The first one... and Wolverine had quite a number of nice ones. The trailer shows the police scene but I didn't consider the tossed police cars to be the best part of that scene.

Overall, I liked it. --JasonYip

Overall, it was an excellent movie - as far as it went. I was left with the distinct feeling that the movie had not reach anything resembling a satisfactory conclusion or partial conclusion. I suppose this will make for a better sequel...

It was nice to see a movie where the villain isn't portrayed as pure evil.

-- TaralDragon

I've never read the comics, but I thought the movie was great. Particularly the naked blue babe with yellow chameleon eyes (now there's a look). :-)Anyway, can anyone give away why Wolverine was metalized?

When last I read the comics, a mysterious government department working for a still more mysterious supervillain (I figured a chap named "Mr Sinister", though this is nothing but a guess) wanted to build a human superweapon to be called "weapon X". A person who very suspiciously resembled Charles Xavier (but no, almost certainly not Charles Xavier) arranged for the man named Logan's abduction and vivisection. "Logan" was the town he lived in, not his original name. There are records in the MarvelUniverse of this person's participation in various wars going back at least a century.

Weapon X of course broke free and trashed everything in sight. He was then suspiciously "discovered" by the Canadian government superhero agency, Department H, who taught him language and manners adequate for human company. In the comics he first turns up as a supervillain Department H uses to try to kill the incredible hulk. Hulk and Wolverine still don't much care for eachother ...

All of this, however, might be no more than a gloss induced by some kind of brainwashing; there are also leads in various 80's x-men mini-serieses that suggest Wolverine was metallized by a WWII era Japanese scientist whose name escapes me, but who died shortly afterward.

Anyway, more recently, he had all the metal schlooped out of him by Magneto who was on a tear until Prof X destroyed his mind. Which then caused Prof X to go mad and kill most of the non-X Marvel superheroes ... for a while. More recently still, Wolverine got his adamantium reinserted, though I haven't collected the comics for a couple of years and don't really know how ...

There, aren't you glad you asked?

Sort of. Which came first? Comics or professional wrestling? :-)

As I recall it, UnderstandingComics can only trace the form back about a century. Professional wrestling goes back as long as there have been men and women to wrestle.

Also, since I keep hearing the comics were great, is there any way to get them as a compendium or something? -- MichaelFeathers

30 pages times 5 (average) books times 13 issues per year (counting annuals) times 30 years, not counting the rest of the Marvel universe and various crossovers = about 60,000 pages of X-Men comics. There are various limited compendia ...

But honestly there are much better comic books in the world than these. The trick with comics is to look for the GreatComicBookWritersAndArtists?. The rest really are only good as toilet paper, though you may find them fetching high prices at conventions.

Ahem!

Marvel has been putting out a series called "The Essential X-Men" -- which covers a lot of ground, history-wise, and the reprints are in black-and-white on cheap paper, so it won't completely bankrupt you to get into it. I'd go to a comics shop and ask about those.

But I speak as someone who never really got fully into the X-Men books, so I have to second the above recommendation: If you're looking to get into the medium there are lots of other, less superhero-ghetto-ish, ways to go.

Heh, X2 rocked! I purposely avoided every single scrap of info about that film before I saw it, and was blown away by what it delivered. The depiction of Nightcrawler, with the perfect "bamf" sound effect, the cameo by Colossus (OMG that ruled!), and Jean Grey's manifestation of the Phoenix force.

Although, I'm at a loss as to what timeline, if any, they are portraying. Iceman was one of the original X-Men, why is he so young compared to Cyclops, Wolverine, Jean Grey, etc?

Anyway, if X3 delivers an acceptable rendition of the Phoenix Saga, along with (fingers crossed) cameos/full appearances by Banshee and/or Angel, I'll be in Marvel heaven.

I think they've twisted the time line, for dramatic value with Rogue and so they could get to the Phoenix Saga for the third film. I'm glad they chose that too, and if they do it at all well, the third film should be fantastic. I wish they would do more with Prof. X. I really liked the bits between him and Nightcrawler, and both Patrick Stewart and Ian Mckellen are fantastic actors. It would be great to see that conflict played out more on-screne.

These are my favorite comic-to-film movies, although I really never got into the comic books. I was always a Spidie girl, but without Dr. Octopus the movie just felt flat :-D

I read a little of everything, but would only consider myself a fan of the X-Men. At that, I stopped reading them about 10 years ago.

I'm interested that you mentioned "twisting" the timeline. That brings up a question I had. How did Iceman, one of the original X-Men, end up as a student of Jean Grey, et al in the film? Is that something they just did for the film, or has something happened in Marvel-world?

CategoryMovie, CategoryScienceFiction (please note that this page can't possibly be off-topic, since it fits into at least two existing Wiki categories)