X-Men (2000)
Directed by Bryan Singer
Two mutants, Rogue and Wolverine, come to a private academy for their kind whose resident superhero team, the X-Men, must oppose a terrorist organization with similar powers.
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What critics compared X-Men to
The whole thing sounded too much like a copyright-skirting nod to Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, of “X-Men” fame.
Other viewers will see echoes of X-Men , Groundhog Day , Ladyhawke , Toy Story and even the 1980s Biggles movie, as the story progresses.
The movie's a testament to outsiders, as most of Burton's films are, though the source material (the novel) feels to me like inorganic matter, made up of too many easily identifiable fantasy reference points, from Harry Potter to the mutants of "X-Men."
Guided by Ransom Riggs’ YA novel on which the film is based, Burton riffs on X-Men and (to a lesser extent) Harry Potter, and while the combination may look winning on paper, the results are tragically clichéd and will likely leave fans of both Burton and the novel frustrated and confused.
It just can’t stop coming up with limitlessly peculiar stuff, much of which has a familiar odor: It’s “X-Men” meets “Alice in Wonderland” meets “Groundhog Day,” plus there’s a kind of Addams Family versus the Holocaust vibe — “They’re creepy, they’re spikey, they’re totally Third Reich-y.”
This is pretty much Burton doing an X-Men movie, with a plucky yesteryear vibe and evil Samuel L. Jackson thrown in for extra fun.
In what might be viewed as an attempt to show geek cred, it gamely references numerous touchstones: Harry Potter (there's a game of quidditch), X-Men, Game of Thrones, Star Wars, and so forth.
At least then we might have escaped a plethora of racial, social and ethnic stereotypes, not to mention pop culture references to Harry Potter, “X-Men” (which these clowns say they never heard of) and Jennifer Beals’ legwarmers that are about as current as the Eisenhower administration.
The age-versus-youth theme, however, is as subtle as a meat cleaver: Are we supposed to buy that Billy and Nick are unfamiliar with “X-Men” and “Harry Potter,” or that Billy can’t remember that the term is “online,” not “on the line”?
There are certainly myriad issues however, from the ceaseless, not particularly funny pop cultural references (“Star Wars,” “Big Bang Theory,” “Harry Potter,” “X-Men”), to the down-to-the-second predictable structure, to the excruciating use of pop music.
Another distracting contradiction finds Vaughn and Wilson completely unaware of contemporary popular culture, since multiple scenes depend on them not knowing that “Professor Charles Xavier” is a fictional X-Men character.
The wizarding community has been forced underground due to intolerance that channels "X-Men."
It’s the same logical flaw that operates in both the “Avengers” and “X-Men” franchises, and Rowling doesn’t have much to add to the “Potter” franchise … yet.
In the wake of several violent attacks on New York, causing all manner of social, political and architectural upheaval, the movie makes the compelling argument that the willful repression of one’s supernatural abilities can lead only to destruction and chaos — a point that harks back to Bryan Singer ’s “X-Men” movies, with their resonant subtext equating mutant powers with homosexuality.
That hatred toward those who possess unique powers (something highlighted in the film's opening that features related newspaper headlines that, as in the "Potter" films, come along with animated panels) and the need for those to lead secret lives also gives the flick something of an "X-Men" vibe, particularly when Farrell's character shows displeasure toward regular folk getting more regard than wizards.
As with mutants in the X-Men movies , there’s a Civil Rights-era difference of opinion between leaders in the minority community with peaceful visions, like Professor X and Martin Luther King Jr., and those with more violent visions, like Magneto and Malcolm X.
There are scenes, typically the most destructive ones, that could be plopped into any old "X-Men" movie.
Fast, ferocious and inevitably a bit too pleased with its own cleverness, this Fox-produced offshoot of the “X-Men” series nevertheless can’t help but feel like a nasty, nose-thumbing tonic next to the shinier delegations of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as represented by Disney’s “Avengers” franchise (and its various subfranchises) and Sony’s not-so-amazing “Spider-Man” movies.
He’s played the part before, in the very first of the X-Men solo spinoffs, 2009’s all-around-regrettable X-Men Origins: Wolverine .
It continues in the opening credits, which list the stars as "God's Perfect Talent," "A Hot Chick" and whatnot (I won't give away all the jokes), and picks up with Deadpool's consistent references to Marvel Comics' "X-Men" movie franchise ( a stiff, staid thing at this point ), to which he belongs, because he cavorts with two of its characters, but at the same time doesn't belong, because he references Professor X and Wolverine by the actors who play them in the movies we've seen in our reality.
Its anarchic luster is purely cosmetic, an edgier “X-Men” film that struggles to conceal its dud of a story that has nothing new to offer to anyone but middle schoolers.
Still, there's Reynolds, and a R-rated comic-book script which delights in its own filthy dialogue and bloody action without tipping over into unintentionally ridiculous sex scenes (like "X-Men") or way-too-gruesome gore (like the "Sin City" movies).
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Compare to the X-Men movies, which are great fun, but also have an agenda--setting up Magneto and Professor Xavier as Malcolm X/Martin Luther King counterparts in the struggle for leading an oppressed race, or the anti-Patriot Act themes of the second film.
Hellboy's partner and housemate Abe Sapien, an amphibious genius played by Doug Jones and voiced by David Hyde Pierce, comments, "All us freaks have is each other," reminding us of the kinship Hellboy shares with X-Men .
Indeed, “Hellboy” is basically an occult version of “X-Men,” with John Hurt taking the Patrick Stewart role of a fatherly professor with an English accent.
Good superhero movies—from the first Batman (1989) to X-Men (2000)—are like superhero comics, in that they come from a distinct emotional place: that feeling of adolescent outsiderness that drives kids to live through … superhero comics.
Particularly in its treatment of the relationship between Hellboy and Liz, there are times when "Hellboy" resembles Bryan Singer's "X-Men," one of the few other recent comic-book adaptations that understood that comics aren't just about action, but also about mood and language and lyricism.
But on the heels of such successful comic-book adaptations as X-Men and Spider-Man, Johnson's film makes Daredevil look like the second-rate hero he never really was.
It’s a little darker, a little bloodier, and a little more adult than its Marvel Comics-spawned counterparts "Spider-Man" and "X-Men."
"Daredevil" is one of the darker Marvel comics, incorporating a grittier detective persona to the title character, and this may be why it's more of a cult comic than a huge fan-based comic like " Spider-Man " and the " X-Men " books.
But Jonathan instructs him to resist the urge, and this advice is largely what leads the adult Clark (now played by Henry Cavill) to wander the backroads with no real purpose, a bearded laborer who takes any job he can find (these scenes, combined with Clark's shaggy whiskers, bring to mind Hugh Jackman's wanderings in X-Men and X-Men Origins: Wolverine).
The “X-Men” and the “Dark Knight” sagas have trod this territory, but it’s new for the cinematic “Supermans,” at least to this degree.
Other superhero movies have dabbled in big ideas—the Dark Knight trilogy most notably, and the X-Men franchise to a lesser degree.
Logan and The Wolverine both exist in the same world as the other X-Men films, but both have a distinct style that feels more like James Mangold films (the man adores the iconography of Westerns) than anything Bryan Singer did with his X-films.
In aesthetic look and spirit, it shares more in common with The Lion King than, say, X-Men .
Ewan McGregor as the patriarch of the central Platt family even seems to draw on Nicolas Cage’s singular performance in Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)…
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You might think The Avengers , renamed Avengers Assemble for Britons, in a slight to their intellect, is a new staging post in a cycle than began a thousand years ago with Bryan Singer’s X-Men (2000).
Compare this to Bryan Singer’s slickly ponderous first X-Men movie, in which there’s a whole lot of scene setting and not much else.
Most will agree that both the “X-Men” and “Spider-Man” series were for the most part good, but there were bizarre diversions, like “Daredevil,” “Ghost Rider” and the odious and nonsensical “Hulk” by Ang Lee.
He first started doing that back in the ’80s, in prestige Hollywood films like “Peggy Sue Got Married” and “Moonstruck.”
You have to show them “Moonstruck,” “Peggy Sue Got Married,” “The Rock,” or “Gone in 60 Seconds” to really understand.
Even scenes with the older Nic arguing with the young, longhaired, leather-jacked Nic (a great use of “de-aging”) of “Valley Girl,” “Peggy Sue Got Married” or “Rumble Fish” is more promising than hilarious.
Ever since 2000's X-Men, they have been growing in numbers exponentially.
Those three massive new next-generation Helicarriers and a large-scale plan to prevent crime before it even happens (it's very "Minority Report," with splashes of some of the "X-Men" films) probably have something to do with it.