X-Men - Film Review

Starring: Patrick Stewards Ian McKellen
Directed by: Bryan Singer

At first it would seem like a rare treat to encounter two Shakespearean actors of great stature doing battle with each other on the big screen. But when we learn that the vehicle they have chosen is a comic strip, one's credibility - not to mention theirs - goes down faster than a lead Titanic.
In fact it helps to suspend your credibility in the first few minutes of X-Men. It is, after all, based on comic strip characters, so we are in Batman territory here. Treat it as a nonsensical romp, and you will probably enjoy it.
But what on earth Sir lan McKellen and Patrick Stewart are doing as stars of this piece of kiddy fiction is somewhat perplexing. One can only assume they did it for the laugh. A laugh guaranteed to last all the way to the bank.
Sir Ian is known the world over as one of today's leading Shakespearean actors. Stewart is too, although he his better known throughout the galaxy as Captain Jean Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise in TVs Star Trek. Each plays the leader of a community of mutants, one good (Stewart) one bad (Sir lan).
So how did they come to be mutants in the first place? Well, as the sombre prologue to the movie tells us, evolution is normally a slow, imperceptible process that takes place over millions of years. But every now and then it suddenly takes a quantum leap forward, and the members of the human race find themselves precipitously projected forward to a higher, more advanced state.
Like when they stopped wearing kipper ties and flared trousers. But in this case only a small proportion of the human race has evolved into the super-gifted mutants, leaving the rest of mankind behind to their own advanced cerebral pursuits such as line dancing and rap music.
This sets the two communities apart, with the ordinary mortals fearing they will be taken aver by the mutants with their special gifts. By "gifts" we're not talking about playing Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto at the age of two. This is more advanced stuff.... like walking through walls...conjuring up a lighting storm at will... destroying buildings with a glance. So naturally you wouldn't want them living next door to you, let alone marrying your sister.
One of them, called Wolverine, has foot-long steel talons that shoot out from between his fingers when he gets riled. Another, Storm, summons lightning to strike down enemies. Cyclops can cut through steel shackles - and people - with the concentrated beam from his eyes.
So much for the goodies. The baddies are even more terrible. One of them can hop over buildings and has a tongue yards long which he can use as a whip or for ensnaring people. He is called Toad, and apparently has.evolved from a human being into a frog. (Back to the drawing board, Mr. Darwin!)
The ordinary people, who for the sake of brevity we shall call the Joneses, are so afraid of the mutants that they try to pass a law compelling mutants to register themselves as such. But most mutants see this as an attempt to subjugate them and anyway they regard themselves as the true inheritors of earth.
The baddies are led by the fearsome Magneto (Ian McKellen) who can control metal with the    snap of his fingers, even to the extent of arresting a speeding bullet. Magneto has an evil plan to turn a gathering of world.leaders into mutants, thereby fast-tracking his bid for world domination.
He must be stopped...
Enter Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart), a liberal mutant and former friend of Magneto, who believes in peaceful co-existence with the Joneses. He has amazing mental powers and can make anyone, except Magneto, do anything he wishes. He runs an academy for "gifted" people from which he battles against Magneto's evil designs.
Most cinemagoers will, I fear, find it difficult to disassociate Stewart from his overwhelming persona of Captain Picard an the bridge of the Enterprise. This is compounded by the fact that his character, Prof. Xavier, is crippled, and spends the entire movie in a chair. One expects him at any moment to boldly point his finger ahead with the command "Engage!"
And another thought springs to mind. If this lot are so hot on telekinesis and all that, why does he need a wheelchair in the first place?
The film is redeemed by stunning special effects. But let's face it, superb effects is the entry level for this kind of movie. Apart from a few wisecracks about its comic strip origins, X-Men does seem to take itself rather seriously, lacking the tongue-in-cheek spoofery of the Batman series, but it is certain to be big hit with the younger audience.