REVIEW: X-Men

So, watching the new trailer for X-Men: The Last Stand got me all fired up, and I found the previous two installments on sale. I'd seen 'em before, but it'd been awhile. Here's my review for the first one, with a follow up on the second one soon.

This one opens with a cool scene where we see a German concentration camp and a boy being seperated from his family. In his rage, they boy manages to complete crush the metal gates before he is knocked unconcious. Enter Magneto.

Now, this is definately one of those "swallow some major scientific bull$#!t we feed you, and try not to dwell on it" movies. AKA it's a comic book movie. If you go into this expecting anything more, you're going to be sorely disappointed.

But it does manage to give itself a semi-deep plot. A girl unable to experience human physical contact for the rest of her life manages to get into the heart of a rough-and-tumble loner with blades in his hands. Magneto, with the power to move metal at will, is after these two, and a psychic bald guy in a wheel-chair takes them both under his wing.

Before I go on, here's a quick run down of the characters.

Professor Charles "X" Xavier- Extremely powerful psychic, can control minds
Magneto- Can control metal at will by creating and altering magnetic fields
Wolverine- Can regenerate amazingly fast. Experiments done on him grafted metal to his entire skeleton, as well as giving him claws that come out of his hands.
Rogue- when touching any other person's skin, she absorbs their life force and, in the case of mutants, their powers
Storm- Can control the weather
Cyclops- Shoots lasers out of his eyes, but can only control with glasses/goggles thing on
Jean Gray- Mild psychic powers, can move stuff with her mind
Toad- Scales walls, really long tongue, green, shots goo stuff out of his mouth
Sabretooth- ummmmm, big, strong, has small fangs, growls some
Mystique- can shapeshift to anyone at will

The plot manages to be mysterious, and there's never a lot of down time. Props to Bryan Singer for keeping the movie moving. I think the whole shapeshifting thing is used WAY to much (which is my complaint with M:I 2 as well, but that's a different review). I also think the emotional aspects of the movie could have been a bit more involved. You manage to get a feel for all the characters and their very different personalities. You understand that these are very different people with their own thoughts and motives. But it only flirts with real emotional depth. They definatly could've done some more to get us feeling bad for Rogue and her "can't touch anyone" problem.

All in all it's action moive, pure and simple. Decent, if straightforward, plot with fun and emotionally believable characters. A plot twist and a bit more depth is all that stands in the way of this film going from above average to outstanding.
RATING: 8.0/10