Robert Eger Hates The Movies: The X-Men (on video and DVD)

I have been a fan of the X-Men ever since their humble origins, as an unusually
intelligent children's cartoon sandwiched between the cant and dreck of Ant and
Dec.  It was therefore a great disappointment to find that in transplanting
these do-gooder mutants to the big screen, director Phil Inlater has spat on
their collective metaphorical graves.
The cast is headed by Patrick Stewart as Professor Xavier.  Stewart, a
classically trained actor who really should have stuck to the stage rather than
wasting my time in films, is best known for his role in Star Trek.  There he
played the French captain Jean-Luc Picard as a bald, emotionless Englishman.
Here, he plays the American professor as a bald, emotionless Englishman -- in a
wheelchair.  His range is truly non-existant.  Apparently to prepare for his
role, he spent several minutes sitting in a wheelchair.  While filming his
scenes. 
Equally unimpressive is another Shakespearean actor who should be Bard from
Hollywood, Sir Ian McEllen.  While some of the X-Men have quite useful powers,
such as being able to control people's minds, or to smash the fuck out of stuff
just by looking at it, McEllan's super power is a crappy kind of telekinesis
that only works on metal.  No chance of him being able to control his acting
then which, when not being hammy, is merely wooden.  I mean, what the fuck use
is being able to move metal stuff?  Apart from being able to find the last
teaspoon at the bottom of the washing up bowl, absolutely bugger all.  Magneto
(crap role, crap name) isn't to blame for his lameness though, oh no.  It's all
the fault of the Nazis, obviously.  Damn those pesky Nazis, as Indiana Jones
used to say.
Even Ray Park, who lit up the screen with his double headed light sabre in Star
Wars Phantom Menace couldn't save this turkey.  Here he plays a slimy character
called Toad whose chief mutant power seems to be his extremely long and agile
tongue, which is the only possible explanation for how he got the part.
The plot of the film, such as it is, is barely worth comment.  Some underage
teenage bint falls for a hairy canadian with knives in his knuckles (not quite
clear how this could happen just through genetic mutation) but unfortunately
like some kind of Midas in reverse, everything she touches turns to shit.
Presumably she had a major run in with the shooting script at some point.
Then there's some crap about saving the planet from destruction but by this
point I had lost interest in life so that extinction would have been blessed
relief.  The climax is a rather lifeless fight scene on the top of that
American symbol of xenophobia, the statue of liberty. 
Why does Hollywood insist on taking things which work perfectly well as they
are and making bloody awful movies out of them?  Pokemon, so vibrant as a
trading card game and promotional cartoon simply stinks as a film.  Super Mario
Brothers was not so super when Denis Hopper played Mario.  Most tragic of all
was when they took The Littlest Hobo, cast Tommy Lee Jones as the dog-catchers
and Harrison Ford as the Hobo and called it The Fugitive.  Sick.   Let's just
cross our fingers that they never get their twisted money grabbing hands on The
Mysterious Cities of Gold.
To sum and simultaneously go through all those obligatory X-puns, the X-men is
an X-cessively X-cruciating X-cuse for entertainment.  The X-ercise lacks any
X-citement and should be X-rated to ensure that no-one else has to suffer its
X-egencies.  There are no X-tenuating circumstances; its makers should be
X-terminated.
Or in a single word, X-crement.
Three thumbs, way down.

Picture "Ru-Paul: Ex-man"