Dir. Brett Ratner, US, 2006, 104 mins
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Famke Janssen, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen
Review by Carol Allen
I regard the X-men films as cinematic candy – nice-looking and enjoyable at the time, but quickly forgotten. I had forgotten, for example, that Janssen’s character Jean, aka Phoenix, had met a heroic death in the last movie. And yet, as you see, she stars again in this. With the magic of cinema, they just bring her back to life. But she is a changed woman. Apparently, her telepath powers are so awe-inspiring that all through X-men I and X-Men II, Xavier (Stewart) has been keeping a large part of them locked in her brain. But he cannot control the reborn and now very appropriately named Phoenix, who gets totally out of hand, giving us distinct echoes of classic horror films such as The Omen and particularly The Exorcist. Janssen appears to
be having a ball with all of this.
The other plot line is the discovery of a “cure” for mutantism – one jab of this magic mixture and mutants will lose their powers and be normalised. Cue for ethical debate on the rights of the individual to be different i.e. gay, black etc – or in the case of Kelsey Grammer, blue. He plays Beast, a fun addition to the mutant team, who is totally blue all over and very furry and strong. Another newcomer is Ben Foster as Angel, a mutant who sprouts wings. It is his father Warren Worthington II (Michael Murphy), who is promoting the cure, with his son as his prime target. And our own Vinnie Jones pops up as Juggernaut, who can trudge right through walls and other solid objects, just destroying them. A very good bit of physical casting and, fortunately, he has few lines, actual acting not being his strong point. The scene where he chases Kitty (Ellen Page), whose power is to shimmy through solid objects without destroying them, is very entertaining.
As usual the “good” mutants, masterminded by Xavier and physically led by senior and sexy X-Man Wolverine (Jackman) come into conflict with the “bad” mutants, led by Magneto (McKellen), who wants to use Phoenix’s powers for his own wicked ends. He also magnet-minds a magnificent stunt, which involves relocating the Golden Gate bridge to give access to Alcatraz island in San Francisco Bay. Two of the regular X people do get the “cure” and two more of them die at the hands of the deadly Phoenix. I’m not, of course, going to tell you who they are. Oh, and Halle Berry as Storm gets to fly a bit and do funny things to the
weather.
It’s all good spectacular fun with loads of special effects, and is, of course, total tosh. And I think that’s about it. Apart from suggesting you sit through the credits, even though they go on for weeks, as there’s an intriguing little scene after them, suggesting some interesting possibilities for X-Men 4, which might once more bring the dead back to life and even restore the mutants’ powers. After all, as film maker Mack Sennett says in the show Mack and Mabel, when he gives Mabel Normand’s story the happy ending it didn’t have in life, “What’s an artist for, if he can’t change life?” Particularly if it’s not life as we know it in the first place, anyway.
