| The X-Men have dominated the comic-book world for most of the last quarter century, yet they're scarcely recognized outside fandom circles. Now there's a movie (Fox; rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence) to explain what all the fuss was about. In perhaps the most elaborate comic adaptation since Superman, audiences are introduced to the world of good mutants (led by Patrick Stewart) vs. bad mutants (led by Ian McKellen). Unlike classic superheroes, these people believe that the world hates them because they are different, so they search for acceptance while fighting the bad guys. Those comic-books fans who were marginalized in high school can easily identify with the X-Men. Over the years the X-Men were adopted as poster children for egalitarianism. The characters have been considered metaphors for causes from civil rights to gay rights. Perhaps that's why the movie tosses in a bunch of real-world references: Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, the Holocaust, Malcolm X, McCarthyism, Darwinism, and human experimentation. X-Men plays like the first in a series, setting up the characters and leaving almost everything unresolved. It runs rather long, but it's a good way to see what all the comic-book fans have been talking about all these years. |
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