X-Men

Herald rating: * * * *

Cast: Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman, Anna Paquin

Director: Bryan Singer

Rating: M (low-level violence)

Running time: 95 minutes

Opens: Thursday, Village, Hoyts, Berkeley cinemas

Review: Russell Baillie

Uncanny, really - a comic-book adaptation that doesn't, well, suck.

Certainly, die-hard fans of the long-running, ever-evolving Marvel series might feel that their favourite mutant superheroes have lost a little fantastical something in the translation from strip to screen. But X-Men pays tribute to its source material with a successful balancing act - taking itself seriously in its story, style and acting, while still keeping the needle swinging into the red on the action-o-meter.

It's certainly a taut and well-stuffed package, with all its characters - that's 10 mutants in all - doing battle within a brisk 95 minutes, and unfortunately leaving the slight feeling that it's saving itself for the inevitable sequel.

But as introductions go, it's not bad at all, coming complete with a popcorn parable.

It seems that despite being the next evolutionary step, the mutants, each with their various powers, find themselves the victims of political hysteria fuelled by a McCarthy-like senator.

All of which leads to a showdown that coincides with a United Nations summit on the mutant phenomenon; a finale involving Ellis Island and quite the best use of the Statue of Liberty in a movie since Planet of the Apes.

Well, yes, that climax might be a bit hokey and rather less monumental than its location but it is fun getting there. Especially with the convincing efforts of the assembled X-persons, led by Stewart playing Professor Charles Francis Xavier and McKellen as his one-time ally turned nemesis, Erik Lehnsherr, aka Magneto.

Xavier has set up a school where teenage mutants can learn to control their powers, and a base for his X-Men (see our who's who, D1).

They are reluctantly joined by the conflicted pair of Logan, aka Wolverine (a glowering Jackman), who's part Freddy Krueger, part German shepherd, and Rogue (Paquin), whose teenage angst is exacerbated by the fact that she tends to drain the life out of people when she touches them.

Meanwhile, in an evil lair far away, Magneto sees a war looming between the mutants and the rest of the world and he intends to start it with his shape-shifting, big-fanged and long-tongued cronies.

It's occasionally amusingly self-referential ("What would you prefer - blue and yellow Lycra?" asks Cyclops when Wolverine comments on the X-team's black leather uniform which replaces the high-decibel superhero-wear of the comic).

But it avoids camp - even if some of McKellen's mad-scientist scenes and his helmet seemingly swiped from the Flash Gordon prop department do risk unintentional giggles.

But X-Men is a smarter sort of action spectacular. While it might be a bit old-fashioned around the edges to be this year's Matrix, it's fun, engaging pulp which leaves the intelligence insult-free.

At the preview that I attended - a "mystery screening" where the audience wasn't told what the film was going to be - the obviously fingers-crossed back row whooped and clapped at the opening voiceover.

And they clapped heartily when the end credits rolled.

A-Men to that.