X-Men (film)

X-Men is a United States action movie, first released in Australia on 13 July, 2000. The film features a group of comic book superheroes called the X-Men. It formed a major part of the current revival in comic-book adaptation movies.

Plot

Mutants (Homo superior) are the next evolutionary step in the chain of humanity. Some children are born with an X-Factor (a unique genetic mutation). These usually manifest themselves at puberty and grant individuals special powers. Mutants are feared and loathed by rest of mankind.

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Professor Charles Xavier (the world's most powerful telepath) takes gifted individuals and teaches them to control their powers for the good of mankind in his school for gifted youngsters. Opposition to them include United States Senator Robert Kelly (Bruce Davison), a McCarthyesque politician trying to pass legislation crafted to expose the dangers of mutants, and Eric Lehnsherr, who blames humanity for the death of his family at the hands of the Nazis.

Related Topics:
United States - Senator - Bruce Davison - McCarthy - Politician - Nazi

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The former friends, Eric Lehnsherr and Professor Charles Xavier, have different aims. Xavier is trying to get humanity to accept mutants and peacefully put an end to humanity's prejudices. Lehnsherr, believing that homo sapiens and homo superior can never coexist, aims to teach humanity that mutants are the heirs to the future. Toward this end, Lehnsherr builds and tests a machine that develops mutations in un-mutated humans.

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Marie d'Ancanto, a teenage girl, almost kills her boyfriend when her life-draining powers emerge. She runs, taking the nickname Rogue, away and meets mysterious brawler Logan, who makes a living out of cagefighting. When the two drive away in Logan's trailer, they are ambushed by Sabretooth, but saved by Storm and Cyclops and taken to the Xavier Institute.

Related Topics:
Marie d'Ancanto - Logan

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In the meanwhile, Senator Kelly gets abducted by Mystique and Toad. Lensherr uses his machine on Kelly and turns him into an aquatic mutant. Kelly, dying from this unnatural mutation, brings himself to the Xavier Institute (hospitals are taboo, because they shun mutants) and tells Xavier of Lensherr's machine before dying.

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Marie comes into Logan's bedroom at the Xavier Institute one night while he is having nightmares, flashbacks to the implanting of his adamantium skeleton. Waking up in a blind rage, he accidentally impales Marie on his claws. She touches him, using her power to collect his healing ability and save herself.

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Mystique, posing as a fellow mutant, infiltrates the Institute. She poisons Xavier's Cerebro machine and tricks Marie into thinking that Xavier is angry at her, causing her to run away. Logan goes after her and catches her train, but then Magneto appears and abducts Marie. The X-Men and the Brotherhood have an all-out fight, but the villains escape.

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The X-Men find out that Lehnsherr wants to transfer his power to Marie (using her life-draining power), hook her to his mutation machine, and burn her out. A UN summit is taking place in the nearby Ellis Island, and by turning the world's leaders into mutants, Lensherr reckons to solve the mutant problems by force.

Related Topics:
UN - Ellis Island

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In order to find Marie, Xavier uses the tampered Cerebro and is knocked out. Jean Grey restores Cerebro and uses it herself, nearly killing herself in the process, but finding out that Marie is kept on Liberty Island. Again, the X-Men fight the Brotherhood, and just when Lensherr's machine (with Marie in it) would have fired its deadly rays upon the UN summit, Logan manages to destroy it with the aid of Cyclops. Logan saves Marie by touching her, thus using her life-draining powers to transfer his healing powers to her.

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At the end, there is a mysterious reappearance of a strangely mutant-friendly "Senator Kelly", who is exposed as Mystique posing as him. The film ends with Xavier playing chess with Lensherr in a plastic jail cell. Lensherr tells his old friend that he will continue fighting, and Xavier replies that he will always be there to stop him.

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