Reviews
Generation X (1996)
I'm betting it looked better on paper...I hope...
I'm a Generation X fan, especially the early Scott Lobdell run on the comic book. So it was with much enthusiasm that I flumped down in my recliner, remote and comic book in hand (yep, I'm a comic geek), and prepared to witness the anticipated event.
What I ended up watching, however, was a really disappointing two hours of mutant mayhem.
First of all, they were trying to do a Gen X movie without ANY connection to the X-Men, other than the basic 'mutant menace' thing, and the fact that they were using Xavier's school. Second, the actors they got to play the kids looked and acted nothing like the comic version I know and love. I mean, Jubilee is Asian, but tell that to Heather McComb, who had none of the firecracker's attitude. Mondo was nothing like the Samoan slacker in the comics, and instead was some punk kid I wanted to slap. Husk and Synch were noticeably absent, and in their places were Refrax and Buff (the latter of which was the only interesting character in the movie). Skin turned out similar to his comic roots, but all in all I had to constantly remind myself that the characters speaking were supposed to be the same ones from the book. That's a bad sign.
What's Matt Frewer doing in this movie? He's supposed to be a comic-relief villain, but name me one villain in a comic-based movie over the last decade who WASN'T!
Now I hear they're going to make another GenX TV movie (or possible TV series). They say they're going to have better casting. I hope they have better writers and producers as well.
Pryde of the X-Men (1989)
Tragic...so tragic...
I rented it on video a few years ago just out of curiosity. I'm a fan of the more recent animated series and comic books, and I wanted to see how it stacked up.
It stacked up about as well as a house of cards in a hurricane.
The voice acting, the animation, the plot, Stan Lee's narration...all were either terrible or virtually nonexistent. The voice acting was just so mismatched for the characters that I almost threw something at the TV. The animation, while not terrible, didn't serve to improve anything, either. The plot was cluttered and confused, with WAAAY too much happening and not enough explanation (just TRY to make sense of Juggernaut's relationship to Xavier or the fact that the X-Men's jet had space-travel capabilities). Stan's voice-over, while kinda cool for those who recognize his voice, was nonetheless distracting.
But probably the most glaring problem I had with the episode was that they gave Wolverine, a CANADIAN mutant, an Australian accent. At one point he even called Pyro a "Dingo"!!! Why don't they just call him "Tazmanian Devil"? I guess a Canadian accent just wasn't stereotypical enough for that show. :
I'm glad the later X-Men series was better, and I hope to high heaven the upcoming X-Men movie doesn't stink this badly. I swear, this show made the "Generation X" TV movie look good. Now it's clear to me why they didn't turn this pilot episode into a series.