GENERATION X (1996)

DIRECTED by Jack Sholder

SCREENPLAY by Eric Blakeney based on the Marvel Comic "Generation X" by Scott Lobdell and Chris Bachalo

STARRING  - Finola Hughes as Emma Frost/The White Queen,  Jeremy Ratchford as Sean Cassidy/Banshee,  Heather McComb as Jubilation Lee/Jubilee,  Agustin Rodriguez as Angelo Espinosa/Skin,  Amarilis as Monet St.Croix/M,  Bumper Robinson as Mondo,  Suzanne Davis as Arlee Hicks/Buff,  Randall Slavin as Kurt Pastorius/Refrax,  Matt Frewer as Doctor Russel Tresh.

PLOT - In the late 1990's the mutant gene (the "X-Factor") which gives those born with it superhuman powers and abilities is becoming ever more prevalent. More teenagers are discovering that they have super powers every day, as such the human race is becoming ever more fearful and vigilant against the "mutants" who are living in thier midst.

Two adult mutants - Sean Cassidy - who can emit a sonic scream - and the telepathic Emma Frost are the headmasters of Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters, an academy/charity hostel that takes in young mutants and trains them in the use of thier powers for the benefit of mankind.

Thier latest recruits are Jubilation Lee - a young girl who can fire plasma "fireworks" from her hands, and Angelo Espinosa who has stretchable skin. 

The two new recruits are inducted into the school and soon meet thier fellow students - Kurt Pastorius who fires X-Ray lasers from his eyes, Mondo who can absorb matter and take on its properties, Arlee Hicks who is super strong and Monet St.Croix who is perfect at everything.

Little do they know that evil is coming for them in the form of the insane Dr. Russel Tresh - a scientist who has built a machine that can project his consciousness into the dreaming minds of others. Tresh wants to take over control of the Dreamscape - the realm where all minds enter when they sleep - and harness it's powers for his own nefarious ends. Tresh believes the young mutants may be his key to doing just that.

Can the fledgling team of young mutants hone thier powers enough in time to stop him ?...

DIALOUGE  - Tresh - '' I won't be happy until that psycho slut who humiliated me grovels at my feet and annoints me as her God !"

PERFORMANCES  - Generation X is a TV movie based on the mid 90's Marvel comic of the same name (itself a spin-off title from the hugely popular X-Men comics). The X-Men where absolutely HUGE in the 90's buoyed up by a booming comics speculator market, a massively popular animated series and a whole line of comics and spin-offs, Marvel's mutants had never been as popular before (or arguably) since.

So it seemed inevitable that eager film companies wanting a slice of the pie would step in to produce movies and TV shows based on the X-Men team and it's various offshoots. One such property was Generation X. 

It was intended for this Generation X TV movie to be the start of either a series of TV specials or a fully fledged ongoing TV series in it's own right, yet for some reason this never happened. So we are left with this bizzare one-off curio as a glimpse of what might have been.

It has a pretty bad reputation amongst X-Men fans, but (for what it is) it's not too bad. The acting is OK and while it deviates from it's source material quite drastically in places (mainly for budgetary reasons) it manages to at least capture the spirit of the comic characters themselves, if not the actual look.

Instead of my usual character analysis, I'm instead going to look at how the screen versions hold up to the characters as seen on the page. Here goes...

Jeremy Ratchford as Sean/Banshee does a pretty decent job of capturing the comic book character. His Irish accent wavers in places but is overall fairly convincing. He lacks the red hair of his comic book counterpart but this is really only surface dressing anyway. 

What Ratchford does particularly well is get the balance right between friendly mentor and tough but fair headmaster. He's "good cop" to Emma Frost's more authoritative "bad cop". He's the "cool teacher" that every school worth it's salt should have. He supports and helps his students but never fails to put them in thier place when he has to. Ratchford just seems to "get" the character of Banshee and could potentially have given a definitive portrayal of the character if this had gone to a full series.

Finola Hughes also gives a good performance as Emma Frost. Like Ratchford she captures the character's essence very well. In the comics Emma is a reformed villian, here in the film version that shady past isn't really mentioned (unsurprisingly really as it would only have served to complicate the story unnecessarily). Emma is a sterner figure than Sean (she dresses like a dominatrix for Christ's sake, it doesn't get any more blatant than that), yet she is shown to have a heart underneath her "ahem" frosty exterior and there's a vulnerability there as she mourns a bunch of old pupils that died because she "failed" them. Again, this is all relevant and in line with what we got in the comics and its a shame that Hughes wasn't able to develop her take on Emma further.

The only criticism I'll give to Hughes isn't really her fault but...that wig !!! Why couldn't they have just dyed her hair blonde rather than giving her a really unconvincing hairpiece to wear ? It looks like its going to get up and start acting on its own for crying out loud !!!

Heather McComb is pretty good as Jubilee, she certainly captures the original character's sassy and streetwise attitude whilst also giving her a more vulnerable streak, reminding us that for all her tough talk she's still just a scared and confused kid at heart.

The only problem is that the casting is (despite McComb's decent performance) quintessentially wrong. Y'see, Jubilee in the comics is supposed to be of Chinese decent and McComb...well...isn't.

In fairness to the filmmakers, I don't think theres anything sinister behind this. Director Jack Sholder has gone on record as saying that he had no idea that Jubilee was supposed to be Chinese as there was no indication in the original comics that she was. Looking at the original artwork above, the character certainly doesn't look particularly Chinese in the way that she was drawn. I myself was a big X-Men fan in the 90's and it wasn't until later years when the character was drawn as more closely physically resembling an actual Chinese person that I realised she was supposed to be Chinese. So I can definitely see where Sholder's coming from.

An unfortunate misunderstanding then, they'd still get absolutely roasted for it nowadays though.

Augustin Rodriguez makes a fairly decent stab at playing Angelo/Skin, he's not as grumpy as the comics version and is a lot more cocky and "cool", and at least they got his nationally/race right.

The problem comes in the execution of the character. As you can see, in the comics Skin is quite a freakish looking character. The idea is that his body has produced way too much skin than he actually needs, leading to him having this bizzare physical appearance (this is also why his character is so maladjusted). In this version though he just looks like a normal chap, which is disappointing to say the least. I know they couldn't have pulled off Skin's weird looks convincingly with the budget they had, so it's probably for the best that they didn't attempt to, but still...

Not only that but not looking like a freak also changes the whole point of the character and the way the character acts. They probably would have been better just creating a new character instead, rather than giving us the watered down version we get here.

Another character hit by budgetary restrictions is Mondo played by Bumper Robinson (Bumper ?? Seriously ?? Who the hell has a child and decides its a sane and reasonable idea to call him Bumper ? I hope for his sake it's a stage name, otherwise school must have been absolute Hell for the poor guy.)

Mondo's power enables him to absorb any item and then take on its physical characteristics, so if for example he where to absorb a rock then his skin would become stone like and Mondo would look like a walking boulder. Not so in this movie. He has the same power but we see absolutely no physical change occur to him when he uses it. In one scene Mondo gets into a fight with some local "townie" kids and absorbs a stone. The townie kid punches him in the stomach and then clutches his hand like he's just broken it. We're told rather than shown, which again is a shame.

Robinson doesn't really get a lot to do. Mondo was shown to be quite a chilled out, laid back character in the comics, here he's a bit more loudmouthed and loutish but is ultimately shown to be a fairly good kid all the same.

Amarilis plays Monet/M and after Banshee and Emma is perhaps the closest to her comic book counterpart.

Monet's power is that she's perfect at everything - fighting, thinking, building things, destroying things. She's hyper intelligent with a mind like a computer whilst also being beautiful. She's also insufferablly smug and self aware of her own perfection (the much more down to Earth Jubilee, naturally, can't stand her). All this we get faithfully reproduced onscreen.

The only minus point is - once again - another balls up regarding the character's background. In the comics she's French, whereas here she speaks in an American accent despite retaining her French sounding name.

Monet is the final character from the comics to appear in the film but we do get two other team members who are exclusive to the film (the reason being once again budgetary restrictions. The comic's characters Chamber and Husk being replaced by Refrax and Buff as thier powers were deemed to be too difficult to realise onscreen. Again, this makes you question why they didn't do the same thing with Skin...)

Randall Slavin plays Kurt/Refrax who's powers are basically just a rip-off of the X-Men's leader Cyclops. He's a cocky character who starts off by being a bit of a dick to Angelo but becomes more likeable/grows up a bit as the story progresses. He also has a romantic subplot involving Arlee/Buff, its one of those typical teenage relationships where he teases her and generally acts like a bit of a knob because deep down he fancies her.

Suzanne Davis plays Arlee who is quiet and subdued and suffers from body image issues, she's insecure about her large muscles and thinks they make her look disgusting.  She later gets over her hangups and is the first to don the official team uniform and looks pretty good in it.

Both characters are largely incidental and secondary. I assume they would have both gotten thier moments to shine had this gone beyond just being a pilot episode but sadly for the actors they never got the chance to.

Finally, we get Matt Frewer as the villainous and totally insane Dr Tresh. Frewer is well known to genre fans and is generally a reliable and pretty damn good character actor, here though he verges on the annoying.

The character of Tresh is supposed to be totally and utterly insane. This translates as Frewer being required by the script to act in that uniquely 90's version of "utterly insane" ie- he dances and flounces around the screen, putting on silly voices and accents in an overly affected "manic" style. It's a hyperactive performance for sure and Frewer at least looks like he's having fun but he ultimately just comes over like he's trying too hard. It's like watching a bad impersonation of Jim Carrey (the original Jim Carrey is bad enough, we REALLY don't need any knock offs, thanks).

There are a few moments where Frewer is allowed to go a bit more subtly darker (theres a disturbingly lecherous aspect to his character where he seems to be sexually attracted to underage girls), its in these moments that he works best as a villian. It's a pity the script (and director) didn't reign him in a bit and allow him to paddle in these darker waters a bit more, as I think we'd have gotten a much creepier (and more compelling) villian as a result.

SFX - Terrible early 90's lower than low budget CGI abounds. Refrax's optic blast and Banshee's sonic wail look OK but Jubilee's fireworks and Skin's Mr Fantastic style stretching abilities look terrible.

The so-called Dreamscape looks awful as well, clearly inspired by the depiction of Hell in Hellraiser 2 but without an ounce of the imagination, budget or skill. Its just a poorly rendered computer graphics backdrop. Nothing has aged as badly as 90's CGI.

VIOLENCE  - We get a single death were an unfortunate associate of Dr Tresh is hurled from an office block window and falls several storeys to his doom. This is done via bad CGI and looks like utter shit.

Tresh doesn't even die, his "dreamself" gets thrown into the abyss of the Dreamscape, leaving his mindless body to be left stranded in a mental asylum for the criminaly insane. Its hinted that he'll be back though and if the series had have been picked up I have absolutely no doubt that he would have been. I think its safe to say that we probably dodged a bullet there...

RATING - Generation X  is an extremely flawed but also strangely enjoyable viewing experience. It's got a terrible reputation amongst X-Men fans, so I went into this with very low expectations and...it wasn't too bad really. Certainly a helluva lot better than I was expecting. The budget's shortcomings are painfully obvious, some of the concepts are underdeveloped and the main baddie can be a bit grating but there is the germ of something halfway decent here. I have no doubt that if the proposed series would have gone ahead we probably would have seen much better things from our young mutants in training, afterall - any series' pilot episode is NEVER its best effort.

So what we have here is a shonky prototype that could have delivered so much more if it had been allowed to. 

3 and a half baby X-Men out of 5.

I think its safe to say we where robbed...

ART - 

Below, the "Chromatic" gimmick cover to Generation X issue 1 back when we used to get such things. Ahh..the 90's - the decade when comics went crazy...