Scene Selection — Geoff Carter: ‘X-Men’ deserves promotion

Friday, Feb. 21, 2003 | 8:40 a.m.

Geoff Carter is a Seattle based free-lance film critic and entertainment writer. Reach him at carter@pre2k.com.

With their generous gifts of behind-the-scenes material, director's insights and previously unseen footage, it's sometimes hard to remember that many DVDs are blatant promotions for upcoming movies.

New Line released Peter Jackson's re-cut DVD of "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" a month shy of the opening of "The Two Towers," and the studio slipped in a free movie ticket for good measure. These guys aren't messing around.

Fox follows a similar tack with "X-Men 1.5" (Fox DVD, $26.98) -- the movie ticket will get you in to this summer's "X-Men 2" or "Daredevil," which opened Friday. But the expanded "Fellowship" offers something "1.5" doesn't: a compelling reason to buy two DVDs of the same movie.

Where Jackson found time to update "Fellowship" with new footage, embellishing the theatrical release for its true fans, "X-Men" director Bryan Singer barely had time to provide a director's commentary for this supposedly premium DVD release.

I don't hold it against him -- he's deep into the production of "X-Men 2" -- but I do wonder why he called this mediocre set "1.5."

The insinuation is that this version of "X-Men" is somehow modified from the original DVD and theatrical releases. It isn't.

In fact, I can't even make a compelling case for the extras included with this version: a number of cut scenes that came with the first release, some mediocre making-of documentaries, and an extended trailer for the sequel. Maybe Fox should have paid for two free tickets.

What makes "X-Men 1.5" worth renting, at least for the enthusiast, is the commentary track that Fox didn't see fit to allow Bryan Singer to provide the first time out. The director of "The Usual Suspects" and "Apt Pupil" has an eager, mildly nervous manner that betrays his greatest gift in dealing with actors and crew.

Singer is incredibly smart, but his brains only manifest themselves through his intuition. He has a singular gift for storytelling, and is willing to make a fool of himself to get the story across. The choices (and mistakes) he admits to having made on "X-Men" more or less make the case for him as the director of the film and its sequel.

Take the whirlwind nature of "X-Men" as an example ("I see it as a long trailer for the sequel"). Or the South African accent Halle Berry affects as Storm ("She talks like herself in the new movie"). Singer doesn't back down from his decisions, and that stubbornness made "X-Men" one of the best comic-book movies of recent years.

Until "X-Men 2" comes out, of course.

I'd recommend buying "X-Men 1.5" if you haven't purchased a copy of the film yet. It's a first-class action-adventure, packed with sly social metaphors, terrific acting and a few scenes of pure, unmitigated wow. But if you've traveled this road already, you may want to pass on this version of the film, which really isn't a version at all.

Besides, now knowing the mindset of Fox, they'll probably repackage both films when the third sequel is made.