Generation X: the movie

Posted by Vicki on 08.05.03

With all the fuss over the X-Men 2 movie it appears to have become almost acceptable to read comic books, despite Ben Afflick's camp turn in 'Daredevil'.

The critical and commercial acclaim that has greeted the X-Men franchise is unusual; the vast majority of comic book to movie adaptations are overly camp with cheesy dialogue and low budgets (for example 'The Punisher' and 'Captain America'), or worse they are big budget with lousy dialogue and unbelievably over the top special effects (for example the Superman and Batman franchises). However bad the aforementioned films are, there is one that far outstrips them all in stupidity and desperate merchandising stakes: 'Generation X: the movie'.

Generation X started as a comic book in which a 'Mutant Academy' groomed teenage mutants to be in the X-Men or randomly disappear/die after all 75 issues were over. The idea occurred because Jubilation Lee needed a comic to go into, someone at Marvel realising that a 14 year old tagging after the X-Men was really annoying. At some point in late 1995 a nameless figure decided to turn the comic into a 2 hour made-for-TV special.

Due to budget restrictions it was decided to change the powers of two of the characters while still trying to have the big fight sequence in the 'Astral plane', which I think means in a dream world. The bad guy probably explained this concept and how it was intrinsic to his plan to take over/destroy the world but I was too busy banging my head against a wall in protest at the dialogue. The plot is something like this: the head teacher Emma Frost - looking like a reject from the Avengers in an ill-advised tight white catsuit, annoyed a guy who owned a 'Dream Machine' so he came to get her students. In all fairness this is the basic plot for the comic books, but having the bad guy do a permanent bad Jim Carrey impersonation is teeth gratingly bad. At least in the comic books the bad guy was a mutant monster who sucked out souls through mouths on the palms of his hand.

As far as the cast goes you have the badly accented Irish teacher who may or may not have feelings for Emma, an illegal immigrant who is gray and can stretch his skin, Jubilee who produces fireworks, Monet whose weapon appears to be her huge ego, and Mondo whose special powers escaped my notice. The two characters with budget restrictions bulk the numbers up: Husk, who could make her skin iron, is replaced by Buff (no, really) who has increased body muscle. While Chamber, whose jaw and chest were a flaming vortex, is now called Reflax and has x-ray vision and Cyclops-like eye powers.

In an attempt to inject some interaction between the characters, Buff gets annoyed when Reflax 'accidentally' x-rays through her clothes. This allows one of the kids to get captured by the bad dream stalker guy and a low budget, minimal special effects rescue. The only vaguely recognisable name in the TV movie was Heather McComb, whose CV includes such cinematic joys as 'F.A.R.T. the movie' and 'Kickboxer 2: the road back'. Apparently she is engaged to Dawson's Creek's James Van Der Beek and was in 'Party of Five' for a year.

I am informed that this movie has only been aired once, on Fox in 1996, though somehow I was bought a copy of the film by a family member who needed another film to make up a 4 for £20 offer, and decided that 'Generation X' sounded like a hard-hitting coming of age film. While the threat of a Catwoman film starring Halle Berry sounds appalling, it will at least have a bigger budget than Marvel were prepared to spend in the 1980s and 1990s. Unfortunate dialogue selection is likely to remain.

Time Magazine recently revealed the end of the forthcoming Matrix sequel. The morality I drew from 80s cartoons makes me feel unable to reveal what happened to the plucky 'Generation X' kids and their dubiously attired and accented teachers, but rest assured that in the spirit of comic-to-film transitions, a valuable life-lesson was learned by all regardless of whether they actuated the physical victory they sought.