Singer, who made his reputation with "The Usual Suspects," one of the most original thrillers of the '90s, was an adventurous choice for this zillion-dollar screen adaptation of the plot-dense Marvel Comics series about mutant warfare in a near-future society. But his willingness to defy formula and convention (at least up to a point) is just what the doctor ordered. "X-Men" is about the future, all right, but its future is a troubled one that has ominous echoes of its past: the Holocaust, the Red scare, the Ku Klux Klan and the neighborhood gay-basher.

So the darkness Singer conjures up here is not the stylized Gothic gloom of Tim Burton's "Batman," so often imitated in the past decade, but the shadow of modern history's darkest times. Maybe "X-Men" doesn't quite have the formal daring, breadth of vision or daredevil wit of "The Matrix," but it shares something of that film's allegorical spirit, creates its own sense of gravity and takes certain chances with audience expectations.

In the leading role of Wolverine, a hirsute renegade mutant with a tendency to sprout Freddy Krueger-like steel claws, Singer has cast nearly unknown Australian actor Hugh Jackman. With his striking resemblance to the Man With No Name-era Clint Eastwood, Jackman proves a likable, laconic star, but in a sense he's getting a free ride. This fantasy aimed at American teenagers is largely carried by a conflict between two characters past middle age, played by arguably the two greatest living actors of the English stage (even if one of them is best known for commanding the Starship Enterprise).

As longtime fans of the "X-Men" universe know, Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), a telepath and psychic, has gathered many of the world's most powerful mutants around him, both for their own protection and to do good for humanity. But his old friend Erik Magnus Lehnsherr, better known as Magneto (Ian McKellen) for his power over metal, is a Holocaust survivor who has had quite enough of the human race and its bigotry. He sees a war coming between humans and mutants, and aims to be on the winning side.

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