Saturday mornings
meant one thing for me when I was a kid: Setting my alarm clock for 8:00 so I
could tune into new episodes of Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh. Like most
kids of the pre-streaming era, such moments were sacred; they were times to
unwind, eat heavily sugared cereal, and, most importantly, not be at school.
Kids WB was always my jam, but if I had ever deviated from my strict schedule
and flipped over to Fox Kids I would have no doubt fallen in love with X-Men,
the massively popular animated adaptation of Marvel’s classic band of merry
mutants. The show was such a hit that Disney has decided to continue it
twenty-seven years later with X-Men ‘97, an enjoyable cheese-fest with
cool action, beautiful animation, and a bit of an identity crisis.
I tried going back to watch the original run
not long before the revival and found myself having a hard time with it.
Although I am a big X-Men fan in general, the show was clearly not meant for me
as an adult with no nostalgic feelings toward it. But as X-Men ‘97 is
Disney’s first attempt to bring the team to the screen since its acquisition of
Fox back in 2019 I thought I’d give it a shot anyway, and I am glad that I did.
It does have that corny 90s aura in abundance, from the silly one-liners to the
bombastic, overly dramatic voiceover work of both new and returning cast
members. But the animation has also improved greatly since the show’s previous
incarnation, the motion of the characters having the fluidity and grace one
expects from a television show made in the 2020s.
Nowhere is this animation bump more apparent
than in the action scenes, which are pretty darn cool, each one utilizing each
mutant’s superpowers in new and creative ways. Supplementing the action is a
soundtrack worthy of the original’s iconic theme, a leitmotif that never fails
to thrill whenever it returns.
But though I personally believe that X-Men
‘97 should be an intergenerational hit that both adults and children can
enjoy, there is no doubt that not all adults will enjoy it, nor will all
children. The corniness may be too off-putting for some grown-ups, and although
I am a firm believer that kids are more than capable of handling heavier themes
like prejudice and identity (and that these themes, which are so vital to the
X-Men brand in general, should never be cut from any adaptation), I could
definitely also see some kids getting bored with the non-punchy bits of X-Men
‘97. It lives in an odd no man’s land between adult and kid appeal, but I
believe it does so quite well, bridging the gap in a way that many other shows
would fail at.
If you do watch X-Men ‘97, learn from
my mistakes and watch it in the morning with a bowl of Lucky Charms. There is
no other way to do so.
The first four episodes of X-Men ’97 season
1 are now available on Disney+, with new episodes releasing each Wednesday.
This review was first published in the Keizertimes
on April 12th, 2024. Visit at www.keizertimes.com.
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