Okay, so I'm technically cheating with this one as it isn't a movie in the strictest sense. It's a pilot produced by Marvel Entertainment in 1989 for a series that never materialized, but because the series was never picked up, it could be easily counted as a stand-alone TV movie. Just with a signficantly shorter run time.
You can watch it right here. And let me go ahead and warn you, it's pretty damn epic - especially for a twenty minute show. Magneto and his Brotherhood of Mutants seek to redirect a comet to Earth, and the only ones who can stop them are the X-Men!
After a PSA from Spidey and a kickass intro to prepare us for what we're about to see, Stan Lee himself narrates the opening over a New Mexico desert at night, where a military convoy is transporting Magneto, Master of Magnetism and the leader of the Brotherhood of Mutants. However, the White Queen herself - Emma Frost - arrives and frees him with some mental manipulation.
At a familiar mansion in Westchester, however, a lone taxi drives up to bring young Katherine "Kitty" Pryde to the front doors of Xavier's School for the Gifted. If you're one of the seven people one Earth who don't know who Kitty Pryde is, she's a mutant with the ability to walk or "phase" through solid matter. She is to the 1980s comics what Jubilee was to the 1990s comics, a character for the younger readers to identify within the X-Men books.
This pilot, as well as being titled on a pun of her, is her introduction to the team. Greeted by an astral projection of Professor Xavier, she is brought to the Danger Room and introduced to the team. Cyclops, Storm, Colossus, Dazzler, Nightcrawler, and Wolverine (the last of which is hilariously voiced with an Australian accent). Naturally, Kitty being the new kid means she doesn't fit in that well by default - Wolverine in particular doesn't much care for her - but when the X-Men are sent off on a mission, only she and the Professor are left to defend the mansion when Magneto and Juggernaut come calling...leading into further adventure!
The story is largely Kitty looking in on the team, giving the viewer a similar perspective on the team as would someone who has no idea about the world she has stepped into. She does come off as a bit whiny, but I hold (like many do) that this was to be the beginning of her character arc and - again, with Rule of Adaptation - she's not going to be exactly the beloved character we know and love from the comics right away. Character development does have to be gotten out of the way after all.
The rest of the team besides Nightcrawler doesn't get much development - with him sort of. sort of not being set up to be Kitty's love interest - which works well enough for everyone save Dazzler, who I still don't know anything about and really don't much care to (give Jubilee credit, at least her powers don't stop working in a noiseless environment). The rest though, most comic fans would know, especially those who are familiar with the John Bryne and Chris Claremont run, seeing as the lineup is virtually the same.
Some people would call it hokey, some people would nitpick. I'm not one of them. Sure, I'll mock the raw cheesy glory of it and laugh at the rather stupid plan of Magneto and the Brotherhood (using a comet to plunge Earth into an Ice Age because...reasons?), but I admire the work that went into the animation, the voice acting is pretty good (if a little hilarious for certain Canadian members of the team), and it's just a pretty good twenty minutes overall. If you've got the time, definitely follow that link and give it a watch.
And it made a thumb-bleedingly good Konami arcade game, so I suppose we ought to thank it for that if nothing else. So yeah, check it out!
...and tell 'em MadCap sent ya!
X-Men: Pryde of the X-Men is brought to us by Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Productions, and New World Pictures.
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