Ricky Church reviews the eighth episode of X-Men ’97…
The home stretch of X-Men ’97‘s first season has begun and the show is still finding new ways to up the ante with captivating drama, character work, themes, action and animation. ‘Tolerance Is Extinction Part 1’ is a great opener to the three-part-finale, bringing all the elements the show has been working with – along with a few surprise appearances – toward one gigantic finale that doesn’t miss a beat.
The episode wastes little time getting right into it as the X-Men investigate Bastion’s plans and motivations with ties that go all the way back to the original X-Men series. After his brief appearance in the previous episode, this is our first real look at Bastion’s villainous character. His intelligence and ruthless calculation, along with The Gentleman‘s Theo James’ voice performance, make him an incredibly chilling villain. The way he hand waves away genocide as “time management” or his purpose to drive up humanity’s apathy – or even how he casually tosses aside Doctor freaking Doom’s concerns – makes him quite a compelling character already and James was knocking it out of the park with his performance.
It goes to show how well the episode tackled the ensemble cast, both from the heroes and villains with its great character work. The individual stories were well balanced as the X-Men split up on their separate missions while the villains plotted, showcasing their coldness in various ways (such as Sinister lamenting a former protege working for the Nazis only because it lowered their potential rather than any moral reason). It was fun to see Cyclops, Jean and Cable go on a ‘family road trip’ as they investigated Bastion’s origins while the others tended to Rogue back home. Scott and Jean particularly had some great moments where they began to reconnect with Jean seemingly embracing Madelyne and Scott’s child.
Even the fact some of the episode’s backstory is heavily tied to a plot in the original X-Men doesn’t diminish how entertaining and deep it was. It’s a bold move to pull the season’s main antagonist from such a specific arc and moment from the ’92 series, but X-Men ’97 does it in a way that it doesn’t bog down new viewers who may not have seen the original before. All the story beats were handled with great thought and care as it edged us forward to the climax.
And what a climax it was! While not as awesome or emotionally devastating as ‘Remember It’, the finale’s first part still had plenty of amazing moments for audiences to wow over, chief among them Wolverine and Nightcrawler’s tag team against the Prime Sentinels. That sequence was just stunning and very intricate in its choreography and animation, detailing Nightcrawler disappearing and reappearing all around the mansion while Wolverine performed what should have been very fatal blows to the Prime Sentinels. The animation was well done throughout the whole episode (as it has been throughout the season), but this stands out due to the complexity of the Nightcrawler and Wolverine’s vastly different combat styles and even taking us inside one of Nightcrawler’s teleportations. It brings to mind Nightcrawler’s iconic opening scene in X2, but in all honestly this sequence might have just topped it.
The Summers family fighting together was another outstanding moment, both in how they recognized each other as a family of sorts and the car chase through the mines. Even Jubilee and Roberto got to have some nice moments as they went shopping before having to run from the Prime Sentinels who, it’s worth mentioning, have some of the creepiest animation thus far in the series. Then there were the many cameos of various Marvel characters, most notably the aforementioned Doctor Doom and Spider-Man as well as other villains the X-Men faced in the original series.
“Tolerance is Extinction Part One” is a great opener to the season’s finale, pitting the X-Men up against some truly threatening enemies while also giving each character their time to shine and interesting development. If just part one was good, parts two and three should be exciting indeed.
Rating: 9/10
Ricky Church – Follow me on Twitter for more movie news and nerd talk.
