Scanners

Saw Scanners, an early-ish film by Cronenberg.  It's plot is essentially the same as X Men.  A psychic, telekinetic man is picked up by a chemical weapons company and trained in the art of "scanning." From an opening scene where we see a man's head explode, we know there is a rival group of mutants who are using their mutant super-powers to battle this weapons company.  So who's gonna win?

The film is not amazing of course but it's surprisingly effective for its far-out premise.  There's intense psychic battles that involve people glaring at each other and shaking.  The soundtrack does some heavy lifting in evoking an otherworldly feel to the proceedings, but it's still simultaneously silly and interesting.  The film lives in this silly/serious space.  There's intense standoffs and shoot-outs but later on they also use their scanning powers to steal secrets from the "mind" of a computer ("It's just a neural system!")  It's an uneven film.

The bulk of the film is the main character guy trying to figure out what's going on.  What's going on is not well-grounded in characters or even presented as very concrete ideas.  Instead things are kept sort of shadowy and abstract.  In the final showdown, it's difficult to care much about who wins or looses.  The final twist has not much to do with the rest of the film, frankly.  Allegedly the film was being written as it was being filmed and you can sort of tell.  The ending just happens and really the story could have bumbled on for many more hours, revealing double-crosses and secret programs and counter-programs until the cows come home.

The film really exists to deliver sci-fi special effects and psychodrama.  This is done mostly with intense close-ups and soundtrack effects but they are surprisingly effective for that.  The plotting and so on are kind of dashed off in favor of boiling faces and gun-men bursting into flame.  It's an effects movie, but it's interestingly dark and messy-looking for that.  I enjoyed it, but got sort of bored partway through.