WG: It's easy to see why music video veteran Tarsem Singh was attracted to directing The Cell, this summer's harshest piece of visual eyecandy, because so much of the movie is like a music video itself. The fil invites us to join Jennifer Lopez's sexy scientist as she journeys into the nightmarish psyche of Vincent D'Onofrio's twisted serial killer, but the invitation is just as much Tarsem's, as he bids us to enter a world in which the confines of narrative structure simply melt away. The problem with this visually arresting picture however, is that its disturbing aesthetic too often overwhelms Mark Protosevich's underwritten screenplay, which is really nothing more than a pedestrian serial killer thriller at heart. Yet so much of Tarsem's imagery - such as the first haunting glimpses of Lopez as a seductive slave to subconscious - leaves an indelible impression on the mind. He may not capture the artistic grit of Seven or the psychological intensity of Silence of the Lambs (the two films he's most obviously trying to emulate), but his roller-coaster ride through a psychedelic dream world demands to be experienced. The Cell may not be a great film, but in a summer of hand-groomed blockbusters and dishwasher safe products, you can't help but admire the one studio picture that actually attempted to do something both daring and original.

X-Men

SC: Until July 14, we couldn't buy a good movie. The early summer was just painful to endure and I went to see X-Men knowing quite well that Bryan Singer's adaptation of the comic books would be a disaster, I'd bemoan the state of Hollywood once again, and regret the $15 I spent on a ticket and JuJubees. But what a pleasant surprise - the X-Men not only saved the world, but they also saved summer movie audiences. Singer's adaptation is lyrical, elegant and wonderfully intelligent; it has nuance, something that a comic book movie usually can't afford. And even though it clocks in at a lean 101 minutes, the movie takes its time to develop the start of what should be an extremely interesting set of character dynamics. Indeed, the best thing about X-Men is that we await the sequel knowing that we won't get the same schtick from the first one - Singer cleverly delivered a movie that can both stand on its own and yet also demand more intricate resolutions.

WG: How come Hollywood has always had such a difficult time when it comes to adapting comic books? It seems like such a simple task, yet for every gem like Blade, there seem to be six or seven duds like Judge Dredd. Which is why every time I think about Bryan Singer's big-screen version of X-Men, I get more and more amazed. Facing heavy studio pressure, an ever-shifting script, and the weight of an entire legion of diehard fanboys ready to critique everything from costumes to eye color, the Usual Suspects auteur somehow managed to make a movie that was both true to the source material and self- contained in its own right. But even more importantly, the movie was pure fun - the X-Men's battle with Magneto atop the Statue of Liberty at the end perfectly captured the dazzling escapism that makes comic books so popular. Although I wish the movie were more than just a pitiful 90 minutes and the ending too blatantly tries to set up future sequels, I'll take what I can get when it comes to this genre. Finally, something must be said of Aussie newcomer Hugh Jackman, who was so utterly pitch-perfect as legendary comics icon Wolverine that he alone made me feel like I was actually watching the comic book, rather than some hackneyed interpretation of it.