Weathering the Storm: How the X-Men films have failed Ororo Munroe

I have two confessions: – When X-Men was released in theaters back in 2000, I had little detailed knowledge of the X-Men comic books or Storm’s portrayal in them, even if I had the very basic ideas of both. Essentially, I didn’t know enough to be outraged by how Storm was portrayed in that and subsequent films when they were released. – I don’t think Halle Berry is solely to blame. Lets not be mistaken, Ms. Berry is terrible as Storm and she shares a large piece of the pie graph for that. Not only is she miscast as the weather slinging goddess, but she also does little to nothing with the role to make it memorable, at least in any good way. I don’t really want to get hung up on the “how much does Halle Berry look like Storm” argument because I think most of us would rather have a good actor in the role then a 1 to 1 match of how they were drawn, as long as it doesn’t betray an important aesthetic of the character. This isn’t Zoe Saldana / Nina Simone territory folks. Even if I don’t agree with the casting of Berry for Storm, I can certainly understand it. Whether we want to admit it or not, Halle Berry was the most popular Black Actress on the planet in the late 90s to early 2000s. Lets not forget, when X-Men showed up in theaters, we were getting Jungle Fever, Losing Isiah and Boomerang Halle Berry. She had just turned in an amazing Dorothy Dandridge performance the year before. It wasn’t till after X-Men that we got Swordfish, Catwoman and Die Another Day Halle Ber…