Why I Saw This Movie
I've been a fan of these X-Men movies all along. See my reviews of X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, and X-Men: 3. (X-Men 1 and X-Men 2 came out before I started this blog.)
Plus, I think we can all agree that the previews for this movie just looked really cool. I knew I would be seeing this movie sooner or later.
Currently, I'm living and working in Vietnam, which makes it hard to find an uncensored cut of this movie.
It turns out communist regimes are remarkably similar to the religious right back in America. They really hate all the sex and violence in Hollywood moves, and the Vietnamese censors are not shy about editing that stuff right out.
A co-worker of mine went to see this movie and the theater in Saigon, and was outraged to find the entire climax of the movie had just been brutally cut out of the movie.
I ended up seeing it on cable TV last night (Fox Movies Asia--W). I'm fairly sure it was somewhat censored. (The version I saw did not quite match up with all the descriptions of graphic violence I've been reading about online). But at least there were no glaring gaps.
Because I never saw the unedited version of this movie, feel free to discount my opinion accordingly.
The Review ***SPOILERS***
The coolest thing about this movie is that it exists in the first place.
You remember when the trailers for this thing first started coming out? And we were all like: "Oh, wow! They're actually doing this!"
An X-men movie made with the aesthetic of No Country for Old Men ! And with a hard "R" rating! How did the studios ever let this happen?!
Although the movie is marketed as a Wolverine movie, I'm counting it as the 7th X-men movie in my mind. It co-stars Patrick Stewart, and he does such a wonderful job in this movie that I think the movie is as much Professor Xavier's movie as it is Logan's.
The X-men continuity gets more and more tortured with each movie, but with a little bit of creative thinking you could easily position this as X-men 7. It's a possible, albeit a very dark, future for the X-men universe. Logan and Professor Xavier still survive, and the movie hints (strongly) that the other X-men were killed off by one of Professor Xavier's seizures.
It's amazing that a movie like this ever got made at all, and that's the most wonderful thing about it.
But... I feel like all there was to know about the new gritty tone and direction of this movie, I already got from the trailers.
Once you get your mind around the general concept, seeing the actual movie didn't quite blow me away as much as I thought it would.
After all, when it comes down to it, this is just another stupid super-hero movie.
I remember the moment when I was watching this movie, and I realized it wasn't going to be some deep plot, but that it was just going to be about how the good mutant fights the bad mutant again. And then I thought to myself, "Well, of course it is. For all its new gritty aesthetic, this is still just another superhero movie."
The more fool I for expecting anything different.
I've gotten into the bad habit lately of watching a lot of dumb superhero action movies, and then complaining that they're dumb superhero action movies. I really should just stop watching them, or stop complaining.
...and yet...and yet, there are some moments of brilliance in this movie.
Most movies don't address the problems of aging (even though it's a non-negotiable part of the human experience). But this movie at times took a very hard look at the problems of elder care for Professor Xavier. At one time he was the most brilliant mind in the world, now he is just a feeble old man who can't go to the bathroom by himself. And he's loosing control of his most valuable asset, his brain. And everyone knows that this isn't going to get any better as time goes on.
I also thought the movie briefly flirted with a developing an allegory for the human search for meaning in life. It didn't develop this fully, but hints of it where there.
The entire story is about a journey to a place called "Eden". Laura (X-23) believes in it because she read it out of a book.
Logan knows that the book is just a story created by writers, and so doesn't think that Eden exists, and thinks the whole journey is a waste of time
Professor Xavier tells Logan that it doesn't matter whether or not the place exists in reality, because "it's real to her."
Other Notes
* Stephan Merchant was really good as "Caliban". The fact that he was almost unrecognizable under the make-up just increased the fun. The whole time I was watching this movie, I was like, "Who is that actor? I know I've seen him in something before." (I've long been a fan of Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais's collaborations).
* It's tempting to classify this movie as a post-apocalyptic future movie. But one reviewer I read somewhere pointed out that there was nothing explicitly post-apocalyptic at all. Rather the movie just looked post apocalyptic because all of the scenes took place in the desolateness of the American West. It is actually a "Western". (And I guess to drive home this point, the movie keeps emphasizing comparisons to Shane).
Negatives
* I truly think that Magneto has been one of the most interesting and complex villains in movie history. But after 6 movies, his story arc is just done. There's only so many times we can see his fall and redemption on screen before we start to lose interest. If I have to hear that "I know there's still good in you, Eric" speech one more time, I'm going to give up on these X-Men movies completely.
* Related to the above point, in order to get Magneto's fall-and-redemption arc into motion again, the screenwriters were just brutal to this character.
You can get away with killing off Magneto's whole family maybe once in the series, but you can't start doing it at the beginning of every movie.
* I've been a long time comic book fan ever since I was a kid. But even as a kid, I've always preferred low-powered superheros (like Batman) to the near-omnipotent mind-controlling telepaths.
The problem with having too many near-omnipotent mind-controlling telepaths in one movie is that it leads to a loss of suspense because these characters have too much power. It also leads to a lot of inconsistencies in how these powers are used. And then there are those telepath mind battles, which I always thought got a bit weird, and which don't particularly lend themselves to dramatic presentation on the big screen. This movie is a prime example.
* For a movie series that's supposed to be an allegory about racism and discrimination, this movie sure had a white-washed cast.
This is especially noticeable given how many characters this movie is juggling--such a big cast, and pretty much all of them are white. (There were, by my count, three people of color, all of whom were either background characters or villains).
* The ending of the movie went on just a couple beats too long. It should have ended with the rescue of Xavier. That final battle against Apocalypse just felt too long and unnecessary. (They should have combined Apocalypse's defeat with Xavier's rescue).
* I don't mind product placement as long as it's not too obvious...but that prominently featured coca-cola bottle that Storm opened--that was pushing things a bit. (Ditto for the can of Tabs later in the movie). Positives
* Although the script of this movie had severe problems, the acting and the directing were all top notch.
I mean, Wow! What a sense of presentation this director has! That opening scene, for example, was such an awesome spectacle of Hollywood special effects mixed with over-the-top drama.
And that sense of awesome spectacle stayed through the whole movie.
* Related to the above point--the musical score for this movie really complemented the drama on screen very nicely.
* The acting was very good.
* That Quicksilver scene was really cool.
The Review
There's some indication here that the folks behind the X-Men franchise have run out of ideas--the Magneto character arc re-hash has been done to death by now.
And yet, it was all told with such style and spectacle and drama that I largely enjoyed this movie.
And I'm still on board for seeing one more movie in this franchise.
Links
I'm largely in agreement with Vince Mancini over at Uproxx.com. Or at least, I'm in agreement with him as far as X-Men: Apocalypse is concerned. (His point of comparison, Captain America: Civil War,I actually liked a lot more than he did.)
* A decently complicated and ambitious plot
(that is—for a superhero movie)
* As with all the films in this series, the
film does a good job of creating ambiguity between heroes and villains, and
giving complicated character motivations to its antagonists
* Does a good job of uniting most of the
cast members from all of the previous movies, and not screwing up the
continuity too much
* Although it was superficial, the history
geek in me loved all the references to historic events throughout the movie
* Despite the fact that I’m pretty sure I
caught some anachronisms, the early 1970s setting was a neat retro-environment
for the film.
Negatives
* I found this film hard to sit through—it
felt a lot longer than it actually was.
* The story lost focus at about the halfway
point, after the first initial climax scene, and the film lost its sense of
forward momentum.
The
Review
In a world
where super-hero movies are becoming increasingly formulaic and predictable,
you’ve got to give these X-Men movies credit for some very ambitious
stories.Unfortunately, this is a very
clever idea that suffers somewhat in its execution.The plotting lacks forward momentum, the
story lags in the middle, and the climax is not as exciting as it should be.
Whatever else you may say about these X-Men movies, there’s no denying they’re ambitious.
It’s not enough for them to simply do the standard action-fest, choreographed fighting, and special effects extravaganza we’ve come to expect from superhero movies. They have to add pathos as well. They want us to care emotionally about their characters, and to care about the relationships these characters have with each other.
And they even attempt to address social issues like discrimination and alienation from society.
The success with which the X-Men movies accomplish their aims is debatable. (Whenever a comic book movie attempts to explore social issues, there’s a temptation for it to get overly heavy-handed or patronizing. And at various points I think the X-Men franchise has been in danger of crossing over into this territory, at least with the issue of discrimination. The theme of young people feeling alienated from society I think they pull off a bit better.)
The complex relationships in the X-Men are also ambitious as the line between enemy and ally are often blurred. You have enemies who are friends (Charles Xavier and Magneto) and allies who are often in danger of becoming enemies (the rivalry between Wolverine and Cyclops, the confrontations between Pyro and Iceman, and of course the Jean Gray saga.)
Again, how well the film makers actually handle all of these dramatic possibilities is debatable. But I don’t think it’s possible to walk out of the theater and not have a bit of admiration for the ambition of what the filmmakers were trying to pull off.
The first 3 films in the X-Men series I saw before I stared up my Movie Review Project, so I’ll start out by doing a brief recap of my impressions here, before I get into the newest film.
X-Men 1: Didn’t do much for me to be honest. Okay but not great. X-Men 2: They absolutely nailed it with this movie. Possibly the best comic book movie ever. From this point on, I considered myself a fan of the series. X-Men 3: You know, I actually liked this movie. I know a lot of other people didn’t like it, and I’ll probably have to re-watch it someday to give it a more intelligent review. But at the time I remember thinking it was pretty cool. X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Haven’t seen this yet. Someday, maybe. But I’ve always thought Wolverine was the least interesting character in the X-Men series anyway.
Alright, so with that recap out of the way, how does this new movie fare?
Really well I thought.
Maybe I was a bit biased, because I considered myself a fan of the series, and I went in wanting it to work. But I thought they did a really good job.
The plot was a bit convoluted at first, as 3 separate story lines had to be converged into one. But actually I like plots that keep me on my toes a bit, so no problem for me here.
I thought the movie did a good job of creating dramatic suspense, particularly in the beginning. There’s one or two scenes near the opening of the movie where the scene does a good job of milking the suspense to build up to the dramatic climax, with the appropriate crescendo in the music letting you know something is about to happen.
The characters are engaging—or at least the main characters (some of the later additions to the X-Men team are just blatantly there for no other purpose than to fill the team out.)
This film continues the theme, established in the early X-Men movies, that a character’s inner demons are just as much of a threat as their outside enemies. And so we see a number of characters struggling with, and sometimes giving into, their inner demons.
The acting is quite good as well. Admittedly the two lead actors have some big shoes to fill. (In retrospect, that was quite a coup the first X-Men movies had landing such talented actors as Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen). But both actors pull it off well.
So, all in all a good movie. Below are a few more observations on various issues.
*************************************************************** On Continuity
I know that to even broach this topic is to open ones self up to accusations of geekdom. And to the extent that any time spent contemplating a fictional universe is time not spent on chasing girls, drinking beer, or building muscles, I suppose the accusation is fair enough. (I probably should be in a bar right now winking at some cute girl instead of writing this.)
But if a viewer is to spend his time and money watching this series, I don’t think it’s too much to ask for it to be consistent. Otherwise you can’t take it seriously. And if nothing else, these X-Men movies want to be taken seriously. They want us to care about the transformations these characters undergo.
Many people on the internet are already way ahead of me on this. For a run down of many of the continuity errors introduced in X-Men, see for example this list {LINK HERE}. And for a way to explain away many of the same continuity errors, see for example this list here {LINK HERE}.
Most of the minor points don’t bother me so much. I’m more concerned with how this film fits into the overall story the filmmakers have been telling.
The previous X-Men films have already established that Professor Xavier, and Magneto, despite being enemies also have a continuing friendship, and it’s implied that they have a long history. Exactly what this history was is mostly left up to the imagination of the viewer, and perhaps it was more interesting when it was vaguely defined. From what was said in the previous movies, I had always imagined this friendship had carried on over a period of several years. In this movie we get only a period of several months before they have their split.
I’m not sure this brief friendship lasting only a few months would be quite enough to sustain the admiration and mutual respect they seem to have for each other 40 years later in the original X-Men movies. But this is somewhat open to interpretation.
Actually, according to this movie, the person Charles Xavier really does have a long history with, and deep affection for, is not Magneto, but Mystique, who we find out is his adopted sister, and who he is obviously very fond of (and she of him). Therefore this movie does a better job of setting up a complicated relationship between Xavier and Mystique than it does between Xavier and Magneto. And yet this relationship is totally absent from the first 3 movies.
I’m somewhat torn about this, because on the one hand the Mystique we get in this movie is much more interesting and developed. But it will, I fear, ruin the series for anyone trying to watch them chronologically. If you were to watch this prequel movie right before watching the rest of the X-Men series, the relationship between professor Xavier and Mystique would make no sense.
For a summer block-buster superhero movie, the choice of a retro setting is pretty unique. The normal trend is for Hollywood to take old comic book superheroes, and try to modernize them as much as possible. This movie takes characters established in the public mind by recent movies, and takes them back to the 1960s. It’s unusual, but anything different is good, and this is a pleasant change of pace from the usual superhero movie.
Unfortunately the film makers don’t take full advantage of the retro-setting. If they had made a bit of an effort, they could totally have gone the route of “Mad Men” and worked really hard to recreate the period with the clothing, the hair styles and the music of the early 60s.
What we get instead is a partial effort. Every now and again a character will say “daddy-O” or “groovy”. Some of the clothing looks a bit retro-ish, but even here the filmmakers at times seem to be confusing the Kennedy years with the 1970s.
Many of the hair styles look much more modern than retro, particularly with the new young X-men recruits. (I suspect because somewhere in the studio hierarchy, marketability won out against period authenticity, and the studio wanted good-looking young stars sporting fashionable modern haircuts on all their advertisements.)
It’s a minor quibble, admittedly. It didn’t spoil the movie for me, but I thought it would have been a lot cooler if they had gone to more effort to create more of an atmosphere.
************************************************** On the Cuban Missile Crisis:
The Cuban Missile Crisis, like many events in American history, has developed a sort of mythology that bears almost no relationship to the actual facts of what happened. The version I learned at school was that the Soviet Union unilaterally breaking the peace by putting missiles in Cuba. Kennedy was forced against his will into a situation where he had to bring the world to the brink of nuclear war, and fortunately his great leadership caused the Soviets to back down.
What was never told to me in school was that the US had missiles stationed in Turkey, aimed at the Soviet Union, which were actually closer to the Soviet Union than their missiles in Cuba were to us. And so when the US complained about missiles in Cuba, the Soviet Union (rightly) pointed out that this was completely hypocritical. They then offered to remove their missiles from Cuba if the US would agree to remove their missiles from Turkey.
Privately, the US government acknowledged that the Soviets had a legitimate point. But it was felt that if the US was the first to remove their missiles, it would look like Kennedy was caving in to Soviet pressure, and would endanger his re-election prospects. And so for this our government brought us to the edge of a nuclear holocaust.
It is very rare that this side of the story is ever acknowledged by the US media. You might recall that Kevin Costner movie that came out about 10 years ago “13 Days” (W) in which they spent the whole movie on the Cuban Missile Crisis, and never once acknowledged that we had missiles in Turkey, or that Kennedy could have ended the whole crisis at any time by simply pulling our own missiles out of Turkey.
I fully expected this movie to take to the same view.
Imagine my surprise, then, when X-Men: First Class goes out of its way to set up that the US government first created the crisis by placing missiles in Turkey. (Granted in the world of X-Men, it is evil mutants who are blackmailing the US army to do it, but still an acknowledgment nonetheless.)
So, the movie gets an extra point from me for this little piece of historical accuracy.
(Sad though that we have to go to X-Men movies for historical accuracy.)
*************************************************
One last, final thought before I finally lay this review to rest:
I read another review of this movie I want to respond to briefly.
Yeah, I know. It’s a losing battle to try and respond to everything on the Internet. But just indulge me in this.
And it continues on in that same patronizing tone for several more paragraphs.
This writer’s argument would be helped somewhat if he could point to what heights our culture has fallen from. Was it in the 90s, when the Batman franchise and the Matrix movies were top box office draws? Or in the 80s with Return of the Jedi and Tron? Or the 70s with the Superman movie and the Planet of the Apes franchise? Or the 60s with the Adam West Batman movie? Or the 50s, with “The Beginning of the End” and the Tarzan movies? Or the 40s, with the Flash Gordon movie serials?
You get the idea, and can probably add your own examples as well as I can. The point is that every generation has their high brow art, and their low brow entertainment, and there’s nothing wrong with that. We’ve had movies based on comic book characters since the 1940s, and will likely continue to have them for many years to come.
The way to effectively critique these movies is not to get into a snobbish fit about the fact that comic book movies are once again dominating the box office, but to compare these movies against their genre. In that respect, I think you could make the argument that these X-Men movies have shown that the comic book movie genre is expanding the range of themes it is willing to take on, and thus represents a sign that the culture is getting more intelligent, not less.
In the same vein, Allen Ginsburg once claimed that The Beatles song “Eleanor Rigby” represented a cultural high point. He didn’t argue it was a cultural high point because The Beatles handled themes of alienation better than any poet ever before them, but because these themes were being attempted by a bubble gum pop band at the height of their fame.
In the same way, “X-Men: First Class” may not be high art, but I don’t think its popularity is any indication that our culture has gone down the tubes.
Now that I've been back for about a week, I thought I'd jot down a few thoughts.
A lot of people have been asking me about reverse culture shock. Aside from a few surface level things (remembing to drive on the right side of the road, not recognizing any of the new music on the radio) I've had no major problems. Nothing like the horror stories I've been hearing from my friends, anyway. Right now I'm just really glad to be back and to be living a normal life again.
What I've Been Doing
This past Sunday I went up to Ann Arbor with my parents to help my sister move out of her apartment.
On Monday I attended the local peace presence rally. Those of you still in Grand Rapids should seriously think about checking it out. It's every Monday from 4:30-5:30 on the northeast corner of Division and Fulton, and is just people quietly holding signs against the war. Check out their website here.
Tuesday night I went to one of IGE's teach-ins about Peak Oil, presented by this gentlemen here. It's a very sombering topic. Basically the idea is that we're going to hit peak production of oil very soon, and then afterwords there's not going to be enough oil to go around. Because electricity, plastics, heating and even food transportation all depend on oil, there's a lot of gloom and doom predictions about what this will mean. For more information check out this article here. (Although, Mr. Luke, your objections are duly noted).
Wednesday night Bork and Adam treated me to a sneak preview of the new X-Men movie (I'll resist the temptation to write a long review of it. Instead I'll just say I thought it was "pretty cool"). Then we went to the bar with Bork's fellow seminary students. I never thought I'd be at the bar talking with a bunch of slightly intoxicated Seminarians. Now I can cross that off my list of things to do before I die. (Seriously though, those Calvin Seminary students are a lot cooler than you might think).
It's always interesting to meet people in real life that you have only known through blogging, and to see how they match up to the image you have formed of them. It was really cool to meet the infamous Meg (who not long ago emerged as the darling of the blogosphere, or at least the portion of it I follow).
And Jana. (Actually I knew Jana a little in high school. We had a Latin class together).
From tomorrow I'm going on a road trip with my sister and Mom out to Colorado where I will finally meet my new niece. Looking forward to it. I'll be gone all next week, but after that I'll be back in G.R. again.
