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seriousficLet's review X-Men: First Class!
Let's start with Emma Frost, since I know that's what you're all worried about. Well, January Jones doesn't disgrace herself, although the character isn't given much to do. She's basically the Mystique of this movie, a really cool side-character who gets some stand-out moments, but isn't that essential to the plot. And that fits to the era of the comics they were adapting, where she was more Shaw's buttmonkey than a featured player. In fact, it fits her canonical (so she says) drug addiction to explain Emma's kowtowing and emotional Olivia-Dunhamming in the movie. "I'm sorry I thought World War 3 was a good idea, Scott, but I was battling my oxycontin addiction at the time. Have you ever seen the Todd Philips film 'The Hangover'? One does fucked-up stuff when one's fucked-up." Really, the most disappointing thing there is that when it comes time for her fight scene, she gets curb-stomped pretty ably. To quote Ghostbusters, "Get her, Ray!" isn't a plan. Much less one that should work.
(I hate to be that fan, but shouldn't she have superstrength in her diamond form? As well as not needing to breathe? If it doesn't work that way, why does she use it? Just to look pretty? And as long as I'm being That Fan, Oliver Platt's friendly FBI agent is named Duncan, right? Right?)
All that said, I would not mind if Emma aged into a better actress between now and the sequel.
Other than that, the film works really great, both as a superhero film in using the superpowers as metaphors instead of a special effects end in themselves (when Magneto starts, well, Magnetoing, you don't have to say he's hurting the people he cares about, you can see how that works. And it turns out X2 was the second time Erik used Charlies to commit murder...) and as a period piece in using the setting for more than just groovy cosplay. First Class plays really well with both the whiz-bang Silver Age/James Bond pastiche/"social upheaval is fun!" Harrad Experiment stuff and the darker race-relating, Holocaust-surviving, nuclear-war-fearing aspect of the 60s.
Unfortunately, the First Class themselves get kinda a short shift. The movie does spend a surprising and pleasing amount of time on their training (two hour and twenty minute runtime! Respectable!), but it doesn't change the fact that there's a getting-to-know-you montage, then they jaw for a bit, then we immediately get our first martyr to the cause and our first traitor, without any indication why Angel would be willing to turn on the team and not, say, Banshee. And sorry, Darwin, but you can't adapt to the fact that THE BLACK GUY ALWAYS DIES FIRST. (Not that I care much. I mean, fucking Darwin? Even I don't know who that is. And I made an Agent Duncan reference in this very post!)
ETA: So the American military was just at its most badass in the 60s, wasn't it? Ray Wise, Michael Ironside, and James Remar? Why did we even need mutants to beat the U.S.S.R., couldn't we distract them with wondering what movies our military staff had been in? "Hey, comrade, it's that guy from Dexter, Dexter's dad, what's his name, I knew it just yesterday! Oh, shit-ski, nuclear missiles!" BOOM. COLD WAR OVER.
Let's start with Emma Frost, since I know that's what you're all worried about. Well, January Jones doesn't disgrace herself, although the character isn't given much to do. She's basically the Mystique of this movie, a really cool side-character who gets some stand-out moments, but isn't that essential to the plot. And that fits to the era of the comics they were adapting, where she was more Shaw's buttmonkey than a featured player. In fact, it fits her canonical (so she says) drug addiction to explain Emma's kowtowing and emotional Olivia-Dunhamming in the movie. "I'm sorry I thought World War 3 was a good idea, Scott, but I was battling my oxycontin addiction at the time. Have you ever seen the Todd Philips film 'The Hangover'? One does fucked-up stuff when one's fucked-up." Really, the most disappointing thing there is that when it comes time for her fight scene, she gets curb-stomped pretty ably. To quote Ghostbusters, "Get her, Ray!" isn't a plan. Much less one that should work.
(I hate to be that fan, but shouldn't she have superstrength in her diamond form? As well as not needing to breathe? If it doesn't work that way, why does she use it? Just to look pretty? And as long as I'm being That Fan, Oliver Platt's friendly FBI agent is named Duncan, right? Right?)
All that said, I would not mind if Emma aged into a better actress between now and the sequel.
Other than that, the film works really great, both as a superhero film in using the superpowers as metaphors instead of a special effects end in themselves (when Magneto starts, well, Magnetoing, you don't have to say he's hurting the people he cares about, you can see how that works. And it turns out X2 was the second time Erik used Charlies to commit murder...) and as a period piece in using the setting for more than just groovy cosplay. First Class plays really well with both the whiz-bang Silver Age/James Bond pastiche/"social upheaval is fun!" Harrad Experiment stuff and the darker race-relating, Holocaust-surviving, nuclear-war-fearing aspect of the 60s.
Unfortunately, the First Class themselves get kinda a short shift. The movie does spend a surprising and pleasing amount of time on their training (two hour and twenty minute runtime! Respectable!), but it doesn't change the fact that there's a getting-to-know-you montage, then they jaw for a bit, then we immediately get our first martyr to the cause and our first traitor, without any indication why Angel would be willing to turn on the team and not, say, Banshee. And sorry, Darwin, but you can't adapt to the fact that THE BLACK GUY ALWAYS DIES FIRST. (Not that I care much. I mean, fucking Darwin? Even I don't know who that is. And I made an Agent Duncan reference in this very post!)
ETA: So the American military was just at its most badass in the 60s, wasn't it? Ray Wise, Michael Ironside, and James Remar? Why did we even need mutants to beat the U.S.S.R., couldn't we distract them with wondering what movies our military staff had been in? "Hey, comrade, it's that guy from Dexter, Dexter's dad, what's his name, I knew it just yesterday! Oh, shit-ski, nuclear missiles!" BOOM. COLD WAR OVER.
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Date: 2011-06-09 03:32 am (UTC)There are basically three tiers of characterization:
1. Professor X, Magneto, Mystique (surprisingly)
2. Beast, Moira
3. Everybody Else
Tier 3 work fine as action figures with the odd one-liner, which is mostly what they're called on to do, but this causes problems when they step into the limelight. Angel is the most obvious victim of this.