So we saw X-Men: First Class on Friday
Jun. 8th, 2011 10:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rallamajoopAnd really, thoroughly enjoyed it. A little puzzled by the number reviewers I've seen rushing to declare it the best X-Men movie ever, since despite all that thorough enjoyment I came away with a few caveats about the whole experience that leave it well below the undiluted awesome that was X2 (though I am what seems like a minority who really thoroughly enjoyed Wolverine: Origins too, so quite possibly the gap between this and the last good X-Men movie seems shorter to me than it does to many people), but those details aside gosh but there is a lot to like about this movie.
Highlights!
1. James McAvoy as Charles Xavier. This one has to go first because not only could he have just about made the whole damn movie for me on his own, let's face it, Patrick Stewart is a heck of an act to follow, and no matter what the official propaganda would have me believe I went in with very little expectation that he was going to pull it off. I was wrong. Oh boy, was I wrong. Between the script and McAvoy's fantastic performance they absolutely sold it to me – insightful and compassionate though also more than enough of a smug dick a lot of the time to keep him believably flawed and interesting, you can see just enough of the man he's going to become to absolutely buy him as the younger version of the Xavier from the previous movies. In a season of superhero movies where we're going to be seeing variants on the traditional origin story over and over again, a lead who's already so comfortable with his goals and powers is a truly refreshing change.
Magneto, by contrast, was perfectly decent but never managed to wow me on quite the same level. Possibly there was something a little too clean cut about him to let me entirely buy him as someone so damaged and desperate, which was probably more of a costuming and make up issue than any reflection on the actor, but still, it threw me a little. (Since coming back from the movie I have seen the point made that based on his early Nazi-hunting scenes alone Fassbender would make a hell of a James Bond and I cannot disagree, but what makes a good James Bond and what makes a convincing younger Magneto may not be quite the same thing.) What's important is that the chemistry between the young Charles and Erik was fantastic – really, I could not have asked for better, and the movie did absolutely meet it's quota for...
2. Moments of Magneto awesomeness It's one of my favourite things about the X-Men movie series is that they take these ridiculously overpowered characters who you'd think would be a nightmare to make believable on screen, and they go to town with them. You know you're watching a good X-Men movie when you're getting to watch Magneto bust his way out of a plastic prison with no more than a couple of grams of iron on hand or stop a free-falling jet in mid-flight – or, say, wrench a submarine clean out of the ocean or stop a full missile barrage dead in the air. I have lately had to come to the conclusion that somehow or other I have turned into a shameless Magneto fangirl, and minor quibbles about his costuming aside this movie delivered.
3. Young mutants figuring out their powers. Always good value and, surprisingly, I think this is almost the first time we've seen this really dealt with in an X-Men movie. Seeing all the kids really being kids for the brief window they got and taking turns to show off their powers to each other was great fun, and the later scenes at the mansion of Havok and Banshee getting the hang of their own powers were a likewise a joy to watch. Even if the lead roles are men who've already had years to get used to those ridiculously overpowered abilities we were talking about above, the supporting cast more than fills out the glorious sense of discovery that comes with learning to use your mutant powers for the first time.
But, because I never can resist the chance to gripe, we also need to cover some lowlights:
1. Emma Frost. Given that even including an adult Emma Frost in First Class constitutes one of the more glaring continuity errors in the whole series, I really would have hoped they'd more planned for the character than this. I can't claim a lot of familiarity with the pre-heel-face-turn Emma, but here she comes across as more of a lackey with a little more than average class than as a force of personality in her own right, and that doesn't do her justice. A lot of reviewers have complained about the casting of January Jones in the role, but casting aside the script gave her very little to work with. I mean, Emma Frost as a woman who'll smile widely when told she's the most beautiful woman the speaker has ever seen? The Emma I know would be more likely to give them the raised eyebrow of 'Well of course I am, what's your point?'
2. The team of white male heroes. In limited defence of the final line up, the characters we were left with by the end of the movie did make a certain measure of sense. Out of every character who could boast a significant presence on the first or even the second original incarnations of the comic book X-team, Beast, Havok and Banshee are very nearly the only ones who haven't already appeared as much younger men or women in later parts of the established timeline. That said, it is hard not to facepalm a bit when by the end of the movie every character who was female or anything other than white has joined the bad guys, had their memory wiped, or died. Granted, the final team is established far too late to have much impact on the movie and there's every chance for more diversity to be added before we do get the inevitable sequel, but this was a disappointment, especially when you consider how utterly textbook the killing off of the one token black character in the movie was.
On a similar note, would it have killed them to actually make Sean Irish and Moira Scottish? Sean at least does seem to have been written with some consciousness of his background (or at any rate he's apparently Catholic, if him crossing himself before jumping out of the window is anything to go by) but he's still got that American accent, and Moira seems to have little beyond her name in common with her comic book counterpart. When neither got more than a few scenes each to establish them as distinct characters and the team we're left with at the end is so monotonously White-Male-American, this seems like a real wasted opportunity.
3. That thing where the good guys think you should have to hide to fit in and the badguys are the ones saying you shouldn't have to. I suspect this is going to be a big case of YMMV, but for myself I could have done without seeing the good guys portrayed as such utter failures on this topic. Much of it can be justified away from the perspective that they're all so young in these incarnations, but the way the 'good guys' dealt with Mystique's body issues came a bit too close to the line for what I can take from sympathetic characters, and it all seemed so unnecessary. If they needed a clear line between the philosophies of the two sides on the issue – and I'd certainly agree that they did – then I'd have thought a disagreement over whether regular humans would ever realistically be able to accept someone like Mystique in her true form would have worked just as well, particularly in light of the very event that cements the divide being the moment when the humans turn on them. We're far enough back in X-Men history that it makes some sense that the question of whether it's better to focus on finding ways to pass as human would still be open to a lot of mutants, but when young Charles manages to be so compassionate and so insightful about everything else, the movie failed to make any convincing case as to why this should be his one epic blindspot. The lack of logic by which Beast triggers his change to his beastly form with a serum meant to do the exact opposite – and is nevertheless practically over it by the next morning – was similarly irritating to me.
So yeah, I feel there was a lot of room for improvement in certain parts of the script, but on the balance of it, I'm quite tempted to go see it again, and not a lot of movies do that for me. Also very much looking forward to the inevitable upsurge in Charles/Magneto fic - on which note, it should be no surprise to anyone that there is a kink meme which is already on it's second round and has also already covered the AU ending where they never break up, the obligatory band AU, sex pollen, the one where Mystique morphs into Charles to get a rise out of Erik and all kinds of fun with the implications of falling for a telepath no really, and those are just the ones I have loved so far that I still have the links for. Additional recs very much welcome. :3
Highlights!
1. James McAvoy as Charles Xavier. This one has to go first because not only could he have just about made the whole damn movie for me on his own, let's face it, Patrick Stewart is a heck of an act to follow, and no matter what the official propaganda would have me believe I went in with very little expectation that he was going to pull it off. I was wrong. Oh boy, was I wrong. Between the script and McAvoy's fantastic performance they absolutely sold it to me – insightful and compassionate though also more than enough of a smug dick a lot of the time to keep him believably flawed and interesting, you can see just enough of the man he's going to become to absolutely buy him as the younger version of the Xavier from the previous movies. In a season of superhero movies where we're going to be seeing variants on the traditional origin story over and over again, a lead who's already so comfortable with his goals and powers is a truly refreshing change.
Magneto, by contrast, was perfectly decent but never managed to wow me on quite the same level. Possibly there was something a little too clean cut about him to let me entirely buy him as someone so damaged and desperate, which was probably more of a costuming and make up issue than any reflection on the actor, but still, it threw me a little. (Since coming back from the movie I have seen the point made that based on his early Nazi-hunting scenes alone Fassbender would make a hell of a James Bond and I cannot disagree, but what makes a good James Bond and what makes a convincing younger Magneto may not be quite the same thing.) What's important is that the chemistry between the young Charles and Erik was fantastic – really, I could not have asked for better, and the movie did absolutely meet it's quota for...
2. Moments of Magneto awesomeness It's one of my favourite things about the X-Men movie series is that they take these ridiculously overpowered characters who you'd think would be a nightmare to make believable on screen, and they go to town with them. You know you're watching a good X-Men movie when you're getting to watch Magneto bust his way out of a plastic prison with no more than a couple of grams of iron on hand or stop a free-falling jet in mid-flight – or, say, wrench a submarine clean out of the ocean or stop a full missile barrage dead in the air. I have lately had to come to the conclusion that somehow or other I have turned into a shameless Magneto fangirl, and minor quibbles about his costuming aside this movie delivered.
3. Young mutants figuring out their powers. Always good value and, surprisingly, I think this is almost the first time we've seen this really dealt with in an X-Men movie. Seeing all the kids really being kids for the brief window they got and taking turns to show off their powers to each other was great fun, and the later scenes at the mansion of Havok and Banshee getting the hang of their own powers were a likewise a joy to watch. Even if the lead roles are men who've already had years to get used to those ridiculously overpowered abilities we were talking about above, the supporting cast more than fills out the glorious sense of discovery that comes with learning to use your mutant powers for the first time.
But, because I never can resist the chance to gripe, we also need to cover some lowlights:
1. Emma Frost. Given that even including an adult Emma Frost in First Class constitutes one of the more glaring continuity errors in the whole series, I really would have hoped they'd more planned for the character than this. I can't claim a lot of familiarity with the pre-heel-face-turn Emma, but here she comes across as more of a lackey with a little more than average class than as a force of personality in her own right, and that doesn't do her justice. A lot of reviewers have complained about the casting of January Jones in the role, but casting aside the script gave her very little to work with. I mean, Emma Frost as a woman who'll smile widely when told she's the most beautiful woman the speaker has ever seen? The Emma I know would be more likely to give them the raised eyebrow of 'Well of course I am, what's your point?'
2. The team of white male heroes. In limited defence of the final line up, the characters we were left with by the end of the movie did make a certain measure of sense. Out of every character who could boast a significant presence on the first or even the second original incarnations of the comic book X-team, Beast, Havok and Banshee are very nearly the only ones who haven't already appeared as much younger men or women in later parts of the established timeline. That said, it is hard not to facepalm a bit when by the end of the movie every character who was female or anything other than white has joined the bad guys, had their memory wiped, or died. Granted, the final team is established far too late to have much impact on the movie and there's every chance for more diversity to be added before we do get the inevitable sequel, but this was a disappointment, especially when you consider how utterly textbook the killing off of the one token black character in the movie was.
On a similar note, would it have killed them to actually make Sean Irish and Moira Scottish? Sean at least does seem to have been written with some consciousness of his background (or at any rate he's apparently Catholic, if him crossing himself before jumping out of the window is anything to go by) but he's still got that American accent, and Moira seems to have little beyond her name in common with her comic book counterpart. When neither got more than a few scenes each to establish them as distinct characters and the team we're left with at the end is so monotonously White-Male-American, this seems like a real wasted opportunity.
3. That thing where the good guys think you should have to hide to fit in and the badguys are the ones saying you shouldn't have to. I suspect this is going to be a big case of YMMV, but for myself I could have done without seeing the good guys portrayed as such utter failures on this topic. Much of it can be justified away from the perspective that they're all so young in these incarnations, but the way the 'good guys' dealt with Mystique's body issues came a bit too close to the line for what I can take from sympathetic characters, and it all seemed so unnecessary. If they needed a clear line between the philosophies of the two sides on the issue – and I'd certainly agree that they did – then I'd have thought a disagreement over whether regular humans would ever realistically be able to accept someone like Mystique in her true form would have worked just as well, particularly in light of the very event that cements the divide being the moment when the humans turn on them. We're far enough back in X-Men history that it makes some sense that the question of whether it's better to focus on finding ways to pass as human would still be open to a lot of mutants, but when young Charles manages to be so compassionate and so insightful about everything else, the movie failed to make any convincing case as to why this should be his one epic blindspot. The lack of logic by which Beast triggers his change to his beastly form with a serum meant to do the exact opposite – and is nevertheless practically over it by the next morning – was similarly irritating to me.
So yeah, I feel there was a lot of room for improvement in certain parts of the script, but on the balance of it, I'm quite tempted to go see it again, and not a lot of movies do that for me. Also very much looking forward to the inevitable upsurge in Charles/Magneto fic - on which note, it should be no surprise to anyone that there is a kink meme which is already on it's second round and has also already covered the AU ending where they never break up, the obligatory band AU, sex pollen, the one where Mystique morphs into Charles to get a rise out of Erik and all kinds of fun with the implications of falling for a telepath no really, and those are just the ones I have loved so far that I still have the links for. Additional recs very much welcome. :3
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no subject
Date: 2011-06-08 02:28 pm (UTC)Welcome to the club ^_^
http://www.delicious.com/etrangere/xmm for the recs, though I kind of have a hard time keeping up with the sudden avalanche of fics (and I thought there were a lot of fics after Thor - nothing, it was nothing! o_o)
no subject
Date: 2011-06-08 03:25 pm (UTC)*g* I could probably explain away my small fixation on certain scenes from X2 as only natural, but when you find yourself doing a little internal squee at the news that Magneto is doing the good guy thing in the comics lately and even a regular character in the X-titles again, it is possibly time to admit you may have a thing. (Doesn't hurt that I've been consistently impressed by how he's been written in said titles too.)
http://www.delicious.com/etrangere/xmm for the recs, though I kind of have a hard time keeping up with the sudden avalanche of fics (and I thought there were a lot of fics after Thor - nothing, it was nothing! o_o)
Ooh, handy. I did like Thor, but it can't really compete with the new X-Men for shear slashy potential so I'm not surprised it's been quickly topped for output. There are certainly worse fates than having too much good fic to read.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-08 03:31 pm (UTC)I liked Thor, and I have a pretty hardcore thing for siblings in love/hate relationships, so it was an easy sale. Starting reading Thor comics has only helped.
Charles/Erik is a ship I've loved for a few years now, before even getting into comics, so it's a bit different :) But you're right it's even more obviously slashy (gosh, it's hard not to be slashier than that without going... well Cable/Deadpool I guess XD)
no subject
Date: 2011-06-09 04:45 am (UTC)Starting reading Thor comics has only helped.
I take it you would have read JMS's run on Thor by now then? If not I can highly recommend it. I finally got around to checking it out myself after the movie came out and it did not disappoint.
But you're right it's even more obviously slashy (gosh, it's hard not to be slashier than that without going... well Cable/Deadpool I guess XD)
Well, you do have two characters who were had years of being well established as pretty shamelessly gay for each other even before we got the movie that gave us versions of them when they were both young and pretty and hadn't yet gone through their great break-up yet - and even then they managed to turn the subtext up to the level when even the actors are saying 'it's a real shame they couldn't have just gotten married instead'. Actually showing them having fantasies about giving each other a sensuous massage would be almost the only space for escalation left. ;)
no subject
Date: 2011-06-10 12:08 pm (UTC)Such as?
Likewise creeped out by the Magneto/Rogue thing - the age gap there is way outside my comfort zone, but at least it seems like the latest development is meant to put a full stop at the end of it? IDEK
glad i'm not the only one; and boy i hope so but it didn't look that way to me.
Of course I've no idea whether that's going to last through whatever the explanation is for Schism, but we can only wait and see on that one.
hahahaha yeah. Schism just looks like a lot of fail incoming to me and now they've just announced they're going to stop UXM -_-; stupid marketing stunts.
I take it you would have read JMS's run on Thor by now then?
Yes! I started there and went up to current stuff being published. Now wondering which miniseries to read now that I've done the Loki ones before I embark on Simonson's run.
Actually showing them having fantasies about giving each other a sensuous massage would be almost the only space for escalation left. ;)
INDEED!
no subject
Date: 2011-06-10 12:31 pm (UTC)Oh, little things mostly. I loved the last arc of the New X-Men book - felt like it was just finding it's stride before it got cancelled, so seeing stuff from there contradicted in later work really grates. Indra, for example, got declared the youngest living mutant, so when the arc of Legacy about him kept drawing him as this tall, muscular guy on the verge of getting married off for his family's convenience, it felt like they'd managed to forget the one thing I knew about him. And what I loved most about Julian is that while he's a spoilt jerk most of the time, he's still a guy who'd freak out at the thought of killing someone (which makes the contrast between him and X-23 all the more interesting), so having him flip out and kill Karima Shapandar later - and be completely unrepentent about it afterwards - felt like character assassination. That said, him finally having working hands again after the latest arc looks like a promising development, so hopefully things are looking up for the character. Meanwhile, over in other titles, I really wanted to like Hope, but I find her new supporting cast so utterly boring compared to the previous generation and the significance they've given her so utterly contrived that I've lost all interest.
glad i'm not the only one; and boy i hope so but it didn't look that way to me.
I personally read it as a 'we're going to have sex so I can get it out of my system, then it's over' thing, based on Rogue's line. I guess there's room to take it otherwise, but I'm going to stick with being optimistic.
hahahaha yeah. Schism just looks like a lot of fail incoming to me
Another round of Civil War with the mutant population, joy. Could still be saved in the handling of it, but I'm not hugely optimistic on that one.
and now they've just announced they're going to stop UXM -_-; stupid marketing stunts.
Yeah, as stunts go that's pretty blatant. I would be so amazed if 'stop' doesn't turn out to be code for 'relaunch, probably under a slightly different title'.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 03:30 pm (UTC)Generation Hope is only just starting to beginning to work for me; but yeah, it's a pretty lacklustre title. I can't call it bad, it's just barely there. Another round with the New X-Men kids would be so much better :p
Good luck with your optimism :)
Another round of Civil War with the mutant population, joy.
I know, right.
Could still be saved in the handling of it, but I'm not hugely optimistic on that one.
I'd be more optimistic if the "Prelude to Schism" issues hadn't been wall-bangingly bad.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-14 06:40 am (UTC)Oh, it certainly did - a lot of what he was saying to Scott in that chapter did make a lot of sense, and if they'd had even some passing acknowledgement of what a leap it was for him character-wise to have gotten to that point from his previous "What are you, crazy? We're X-Men, we don't kill people!" stance then I doubt I'd have had much problem with it. It's only in the context of knowing that Hellion has already spent the last few years watching half his classmates murdered, depowered, having their souls ripped in two etc without ever doubting his no-kill rule that it becomes less than logical that his injury not being magically fixable is what would push him quite that far over the edge. (ffff my built-up issues with the writing of Hellion, let me show you them -_-) I really do hope there's better things in store for him.
Generation Hope is only just starting to beginning to work for me; but yeah, it's a pretty lacklustre title. I can't call it bad, it's just barely there.
And also suffering from the fact that it feels like the story they're doing belongs in a main X-Men title rather than a spin-off book. I mean, hello, whole future of the mutant race? Surely that should be the line's A-plot, not something that's been banished to the pages of yet another junior-X title.
I'd be more optimistic if the "Prelude to Schism" issues hadn't been wall-bangingly bad.
Haven't read it myself but that's pretty much what I've heard about it. I mean, hell, you can base a great story on the idea of all the good guys fighting each other if you introduce the conflict in a way that feels organic and character-driven, but there is so much scope for it to suck if handled badly.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-08 03:15 pm (UTC)Slowly, but surely - we are taking over the language. If you smell what the Rock is cooking. Oh hell yeah. Etc.
John 3:16
no subject
Date: 2011-06-09 05:31 am (UTC)(not totally distinct from the magical spandex world of comics)
No, though it may be safer to keep them separate, and I had this perfect example from a very blunt review of the Ultimate Warrior comic to demonstrate only I cannot for the life of me find the link anymore. :/ Ah well.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-08 04:57 pm (UTC)Also, RECS. I absolutely hate kink-memes. Not in principle, really, but in execution. I hate scrolling and always having to hit 'expand' over and over to read stories. It's irritating. So I'm always always grateful for recs from people willing to do what I'm way too lazy to do. ;)
no subject
Date: 2011-06-09 05:23 am (UTC)Kink memes can absolutely be a bastard to navigate (having to click a few extra links to get the full fic rarely bothers me, but keeping track of which prompts have or haven't been filled out is a real mess) but you get such a fantastic amounts of great fic out of them that I'm more than willing to forgive. The Cable&Deadpool one may be responsible for more than half the great fic we've got in that fandom - bring on the meme!
...given the choice though I too would much rather have recs to refer to than have to wade straight into the deep end. Especially when the meme in question is reaching escape velocity as fast as this one seems to be. I've hardly looked at anything past page 4 on the first round and they're already up to the second. o_o
no subject
Date: 2011-06-09 01:44 pm (UTC)And apparently I'm out of the loop because I did not know there was a C&D kinkmeme. Wow. I suddenly feel as if C&D has... arrived.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-09 03:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-10 09:15 am (UTC)Mystique was like, a total ho.
Thanks for the recs!
no subject
Date: 2011-06-10 12:10 pm (UTC)You know, his optimism never bothered me, because he's nothing if not consistent with it. He believes in humanity against all reason, but he also believes in Erik right up to the last minute possible, even though he could read everything Erik had done out of his mind. I just assumed it was a natural result of him having an insight into human behaviour that everyone else didn't. I wouldn't have minded if we'd gotten more detail about it, but considering how much was packed into that movie as it was it didn't strike me as a particularly glaring omission.
That's why you can't help but be TEAM MAGNETO all the way, you know?
Um, yeah, I'm hearing that from a lot of people, but I didn't get that at all myself. Maybe it's personal bias or just interpretation, but I came out feeling that they'd done Charles' side a disservice by portraying him as dealing with things like Mystique's body issues so badly, rather than willing to give Magneto much credit for getting the blindingly obvious stuff right.
Mystique was like, a total ho.
Not quite sure what you mean by that, but she did disappoint me, to be honest. While you can see so much of the future Professor X in Charles and so much of the future Magneto in Erik, I didn't get any sense of the future Mystique out of her, and I really would have liked to.
I think I'm spoiled by the Dark knight and Ironman and Spider-man 2. I was waiting for that moment of catharsis, where human nature is thoroughly questioned.
Had to read this a couple of times before I figured out what you meant, because human nature was thoroughly questioned in the ending, but what the Dark Knight and Spiderman 2 had that First Class didn't was a scene where human nature was validated, right? Because I hadn't thought about it quite like that but now that you raise it you definitely have a point there, it would have been nice to have a scene somewhere to counteract the fact that humanity doesn't come off at all well in the finale. I'm not sure I can think of anywhere much in what I've read of the X-Men series that really does deal with the topic much better though, which is a disappointment itself. Writers may be a bit too keen on getting sympathy points portraying them as the oppressed minority to give them any real hope.
Thanks for the recs!
no subject
Date: 2011-06-10 06:20 pm (UTC)but I came out feeling that they'd done Charles' side a disservice by portraying him as dealing with things like Mystique's body issues so badly, rather than willing to give Magneto much credit for getting the blindingly obvious stuff right And that's exactly what I mean. They weren't able to really back up Charles' side.
I don't know, I just didn't get the whole 'civil rights' feel in the movie. Moments in other films (the ship scenes in dark knight, Ironman going to Afghanistan, Spider-man choosing to walk away when a man was getting mugged and being carried on the train) they were really hard-hitting dramas delivered in subtlety, and enlightening reflections on the human condition. X and Magneto had that moment with X diving in Magneto's memory. I wish they developed that further.
As usual, maybe fic would help with that...
no subject
Date: 2011-06-10 06:23 pm (UTC)I also realized that maybe what I'm looking for are more internalized, self-reflective characters.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-11 12:13 pm (UTC)It was on the kink meme, naturally.
edit: bitching about something DOES make it happen!
http://1stclass-kink.livejournal.com/806.html?thread=228390#t228390
no subject
Date: 2011-08-11 12:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-11 12:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-11 12:31 pm (UTC)we will just pretend the hypocrisy of griping about this in the light of my own WIP list is not as staggering as it may appearno subject
Date: 2011-08-11 12:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-11 12:42 pm (UTC)