Sunday, June 5, 2011

X-Men Second Class


I saw X-Men First Class at a special preview the other week, and I - and pretty much the whole audience - seemed generally underwhelmed...
On the morning I was going to see it, my chum asked me if I was excited... To be honest, I wasn't! You see, I really hate the way they dick around with continuity in the X-Men movies. Yeah I know, it's a different set-up etc, but in my opinion, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And I wouldn't mind either, if some of the changes weren't so brainless and ill-considered (see below)
So now it's really surprising me that a lot of friends and people - and even comic fans - seem to be loving X-Men First Class... Really?? I think it's pretty insulting to comic fans, to be honest, the way they've pointlessly changed so many things.
Overall, I felt the movie dragged in places, felt like a Thunderbirds movie in other places, and in all the other places it was really uneven (c'mon, where did Emma go??). But this is supposed to be the start of a trilogy, so hopefully when its all found its feet, things will improve (let's face it, X-Men 1 was good but not amazing either. But I preferred that to this mess.)
Maybe the best way to look at it is to look at each character:
Prof X - stop putting your finger by the side of your head, it's really boring. And stop over-acting. I liked seeing how he lost the use of his legs - I wasn't expecting that - I was waiting for him to lose his hair!
Magneto - James Bond.
Mystique - She seemed to do a lot of screaming! What a wimp. C'mon, Raven's not a wimp! And why does she have to have those stupid scales?
Beast - very good, but a shame the transformation is spoiled by the trailer.
Darwin - was promising!
Angel - I quite liked her, altho her end fight got a bit monotonous. It'd be nice if the fact she's called Angel ties in with Warren Worthington.
Moira - A cool character... but aaargh! Why is she an American CIA agent? Why? She's a Scottish scientist in XMen 3. Och lordy! Moira will be spinning in her grave!
Emma - Oh January... You are very sexy, even if you don't have massive hooters, but put a little effort in hon! I mean in the comics, Emma is FIERCE, but here, she was just ...dull. And why confuse things with the diamond form thing? This could have been a true break-out role for some up-and-coming actress... And if this was Twilight, they'd probably change the actress for the next movie.
Shaw - Well yes, one of the best superhero movie villains ever, I reckon. However... Now don't all laugh at once... A) I didn't realise it was Kevin Bacon (there are so many lookalike actors these days and I feel a bit left behind!)... so B) I didn't realise Shaw was the Nazi guy... Yes, looking back there was that photo thing, but I guess I just zoned out... The whole moustache thing threw me... And at the end of the day, I wasn't particularly expecting Shaw (the guy I know from the comics) to have worked in a Nazi camp. I mean, why would he be?
Azazel - shit make-up, and over-use of the teleportation stuff. I mean, we wanted more of Nightcrawler's powers in X2, but I wanted less of Azazel.
Riptide - yes, that was Riptide! From the Marauders! But Mr Vaughn and Ms Goldman, how can you have a prominent character in a movie and not even say who he is, why he's there, and what he's doing? I gotta say, I think this movie's creators are over-rated. I sat twiddling my thumbs thru half of Kickass, but that just seems to be me.
Banshee - why can't he be Irish?
Havok - Please don't tell me he's gonna turn out to be Cyclops' FATHER...
The two special cameos - brilliant!
That's all I have to say...

5 comments:

Rob Wells said...

I'm still going to go and see it anyway, even though I didn't really like any of the other X-Men movies (I did eventually warm to X2 when I saw it again on the telly) and haven't even been a fan of the X-Men comics since John Byrne left in the early 1980s, because a) I've got two lots of free Cineworld tickets that need to be used by the end of June and there's nothing else I want to see, b) I'm an idiot who never seems to learn, and c) it's got January Jones in it.

Mart said...

this might put you off January Jones...

Rob Wells said...

I think the main reason I got excited about seeing this is because she's in it - not just because she's pretty but because I love Mad Men! - but she's hardly been in the trailers at all, which isn't a good sign.

Fanboy Wife said...

I've lucked out and I haven't had to see this movie. My husband is anxiously anticipating the Green Lantern movie though...

Mart said...

Tell Fanboy Husband that I went to a special presentation of the 3d Green Lantern game and we got a special edition free comic!