It has too many
characters?
Really?
Have you ever seen an
X-men comic book?
“Too Many Characters” is
their mission statement. There are
always mutants running all over the place. Background, Foreground,
Underground…doesn’t matter. They end up
becoming more like the setting than characters anyway. Don’t worry about them. Focus on the
principals and enjoy the show.
The X-Franchise is the
longest running of the comic book film groups.
By making each movie a period piece (starting with First Class) has become a way for the visuals and tone of the
stories to be set apart from other super hero outings. Yes, the characters haven’t aged even though
we’ve seen them in the Sixties, Seventies and now the Eighties.
Do you know why?
They’re comic book
characters.
Not aging as the world
changes around them is what they do. By
doing it on screen, the creative minds behind the films can more accurately
reference fashions and settings that showed up in the original comic book
adventures the films are interpretations of.
The principals have
moved on from being the new kids to owning the roles.
Both Raven and Charles
have passed through the “reluctant” part of “reluctant leader” and are now
taking point. Hank’s scientist and Beastly sides both come to the fore when
needed.
Michael Fassbender gets
a special mention here. For three
reasons:
1) He and McAvoy give a
better demonstration of “the dark side is quicker and easier, but with more
focus and will the light side is more powerful” than we got in any Star Wars
film.
2) He makes the
dichotomies of Magneto as created in the comics completely believable. Erik is -at the same time- Charles’s best
friend, and Professor X’s arch enemy. He
is at once a mass murderer, and the one of the only ones Charles would trust
with the care of his school.
3) He has inherited,
from Hugh Jackman, the ability to use profanity and get a laugh instead of an
angered response from my daughter. This was especially jarring in the first
X-movie we’ve seen in a while that wasn’t an extended cut. Magneto’s “F Word” usage was the only swear in the film. I know it was, my daughter
counts them.
Speaking of Hugh…
We’ve seen Wolverine
unleashed before, but we have never seen uncontrolled, completely feral
Wolverine for an extended period like this before.
Dang!
It gives me a lot of
hope for Mr. Jackman’s last ride in his final Wolverine sequel.
Quicksilver is back and
once again provides the best visual example of a speedster on any size
screen. They also used his abilities practically, and faced him with an opponent that could defeat him in a manner
other than “the fast guy forgot he had powers again.”
Apocalypse was a world
threatening villain, with the effects and portrayal to back it up. Considering the same studio screwed up
Galactus so badly, it was a nice surprise.
The newest of the
mutants were welcome additions.
It was great to see
Scott and Jean being set up as the Alpha couple of the group. Before he was forced into the role of “less
cool vertex of the X-men love triangle,” and all of the subsequent character
shenanigans that followed, he was the competent and commanding field leader of
the first two teams of X-men.
Seeing a Jean Grey in
control of her untapped potential, instead of following the Marvel standard of
“poor girl who can’t control her incredible super powers” was a fantastic
change of pace for this father of a daughter.
They made Nightcrawler
more fun while still preserving the faith aspect of the character!
YAY!
The three “not Magneto”
horsemen were visually interesting, but not too developed.
(Insert your own gutter
minded Olivia Munn jokes here, I’m better than that.)
Amazingly the “too many
characters” complainers were also the “not enough exposition for each
character” complainers. Critics like
seven hour movies, I guess.
There’s no problem with
them being minimally featured, since it wasn’t their story. They were there to
have cool powers, look awesome, be obstacles to the main characters, and set up
possibilities for the future.
Mission accomplished.
The one lack of
development that upset my daughter was having Jubilee show up as what appeared
to be a key role as one of the students welcoming Jean and Scott…
And then doing
nothing.
That marks the fourth
appearance of the character in these movies, played by the third actor, always
wearing her immediately recognizable outfit…
And then doing nothing.
Her fond memories of our
DVD viewing the Nineties cartoon are affecting my daughter’s film viewing
again.
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