It lets you know things
will be looking up by starting out with the same exact opening shot from the
first movie. There are plenty of other
nods like Charles’s thesis being his opening monologue from that film.
My daughter’s commentary
was, as always, deeply thought provoking and insightful. She’d heard of Kevin Bacon through talking
about other films, the six degrees thing, and a CD we have of him and his
brother’s band. When he appeared on
screen as the evil Sebastian Shaw, she was surprised because he looked nothing
like she imagined.
“I thought he’d look
more like bacon.”
She also broke into a
rousing chorus of “Let it Go” when Charles was working with Erik on his powers.
To keep the Disney
references flying as befits one of our family, instead of mentioning a
dragonfly or other bug, she decided Angel had fairy wings.
She also decided the
wind powered Riptide’s name was “Vidia.”
Apparently it doesn’t
matter if it’s a completely different actress, to a pre-teen girl, turning into
diamond is awesome.
Darwin produced a few
confused moments, since an early example of his powers was the fish tank trick;
she thought he might be Aquaman.
During his heroic
efforts to contain Shaw’s blast within his altering form, my daughter went back
and forth between “Yup, Nope Yup, Nope” when trying to figure out if he’d
survive.
Followed by:
“Ooooh…guess not.”
Her response to Oliver
Platt being dropped from a great height was identical to mine:
“Aww. I liked him.”
And she hasn’t even seen
Diggstown yet.
Her reaction to Shaw’s
explosive stomping blast however was completely original:
“Holy poopenstein!”
Some constants of her
perception of all these films remained.
She generally agreed
with Magneto, and had a very sly chuckle at him adopting the name in the post
credit stinger. She cheered him extensively
when he was taking out the “Greater Evil” (bad mutants and Nazis) However, she
still treated him like a super villain before his more obvious turns at the
end. This did not keep her from having
the second greatest laugh of the film when he pushed Banshee off the radar
dish.
Really the entire end
conflict was a magnificent combined arms, plus superpowers and philosophical
ideas battle that was the pinnacle of the story of Erik’s “fall” from the good
side. The way that was handled along
with the tragedy of the loss of his friendship with Charles when it was shown
throughout how much the two of them contributed to the greatness of the other
was phenomenal.
It’s a darn shame
Anakin’s fall wasn’t handled that well. (At least in live action.)
Her anti-racist
tendencies found an interesting outlet.
Normally she’s a big fan of Beast, and liked Hank as he was introduced
here as well. However, she went into a
rant (that made her equally ranty father proud) against him when he implied
Raven was only beautiful in her human disguise since “she’s beautiful blue!”
Side note, when Charles
is uncomfortable with his adoptive sisters true form, I think it’s the only
time in the franchise they acknowledge that Mystique (who shape shifts clothes
along with appearance) is constantly buck naked.
My daughter was also
kind of shocked at how effective the mutant’s trainings was since it seemed to
only last a week, but that’s movie time for you.
Similarly I was kind of
shocked that Michael Ironside played the American ship captain at the end. I was kind of shocked the first and second
time I saw it, as well as the viewing during the commentary, but that’s my
attention span for you.
The last X-men
consistent moment I need to mention is the Hugh Jackman exclusion to her normal
reaction to certain words.
Wolverine’s only one
allowed in a PG-13 movie cameo F-Bomb elicited the biggest laugh from her in
the entire film and we nearly had to pause the movie for her to catch her
breath.
With Hugh’s help, the
George Awards may yet safely pass down through my family.
IndeX-Men
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