I was half way through watching another cheesy D grade 80s film (Revenge of the Ninja) when I found myself realising how much dumber Ive become for completely overindulging in this **** this year so far. Seeing as how Im watching X-Men First Class tomorrow, I popped in the original X-Men film, which I hadnt seen in quite some time to see if it was the smart blockbuster I remembered.
4/5. These days it gets more love for what it wrought than as a film itself. Pity. It's a damn good piece of work.
I'd forgotten how amazing Stewart, McKellen and Jackman truly are in this film. I would've campaigned to get Stewart a nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He gives Xavier such a gravitas that you can't help but believe in and be inspired by what he says. There's great subtlety in scenes with X and Magneto together, you can really feel there's a lost friendship there. I'm not sure if it's the First Class trailers drilled in my mind or the subtlety of the actors, but I was quite touched when Erik asked Charles what he was looking for, Charles voice almost breaks and he says Im looking for hope.
McKellens Magneto is great for what screen time hes got, theres a true contempt in his eyes when dealing with the likes of Senator Kelly. No doubt its a performance imbued by McKellens real life experiences, but to me thats what makes him the definition of an anti-villain. His personal tragedies arent his fault but theyve galvanized him with such a hateful exterior. I love that Singer never, ever flat out paints him as evil.
People complain that the X-Men series is more Wolverine and Friends, but how could they not be, Hugh Jackmans Wolverine in the Bryan Singer X-Men films is quite simply, to me, the best cinematic superhero of the new era and right there with Chris Reeves Superman in all time rankings. Hes the love child of all of cinemas great anti heroes with a heart; he has the screen presence of The Man with No Name, the world weariness and exasperation of John McClane and the self awareness and swagger of Han Solo. I think this kind of character is what the big budget fantasy films that play it straight are missing, someone who knows this stuff is silly. Imagine Bruce Willis, as an army lieutenant with his trademark **** eating smirk in tow looking at Jake Sully and laughing about how he looks like a giant smurf, or if any of the Pirates sequels actually used Jack Sparrow like they did in the first film instead just making him prance around like a sausage nigel. Thats what Jackman adds to these films and I think its invaluable to have an audience surrogate genuinely disbelieve the more fantastical elements of the film, because when he does face the consequences of his disbelief, it just serves to suck the audience into the world of the film.
I dont think theres much more to be said about the themes of X-Men in its entire spectrum of media, theyve been widely discussed and dissected. I will give props to Singer for being broader than others whove tackled the material. He really encompasses everything one could associate with depth in an X-Men film.
At this point I just deleted a whole section covering stuff like the Martin Luther King/Malcolm X parallels or Charles and Erik, how the isolation and fear the onset of their powers young mutants, Rogue in particular, at Xaviers school feel is a metaphor for puberty, how mutants hiding their powers in public is an allusion to homosexuality and coming out of the closet. Really it was for my benefit than anyone elses. I think primarily Singers films deal with what it is to be an individual. If you boil it all right down to the very core, its really all about you being yourself and staying true to yourself and not having to apologise for who you are or what you love. But for God sakes, you can be true to yourself in moderation, otherwise youll end up with a huge cheesy 80s B action movie hangover.
Now if youll excuse me, I really need to go read a book.
