REVIEW: X-Men: First Class (B+)

(dir. Matthew Vaughn, 2011)

I've always thought adapting the X-Men mythos was a particularly hard undertaking, as proven in spades in the previous four attempts.  Unlike other superhero or comic books heroes, the X-Men aren't just one character and a bunch of villains, but rather a bunch of heroes and a bunch of villains, all of which need to be fleshed out well.  And that hasn't really been done, despite a whole four films trying to do that with Wolverine.

But nevertheless apt director Matthew Vaughn (of Kick-Ass fame) has managed to do it.  And quite successfully I might add.  Aided by a veritable pantheon of screenwriters (Vaughn himself, Ashley Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman, Sheldon Turner, and Bryan Singer), a rich and complex tale has emerged.  It's slowly becoming a trend to start the movies much the ways the comic themselves have started, with an origin story.  See: Batman Begins, Iron Man, Thor, etc.  And now the marvelous X-Men: First Class.

We first meet Erik Lehnsherr (played as an adult by best-in-show winner Michael Fassbender) in a Nazi concentration camp (the exact way the original franchise began), where when he's separated from his mother, exhibits his mutant ability.  Eventually his mother is murdered and he tortured by Nazi doc Kevin Bacon (who is simply wonderful as the film's primary villain), and thus Erik is turned into a human-hating mutant hellbent on revenge.  But in a nice way.  Just take my word on that.

Around the same time a young Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) meets a blue shape-shifter (Jennifer Lawrence) in his kitchen, and the two become good friends.  As the film unfolds, the actual plot (mutants are trying to start the Cuban Missile Crisis, causing a nuclear war, where the mutants will take over!) takes a backseat to a very carefully and astutely crafted story about acceptance and love, forgiveness and being true to yourself.  Ultimately some mutants accept who they are, boldly becoming what will known as the evil Brotherhood of Mutants and the others regroup and become the heroic X-Men.  It's so finely crafted that you feel for the supposed-villains by the end of it all, and we have one of the very first comic book films where the ends to justify the means as far as villains so.

For all the things that needs to click in this movie, the action, the acting, the mythos, the checkmarks, shoveling through backstory, etc. Vaughn makes it all smooth and entertaining.  When Professor X becomes the Professor X we know today, it's a shock even though we know just what we're expecting, but the film has so separated itself from the demands of the comics that when it does happen you forget it was supposed to happen.  It should be said, Lawrence was very good as Mystique, and throughout the entire franchise, that character's arch has been the most engrossing.  I'm pleased to see this film has reinvented and continued her path.

All in all, X-Men: First Class smashes all it's objectives: establishing backstory, developing characters, entertaining, and setting up the X-Men we know and love today.  But most importantly, it has laid the ground work for the central theme that was more or less devoid from the other franchise and was forever omnipresent in the comics and TV series: acceptance.  How is society accepting these freaks?  Am I a freak? Is it easy being blue?  There's even the division between those mutant who can hide their ability and those who are stuck with it out in the open.  Themes of race, gender, and sexuality are all applicable to this film and it's handling it just beautiful.  From an X-Men, this film get a mighty bravo.  GRADE: B+


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X-MEN: FIRST CLASS

Written by Ahsley Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughan

Directed by Matthew Vaughan

Starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence

and Kevin Bacon

Charles Xavier: I believe that true focus lies somewhere between rage and serenity.

I’ve always had a soft spot for the X-Men within the ever-expanding realm of comic book film adaptations. Given my own, and what I imagine are most people’s insecurities, it is easy to identify with people who feel they don’t belong amongst regular society, people who genuinely believe themselves to be freaks. Only these particular freaks aren’t ashamed of who they are, rather they are more advanced specimens because of their abnormalities. That confidence can perhaps be no better pinpointed that at its moment of inception. And so X-MEN: FIRST CLASS tells us the tale of how a mutant comes of age.

It is 1944 when Matthew Vaughan’s first adult superhero movie opens. (He also directed KICK-ASS but that’s more pubescent superhero-ish really.) The man who would become Magneto, Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender), is but a boy, being separated from his mother in a Nazi concentration camp in Poland. Across the world, a boy named Charles Xavier (played in adult form by James McAvoy) is alone with his thoughts in a Westchester, New York, mansion. They don’t know it yet but they will grow to become sworn adversaries in an eternal debate surrounding the true nature of humanity – are we in fact inherently good, hopeful and open to change or are we just hateful beings acting out of fear and desperation attempting to destroy everything we cannot understand? One believes is harmony while the other doesn’t believe humanity capable of it.

A little less than 20 years later and these boys are now adults. Charles is bit of a cad with the ladies, finishing his doctorate on genetics at Oxford University. Erik however has focused his ability to manipulate and control all metals to a fine art and is determined to find the Nazi officer that ruined his life. Unbeknownst to either of them, this particular Nazi is a mutant himself and one with grand plans at that. Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) wants to start World War III by pitting the Russians against the Americans in what we would know as the Cuban missile crisis. As nuclear radioactivity gave birth to mutation in humanity, Shaw believes a post nuclear war world will be a mutant utopia. Charles and Erik must band together, along with a group of misfit mutants who have barely become adults, to defeat a common enemy. Their idea of defeating him though differs drastically.

I’ve always known Professor X and Magneto to be enemies. I knew they had a respect for each other, which at times bordered on admiration but all the same, they ruled on opposing sides. X-MEN: FIRST CLASS provides the insight as to just how complex their relationship truly is. They are not really enemies after all; they are equals and even brothers who have fundamentally different values. The fact that they each adhere to their core beliefs so passionately and with such unflinching resolve is what inspires the respect that each accords the other. The strength of their fraternity is testament to the great depth Fassbender and McAvoy bring to the roles, all of which allows Vaughan to bring a great deal of class to a franchise that was going the route of crass.

Wanted

“Wanted” is a film of such staggering stupidity that I could only shake my head in disbelief. The fact that this nonsense actually got favorable reviews from many critics is even more astonishing. I hated every minute of “Wanted” and don’t think I’ve had a more depressing time at the movies this year. Also jaw-dropping is the film’s truly in-your-face contempt for its audience. More on that later.

The coming attractions trailer for “Wanted” really put me off, but some friends saw it and really liked it. Roger Ebert gave it a favorable review, which counts for something. It had a Danny Elfman score and was filmed in Chicago. So that was good enough for me.

I was hoping the bad vibes from the trailer would be overcome. Money is not so plentiful that I could afford to see a film I knew I would not like. I really wanted to like “Wanted.” But as the Duke says throughout “Big Jake” (1971): “Not hardly.”

“Wanted” is a good representation of everything that’s wrong with contemporary action movies. Computer-generated imagery allows characters and vehicles to defy the laws of physics, with stunts impossible to stage in real life….because they could not possibly happen. So they’re staged in a computer instead.

Most big-budge action movies require a sense of disbelief. That’s a given. The late Cubby Broccoli, producer of the James Bond movies, was quoted as saying something along the lines of, “Bond movies could be improbable, but never impossible.” The last Pierce Brosnan offering, “Die Another Day” (2002) often veered to the impossible, and suffered for it.

“Wanted” is one big, long, impossible.

Based on comic book series (God, I can’t wait for the day when producers and directors go back to adapting novels), “Wanted” tells us a secret order of assassins who have been around for 1,000 years. They get their orders to kill someone from coded words left in weaved thread from a loom, or some such nonsense. Wouldn’t a voice mail message be easier?

Mild mannered Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) is a dweebish, put-upon accountant who hates his job and his life. He is recruited by Fox (Angelina Jolie) into the order. Fox tells him he is the son of one of their greatest assassins, who was killed the week before. The order is headed by Sloan (Morgan Freeman).

Good people here, and Terence Stamp shows up for a few scenes later on. It’s amazing that people of this caliber got talked into this. I’m also amazed that Jolie, who does so much great humanitarian work in real life, consented to appear in this film which is so debasing and contemptuous of humanity.

Wesley undergoes orientation sessions consisting of lots of punches to the face. The guys in “The Fight Club” didn’t undergo this much brutality. It goes on for what seems like days. He also trains with weapons, but this is actually a bearable scene, thanks to Elfman’s first-rate musical support.

We get lots of chases and gunfights here, which some critics are praising for their style and energy. Not me. The cutting is fast and everything is a blur. Favorite Chicago locations shoot by in the blink of an eye. Of course, cars and bodies fly though the air in gravity-defying detail, and a later chase scene has Fox crashing her car onto a moving train and surviving. It might look cool to a comic book reading 13-year-old boy, but for the rest of us, it’s stupid beyond words.

Equally inane is the trick they use to “curve a bullet”, meaning they shoot in such a way the bullet moves in an arc to reach its target instead of a straight trajectory. Who comes up with this stuff?

There are some twists at the end that are mildly interesting, but I had long since gotten past the point of caring.

What really pushed the film for me into the cinematic pits of utter loathing was the contempt it has for us, the audience. At one point in his narration, Wesley tells us (and I’m paraphrasing because I can’t remember the exact words), “At one time I was sad and pathetic, just like you.”

Gee, thanks a lot.

At the end, after an orgy of violence Wesley tells us about all the killing he’s done and then looks at the camera and says to us, “What the f--- have you done lately?”

Well, Wesley, I’ll tell you what the f--- I’ve done lately. I went to the show on a Sunday afternoon and saw the worst film of the year so far, a colossal dungheap of nihilistic, depressing junk. If this is what Hollywood is offering as entertainment these days, it’s no wonder the rest of the world hates America so much.

Rating for “Wanted”: Zero stars.