Monday Morning Talkback: Let's Hear About X-Men: First Class
It's kind of hard to believe that after what feels like an eternity of hype, skywriting and sexytime salesmanship, X-Men: First Class is in our culture's rearview mirror. But this makes for one particularly helpful advantage for the rest of us: Now we can actually discuss the movie. Your Monday Morning Talkback is here.
Let's just get right into it:
· Was this thing any good?
· Is that smokin' young ensemble actually cut out for superhero duty? Who shone, and who, uh, not so much?
· Is director Matthew Vaughn cut out for franchise duty?
· Was there too much skin on display for its own good?
· What would you change when it comes time for the First Class sequel?
...and so on. The floor is yours!
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Comments
As a non-comic book fan, I can say that this movie was the same as everyother comic book movie (save the Nolan "Batman" franchise, duh.) Poorly written and poorly acted.
The only thing that made it tolerable was Fassbender. Not only was that character pretty fascinating (I think the movie would have been better if it had soley focused on him) but well-portrayed. I'm definitely going to be paying more attention to his movies from now on.
Yes, the movie was good not great. But let's answer the questions:
Yes, there was too much skin for this TYPE of movie, one that is geared primarily for kids. The "Cathouse" scene was pretty ridiculous and over the top and yes, Mystique was extremely over-sexualized again, for a movie marketed to kids.
Secondly, there was a continuity issue I thought was EXTREMELY glaring. At the beginning of X-men: The Last Stand, we see a bald, much older Xavier WALKING with Magneto to visit the young Jean Grey at her home. In this installment, Xavier is much younger, with much more hair to boot and becomes paralyzed at the end of First Class. This jumped out at me so hard that I was genuinely wondering whether the producers of this film actually watched the first three films in their fury to make and release the movie.
In sum, it was good, but was over-sexualized especially for the audience, and has such an obvious movie mistake which taints the entire movie.
Like Stephen, I thought it was "good, not great"
Michael Fassbender was fantastic, I really would have preferred the "Magneto killing Nazis" movie to this, but I liked that the Xmen were teenagers rather than 30-year-olds and the team dynamic in the last act was fun.
The biggest disappointment to me was how everything resolved - I was looking forward to a big build over several movies, as opposed to what this really is - just a franchise reboot with younger actors.
Fassbender continues his run of can-d0-no-wrongness in my book. (Seriously people, if you haven't seen "Hunger" and "Fishtank" - what are you waiting for?)
One thing that surprised me was that I was underwhelmed by Jennifer Lawrence - I thought she had a tough time acting around the blue makeup. Or maybe it just worked better in the other films b/c R Romijn is practically nude the whole time w/ taller, model-carriage?
The swingin' 60's vibe was fun, and Kevin Bacon should play evil more often. Overall it was a fun movie, but it was overstuffed w/ mutants we never really got to care about. (Did we really need the Sonar-guy, the evil wind-guy, or Zoe Kravitz's languid screen presence?)
Pretty good except for the cheeseball lines Jennifer Lawrence had to deliver. She was good, she just had a few extremely cheesy lines.
Aha! Great points. Thanks!
I enjoyed this - as a not-huge X-Men fan I found it entertaining enough. But like many others here, I went for Michael Fassbender. I would seriously like to see him do a Magneto origins movie all on his own. He was, hands down, the best thing about this movie. Then again, he is frequently the best thing about anything he's in. (So if you haven't seen him as Rochester in the recent Jane Eyre, go right now to a second-run theater. You will love it.)
I thought the pacing was snoozy, Jennifer Lawrence miscast, but agree a star making turn by Michael Fassbender. I was gagging for the closing credits about 3/4 in.
I would like to take a moment and speak directly to January Jones: Ms. Jones, I like you. You're lovely. I want you to succeed. Please stop playing frigid bitches in the 60s who chafe at the men they serve. When you got to the scene where Kevin Bacon asked you to fetch some ice for his scotch, you should've thrown a tantrum and demanded Matthew Vaughn rewrite the scene. I mean, unless you LOVE playing those scenes. You can and did do it in your sleep.
Ms. Jones, I saw your boy Jon Hamm in Bridesmaids this weekend, too, being all fun and, in a way, lampooning his womanizing Draper personality. You might've seen him play a cop in The Town, which may not have been Oscar material, but it laid some feature film leading man groundwork should he decide to play his cards that way. He's a smart one. Follow his lead. Or Rose Byrne's, she also in your movie and the aforementioned Bridesmaids. I mean, she even played a total bitch in Bridesmaids, but in a way that didn't make me hate her as a person.
What I'm saying, dear January, is fire your agent.
Who's playing? Read some of her interviews, the woman is as frigid as frigid bitch gets.
While there was probably too much skin on show in the film (Rose Byrne's scene in particular) for my tastes, I noticed something kinda interesting. Namely, that while there were a lot of scenes with women running around in their underwear, the film didn't feel like it was shot through the 'male gaze' or whatever the term is. The camera didn't linger on the T or the A of all the scantily clad characters, and seemed to actively avoid it.
To take the example of Byrne, her snooping scene was shot exactly as how it would have been shot if she was clothed. All long shots or close-ups of her face. And in Angel's first scene, the camera seemed more focused on her back/wings and Eric and Charles's reactions, rather than the strip routine most films would have included.
Essentially, after seeing the film I think that Vaughn was going for the casual nudity and sexiness sometimes associated with the 60s, Emma Peel and such (the Hellfire Club in the X-Men comics was actually partly inspired by the Avengers TV show), I don't think he was making an overly sexualized film.
I know he's the bottom of the barrel on this front or whatever, but the manner in which Michael Bay shot Megan Fox's introductory scenes in the Transformers films (the epitome of modern summer blockbuster) was more sexualized and sexist than the entirety of First Class.
These are some interesting points. I might ask, however, do you think they would of even had the lingerie scene if this movie hadn't wanted to show men some love?
I guess what I'm saying is, Not Michael Bay is not anything like Not Objectifying Women, but you make a good case.
Was really into the Xmen in it's heyday-8o's adn 90's. From that perpective:
1. I enjoyed it, overlooking the inconsistency in timelines and characters, the story being told in a different era helped separate it from the earlier trilogy. I might add I HATED the 3rd one which made me hesitant to see this one. My one big gripe is the original Xmen was also about bringing in mutants from other countries. They brought in the characters of Moira McTaggert and Banshee, but left their Irish accents. I could overlook changing her from a Mutant specialist to a government operative, but why NOT have different accents....why was it important to change these characters to Americans?
2. I agree with the consensus. I had never seen Fassbender before, but he, by miles, was the acting star in the movie. I also agree about Jennifer Lawrence being the weakest. I kept looking for the reason she got so much accolade. Also, Mystique is a relatively sexual character, so I am not surprised.
3. I like Matthew Vaughn, LOVED "Kick Ass", but he strikes me as a nomadic type of personality so I doubt he would be interested for a "long haul"
4. RE: Sexualisation in the movie, if you are telling a story about the Hellfire Club, there's going to be sexualisation and lingerie. Why would you have a "Hellfire" club if all the women were covered up and conservative?
5. Changes? Many of the Comic Book die hards should not complain so mightily about continuity. Sure some things need to be the same, but things like team line ups/deaths/origin stories, have been changed umpteen times in the Comic Books, so why hold movies to it?
That being said, I found myself actually OK with the way this movie came out. Could have been better but definitely could have been far worse (see Xmen Last Stand). I think if Fassbender had not given such a worthy performance as the tortured yet somehow convincing "villain" of the movie, we might be looking at a worse product. I am willing to be surprised by this reboot as long as they can get quality performances like the one Fassbender did.