It's so funny for me to read back on what I wrote about X-Men 2 all those years ago. There's so much about that movie that I can see now so clearly that were lost to me all those years ago. Since then we've seen the Bush presidency unfold, the horrendous X-Men 3 come out, and (I argue) the misunderstood Superman Returns.
There's a thoughtfulness to this movie that I don't think I appreciated fully at the time. At the food court when Pyro makes the flame burst, Iceman cools the guy off, and then Professor X freezes everyone. The shots are gorgeous. Super tight. Eyes. Cigarette. Xavier rolling into focus. It's all very well constructed. It's by a filmmaker and not just a director; it's a subtley that is sorely lacking in X-Men 3.
This film is also interesting to look at as film history. Seeing the opening scene where Nightcrawler breaks into the White House is very post-Matrix. Nightcrawler takes out a room of secret service agents and it is a mix between slow motion and bullet-time. There's also this awareness of this is a movie that people will watch on DVD, in higher definition (although HD as we think of it today didn't exist yet) and in frame-by-frame stop-motion.
The President. He's so aggressive but so hands off. He turns things over to Stryker with the full knowledge that he might do despicable things. He's both a villain because he allows things to happen and hides behind "well, I didn't know..." but unlike how we view W now but probably did then he's childish. He just doesn't think. Once he's made aware of the situation, he regrets it. Changes course. This is the W that we hoped for in 2003. Someone who would change course if only he knew or understood how the world really works.
Magneto is held in this plastic prison "for forever." It's such a Gitmo situation. And when Xavier comes and is upset at his brutal treatment? It's such liberal outrage. Of course we want things safe, we want fundamentals of them of the streets. But when Xavier comes to visit and sees a human being, his friend, having been mistreated... well, it degrades the word 'humanity,' a thing which Xavier holds up quite highly.
In general, Professor X is never as cool in the comics as he is in this movie. I think it's the dry English wit. How to make Xavier not be a tool? Think of him like Stephen Fry, Patrick Stewart, or others... He needs to be wry, intelligent, charming.
Part of the beauty is in the casting of Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart. The scene they have in his prison is gorgeous. It humanizes him and ends with his perfect line delivery of "the war has begun."
Wolverine's fight scene when the mansion gets raided? It's honestly one of my top ten favorite five minutes of cinema. About thirty minutes into the movie, when Wolverine wakes up. Talks to a kid. Talks to Iceman... it's all good. I mean, really good. It's more human than a sci-fi action film has to be. But, oh at... 35 minutes in. That... is... when... shit... gets... real... You see a major motion picture character just massacre people. He stalks them, he kills them. He is efficient. He is a killing machine. He is an animal.
And it is the striking shift from paternal figure to this military-made thing that is so amazing. Not just for the gorgeous brutality, but because it makes a statement about who he is. He knows killing. He chooses people. He chooses peace. However, like a mother bear, once poked he cannot rest until he knows that his cubs are safe. Culminating in the "you wanna shoot me? Shoot me!" I hate to boil it down to simple fanboy-like commentary but that is fucking awesome.
I think I was too harsh on how Nightcrawler was treated when I last wrote about it. His faith is present. He is interesting and colorful. But while I might have simplified my view of how he was used, I think my complaint is still valid that he gets boiled down to a plot device by the last act.
"You wanted me to cure your son but mutation is not a disease..." Oh, how gay. And I don't mean that in the colloqual 'gay equals stupid,' but instead in terms of queer studies. Not to mention that in the following scene there is a "have you tried not being a mutant." And then it keeps going. When Nightcrawler asks Mystique since she can pass why she doesn't and she says "we shouldn't have to." So much of how Bryan Singer chooshes to relate the X-Men to the audience is through the metaphor of homosexuality.
Which is also why I think Singer has been misaligned when talked about Superman Returns. This movie is so similar. It's about otherness. Character motivation. Action. Thoughtfulness. Superpowers. Part of what's different from the two movies is the person vs. team dynamic. In the X-Men he can have them doing super stuff then have a good character beat. Whether it's Wolverine going crazy, Bobby's "have you tried not being a mutant?", or Nightcrawler's prepared "but in the Munich circus I was the incredible Nightcrawler" line. Whereas Superman Returns has to be carried pretty much by Superman alone.
As an odd end note, I think there is a problem in that Wolverine was part of our lens in the first two movies. So when he says to Jean "I could be the good guy" then kisses her (after she says "I married a good guy"). We want him to win. Cyclops is an Other. He is foreign to us. We've never really established a connection to him, the way that we have with Wolverine. I'm not saying they should have changed it, I'm just saying that it sort of doomed Cyclops to being a little unlikeable. A fate he seems to end up with without any help from the filmmakers.
There's a thoughtfulness to this movie that I don't think I appreciated fully at the time. At the food court when Pyro makes the flame burst, Iceman cools the guy off, and then Professor X freezes everyone. The shots are gorgeous. Super tight. Eyes. Cigarette. Xavier rolling into focus. It's all very well constructed. It's by a filmmaker and not just a director; it's a subtley that is sorely lacking in X-Men 3.
This film is also interesting to look at as film history. Seeing the opening scene where Nightcrawler breaks into the White House is very post-Matrix. Nightcrawler takes out a room of secret service agents and it is a mix between slow motion and bullet-time. There's also this awareness of this is a movie that people will watch on DVD, in higher definition (although HD as we think of it today didn't exist yet) and in frame-by-frame stop-motion.
The President. He's so aggressive but so hands off. He turns things over to Stryker with the full knowledge that he might do despicable things. He's both a villain because he allows things to happen and hides behind "well, I didn't know..." but unlike how we view W now but probably did then he's childish. He just doesn't think. Once he's made aware of the situation, he regrets it. Changes course. This is the W that we hoped for in 2003. Someone who would change course if only he knew or understood how the world really works.
Magneto is held in this plastic prison "for forever." It's such a Gitmo situation. And when Xavier comes and is upset at his brutal treatment? It's such liberal outrage. Of course we want things safe, we want fundamentals of them of the streets. But when Xavier comes to visit and sees a human being, his friend, having been mistreated... well, it degrades the word 'humanity,' a thing which Xavier holds up quite highly.
In general, Professor X is never as cool in the comics as he is in this movie. I think it's the dry English wit. How to make Xavier not be a tool? Think of him like Stephen Fry, Patrick Stewart, or others... He needs to be wry, intelligent, charming.
Part of the beauty is in the casting of Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart. The scene they have in his prison is gorgeous. It humanizes him and ends with his perfect line delivery of "the war has begun."
Wolverine's fight scene when the mansion gets raided? It's honestly one of my top ten favorite five minutes of cinema. About thirty minutes into the movie, when Wolverine wakes up. Talks to a kid. Talks to Iceman... it's all good. I mean, really good. It's more human than a sci-fi action film has to be. But, oh at... 35 minutes in. That... is... when... shit... gets... real... You see a major motion picture character just massacre people. He stalks them, he kills them. He is efficient. He is a killing machine. He is an animal.
And it is the striking shift from paternal figure to this military-made thing that is so amazing. Not just for the gorgeous brutality, but because it makes a statement about who he is. He knows killing. He chooses people. He chooses peace. However, like a mother bear, once poked he cannot rest until he knows that his cubs are safe. Culminating in the "you wanna shoot me? Shoot me!" I hate to boil it down to simple fanboy-like commentary but that is fucking awesome.
I think I was too harsh on how Nightcrawler was treated when I last wrote about it. His faith is present. He is interesting and colorful. But while I might have simplified my view of how he was used, I think my complaint is still valid that he gets boiled down to a plot device by the last act.
"You wanted me to cure your son but mutation is not a disease..." Oh, how gay. And I don't mean that in the colloqual 'gay equals stupid,' but instead in terms of queer studies. Not to mention that in the following scene there is a "have you tried not being a mutant." And then it keeps going. When Nightcrawler asks Mystique since she can pass why she doesn't and she says "we shouldn't have to." So much of how Bryan Singer chooshes to relate the X-Men to the audience is through the metaphor of homosexuality.
Which is also why I think Singer has been misaligned when talked about Superman Returns. This movie is so similar. It's about otherness. Character motivation. Action. Thoughtfulness. Superpowers. Part of what's different from the two movies is the person vs. team dynamic. In the X-Men he can have them doing super stuff then have a good character beat. Whether it's Wolverine going crazy, Bobby's "have you tried not being a mutant?", or Nightcrawler's prepared "but in the Munich circus I was the incredible Nightcrawler" line. Whereas Superman Returns has to be carried pretty much by Superman alone.
As an odd end note, I think there is a problem in that Wolverine was part of our lens in the first two movies. So when he says to Jean "I could be the good guy" then kisses her (after she says "I married a good guy"). We want him to win. Cyclops is an Other. He is foreign to us. We've never really established a connection to him, the way that we have with Wolverine. I'm not saying they should have changed it, I'm just saying that it sort of doomed Cyclops to being a little unlikeable. A fate he seems to end up with without any help from the filmmakers.
Leave a comment