X-Men

The Ultimate Mulligan

A Film Review of X-Men: Days of Future Past

By Lawrence Napoli

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There’s no questioning the ambitious nature of a film production of this magnitude.  Not only is director Bryan Singer attempting to unite two separate, yet equally popular casts of successful X-Men films, but he is also attempting to correct the course for one of 20^th Century Fox’s most valuable licenses where installments he wasn’t responsible for may have, shall we say, veered astray.  Oh yeah, he’s also trying to make an excellent summer blockbuster while laying the foundation for an ever expanding X-Men, cinematic universe (Channing Tatum as Gambit in a standalone is real) and all of this is somehow supposed to be accomplished in 2 hours and 11 minutes.  A solid attempt was made to corral all of the above, with several more A-list characters added to the fray, while nodding to one of the most influential X-Men storylines ever conceived, but Bryan Singer is no Franklin Richards.  He does not make fully functional universes in the palm of his hand with the speed of thought and with instantaneous relatability and comprehension by the audience.  There are plot gaps, there are awkward moments, there are unsatisfying resolutions and it’s all to be expected because there’s simply too much to account for, but they’ll be damned if they don’t try to cram it all in. 

The primary reason for this is the same reason why Sony is attempting a similar strategy by pitting Spider-Man against most of his famous rogues at once by pursuing the Sinister Six storyline.  Fox wants that Avengers money and they want it now.  Apparently, the only way to do this is by chucking more characters, subplots, and spectacle at the audience as possible.  Thus the writers must deliver or be discarded and Simon Kinberg, Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn responded with a story that’s a jack of all trades, but clearly a master of none.  First, let me note that despite Hugh Jackman’s presence in addition to his character’s significance, this is the first X-Men film that is not all about Wolverine.  The story is a tale that is as much Wolverine’s, as it is Mystique’s, as it is Professor Xavier’s, as it is Magneto’s.  Unfortunately, because this script is particularly required to focus on so many primary characters, the audience isn’t privy to a more rounded presentation of any of them.  This film is able to reconcile this deficiency due to an assumed familiarity with at least X-Men’s1-3 in addition to First Class and the hope that everyone remembers the good guys from the bad in addition to what they are all about as individuals.  Every reference to the past, every reference to the future, every comedic quip and all the clever banter does not pay off for those in the audience who are not in the know.  Those that are will be treated with layers of nostalgia and an unending parade of familiar faces which is, by far, this story’s absolute strength.  There are plenty of campfire scenes throughout to hammer home the team camaraderie theme, but as good as that feeling is, it is noticeably incomplete with several significant characters left out in the cold if not entirely forgotten all together.

This is the reality of the limitations of a script and how it translates to the final minute count, but the compromises do not end with character development, they extend to the story’s format.  As this film is initially told as a flashback from an (ahem) apocalyptic future of totalitarian hate, the audience is constantly shifting settings between the future (original cast) and the 70s (newer cast).  The dichotomy between worlds is an intriguing contrast that eventually gives way entirely to the 70s because ultimately the future subplot is window dressing for the 70s despite being infinitely more visually dynamic and interesting in general.  More screen time could have yielded a better balance in the importance of the activity of both realities, but there were more pressing matters to spend time on, like exposition.  There is an immense amount of off screen plot that has been at work since X-Men: First Class and it is leaked via dialogue to explain why the future is the way it is as well as why the 70s are the way they are.  Despite these obligatory scenes the most important plot device of this film (the time travelling element) is frustratingly revealed to be not exactly what we think it is and it is to be accepted completely on faith and forgotten immediately.  When is a DeLorean, not a DeLorean? 

Unfortunately, the biggest loser when it comes to this film’s accommodation of so many characters and subplots is the action and visual effects, you know, the real reason people go to be wowed by summer blockbusters.  First, the number of action sequences can be counted by a fraction of the fingers on one hand.  Second, the combat in both the future and past crawls along at a snail’s pace thanks mostly to a healthy application, reapplication AND REAPPLICATION of slow motion effects.  Third, the character powers and Sentinel activity portrayed in the future when compared to those depicted in the 70s is like comparing the special effects of Avatar to those used in Spaceballs.  (I get that the 70s can’t be as stylized as the future, but mutant powers are no less amazing in any time and should be presented as such)  Fourth, the hand to hand combat demonstrated by Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique is as sensual as it is breathtaking; too bad she’s the only character who demonstrates this ability in the entire film.  (I’m looking at you “bone claws” Wolverine)

Now I invite the reader to forget everything and focus on the film within the film: Days of Future Past which I affectionately have labeled: Recruiting Quicksilver.  The small cross-section of this film that encompasses the character’s presentation, dialogue and action scenes are so uniquely satisfying that removing them from the final film would yield an end product that could only be described as average at best.  The Peter Maximoff/Quicksilver sequence is the first and last thing the audience will remember about this entire movie and its entertainment value is liquid gold in its comedic timing, glistening diamonds in its visual effect wizardry and pure platinum in its overall brilliance and added value to this cinematic adventure.  This sub-film even has its own 3 act structure that begins with pulling into the Maximoff drive way, shifts gears as soon as the headphones go on and decelerates when arguably the most powerful character the audience has seen thus far is unceremoniously dismissed to go back home to momma.  Evan Peters absolutely owns this character and he (along with the visual effects company that created his effects) deserves a standing ovation for invaluable contributions to this film that infuses significant moments of fun and joy throughout an otherwise foreboding film. 

As for everyone else, I’ll see if I can touch base on the entire cast.  James McAvoy delivers the best performance all around featuring sincere frustration, depression and redemption as a young Professor X.  Hugh Jackman delivers the most tame and tempered manifestation of Wolverine to date.  Michael Fassbender’s Magneto turns into a cookie-cutter, somewhat disinterested, pseudo-antagonist.  Jennifer Lawrence makes Mystique more and more interesting, seductive and much more sympathetic than Rebecca Romijn ever did.  Halle Berry’s Storm couldn’t be more irrelevant thanks to a severe lack of lines.  Nicholas Hoult is the quintessential, Big Bang Theory kind of Beast.  Anna Paquin is barely referenced as Rogue.  Ellen Page’s Kitty Pryde has an unexplained evolutionary jump in powers and still looks like a little girl amongst the rest of the cast.  Peter Dinklage commands respect on the screen as Bolivar Trask, but cannot stop playing (and winning) staring contests throughout the film.  Shawn Ashmore’s Iceman has a beard.  Omar Sy’s Bishop looks more impressive than his ability to impact a battle.  Josh Helman’s young Stryker does a decent job channeling Brian Cox with limited screen time.  Daniel Cudmore’s Colossus somehow has fewer lines than he had in X2.  Bingbing Fan’s Blink had an excellent visual effects team in charge of her.  Adan Canto’s Sunspot speaks softly (or not at all) and carries an enflamed stick.  Booboo Stewart’s Warpath uses knives.  Patrick Stewart’s Professor X is heartfelt and grandfatherly.  Ian McKellen’s Magneto is extremely old.  Lucas Till’s Havok says hi to prove his character is still alive in this universe.  Evan Jonigkeit’s Toad has got some mean goggles.     

X-Men plus $200 million dollars of production budget is going to draw a crowd and make money and that’s completely independent of the concept of quality.  The proof is X-Men Origins: Wolverine and that movie was, sorry to say, a steaming turd by all accounts yet it made $373 million globally.  I have plenty of reservations for this film due to 1) having followed every previous X-Men film, 2) being a rabid fan of the 90s cartoon series and 3) casually following the current stories from the comic books.  There are more than enough plot gaps and inconsistencies to downgrade its status from “great” because a film so reliant on connections to its predecessors should not be so flippant with “maintaining” its own continuity.  What makes X-Men: Days of Future Past a “good enough” blockbuster is the huge nostalgia factor of character interaction throughout in addition to anything involving Peter Maximoff/Quicksilver.  However, this film cannot bear the weight of its own plot because there’s simply too much going on in and between every scene.  In fact, just about every subplot could sustain its own, respective, feature length film.  Alas, the order of the day is to gloss over as many details as possible in order to bombard the audience with character, after plot twist, after character (and so on…) until the final credits roll.  At the end of the … Days of Future Past, this film serves Bryan Singer as the ultimate nullifier for abominable X-Men installments of the past so as to reassume control of a franchise he foolishly spurned for Superman.  We can all have hope for the future, but I certainly have nothing good to say regarding the post credit teaser in this film, which by the way, IS the lead-in to the sequel come 2016.

(some of) The Worst Girlfriends/Wives in Movies

By: Lawrence Napoli

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FU Valentine’s Day!  It clearly exists as a sadistic conspiracy to swindle hard earned cash that could be used for rent, food or whatever the hell else you need to survive.  Blowing money left and right for someone you think will always be there for you, be honest with you and take care of you is completely delusional.  Turn on the news to see how charitable people can be.  If it’s one thing people have proven, it’s that they cannot be counted on.  Betrayal is in our blood, so we’re all better off relying on ourselves.  This is a pathetic list of truly exceptional succubi in movies which is proof positive that some women can leave you a bitter, broken, little man for any reason, but probably because of the fun of it.  Valentine’s Day is the ultimate slap in the face to decent people minding their own business because it brings all these lovey-dovey types out of the woodwork; exposing the rest of us to their gut wrenching affection which is clearly an elaborate front for getting laid.  These are some of the worst girlfriends and wives in movies and the reasons why February 14^th is more like Friday the 13^th, so hopefully that soul-sucking monster doesn’t hack off your genitalia and chuck it, Lorena Bobbit-style.

(Editor’s Note: Head on over here for Lawrence’s Top 10 Best Movie Girfriends list)

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10) Kat in 10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

Kat’s got to be the least scathing of the worst for the simple fact she actually gets together with Patrick by the end of this film [Please note: she’s the only one on this list to do so].  But look what she does in the mean time.  Besides being a mightier than thou feminist and incredibly short tempered she is completely incapable of detecting any semblance of good will being thrown her direction.  She hates her sister for being more attractive than her, she hates all men for 1 taking advantage of her and there’s simply no pleasing someone who is at the center of her own universe at all times.  There’s no way Patrick stays with this girl if the story were to continue years from now because she proves that the power of self love is unequaled.  Who needs love from someone else?

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9) Jo in Rounders (1998)

What is worse than a girlfriend that lures you into a fall sense of safety?  Jo hooks up with Mike Mc. D in law school, but the problem is Mike’s a wicked good card player and he lost 30 grand to a Russian mobster.  Jo demands him to never go back to cards, but staying away from Poker is difficult for someone with a gift to play it and instead of helping him through it, she is always distrustful of where he’s been, what he’s been doing and of course, the constant nagging makes it that much worse.  She rifles through his clothing while he bathes like she’s looking for other women’s panties stuffed in his pockets.  She has the unmitigated gall for berating Mike for using his Poker acumen to get in good with his law professors and that the only way to make it is by truly earning it.  “Earning it?”  This is law school Jo!  This is what shysters do!  And what does Mike get for all his trouble staying out of the card game?  He gets no note, no bedding and an empty apartment with no explanation.  Thanks for the memories Jo.

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8) Carmen in Starship Troopers (1997)

You know you’re in trouble if you’ve already told a girl that you love her and you need to ask her to say it back to you.  Carmen is a beautiful, personable and intelligent creature who is as dense as it comes to the state of the universe.  She views joining up with the Global Federation like one of Stewie Griffin’s sexy parties where she can fly a giant spaceship.  She’s so full of herself that she makes course corrections to her superior’s course navigations while still being a snot-nosed rookie.  This is the kind of woman who knows full well what hot sh*t she is and really could care less about anything or anyone else that isn’t inside her tunnel vision.  Plus, you’ve got to love her exit strategy with Johnny Rico: a vid message from light years away saying: [and I paraphrase] I’m going career military.  That doesn’t leave too much time for us.  Don’t forget to write. 

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7) Summer in 500 Days of Summer (2009)

Tom is a hopeless romantic pining for nothing more than something beautiful in a relationship.  He meets Summer, a beautiful woman who defies every convention and is a breath of fresh air when it comes to chicks that are cool, or so Tom thought.  Her care free attitude about life seems like some sort of higher plane thought processes, but is really an elaborate front for a girl who really doesn’t have a clue.  She’s moody, unpredictable and a complete and total hypocrite.  After spending genuine days of pure magic with Tom over the course of their dating lives, she drops bombs like “I’m not the marrying type,” when that was exactly what he wanted with her, only to turn around shortly after their break up to marry some other guy.  What the hell?  She’s like: OMG, I’m totally full of it.  Sorry about that.  At least she apologizes (kind of), but still represents the ultimate tease for someone who came off as the answer to one man’s prayers only to be the source of his nightmares and negative energy. 

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6) Roxie Hart in Chicago (2002)

So Roxie’s a down-on-her-luck kind of gal who isn’t particularly thrilled with being married to Mr. Cellophane so she starts messing around with some other swinging dick.  Strike 1.  She shoots the dude she’s having an affair with, goes to prison and follows a ludicrous defense strategy to use her pathetic husband’s sympathy on the stand to get her off the hook in court.  Strike 2.  Then she decides to go into show business with her co-femme fatale making a mockery of women using sex and guns to get their way by all means necessary.  Strike 3, she’s out!  Roxie is no feminist; she’s a reverse misogynist with tits.  Her husband Amos is the only decent human being in the whole film and she treats him like garbage.  Did I mention she lies about being pregnant with his child to score extra pity points with the jury during the trial?  Yeah, that happened too.

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5) Jean Grey/Phoenix in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

I don’t need to remind anyone here about Jean playing both sides of the field between Logan and Scott, but suffice it to say for being an exceptionally talented telekinetic, she is surprisingly weak willed when it comes to men.  Jean Grey had sacrificed herself to save all her fellow mutants in X2, which is something really good.  Unfortunately, she survives to become an infinitely powerful super being called The Phoenix who is a complete slave to her emotions and she really likes the negative feelings.  Thus, the first thing she does after emerging from the murky depths is to vaporize the man that would be her husband.  The only thing that remained was his sunglasses.

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4) Fox in Wanted (2008)

Ever get the feeling you were being played in a relationship from the very beginning?  Wesley, despite being trained into a super powered assassin, is actually being played by everyone for basically the entire film.  Fox, however, is the worst offender and although they never actually formalize their relationship, these two are attached at the hip and the mouth for a decent length of the film.  An intense training/getting to know you process occurs between the two, but none of that penetrated Fox as her mission to use Wesley as bait (expendable bait) never truly shakes.  She’s not particularly big on sharing her feelings or with being honest, but she does manage to avoid killing Wesley by killing herself.  A better suggestion would be to just shoot the bad guy. 

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3) Andy in The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

If your relationship is failing, you must be doing really well at work.  That is some severely messed up logic, but apparently totally fine for the business-minded female professional of today.  Her relationship with Nate is never something that has a chance when an opportunity to suckle at the power teet that belongs to Miranda Priestly comes calling.  Nate’s constantly getting blown off, neglected and forgotten.  What’s worse is that Andy pulls this same junk on all of her former friends before she assumed the position of Beelzebub.  Andy eventually breaks it off with Nate all together because she’s a fabulous fashion industry professional who has flings with random men during fashion shows.  I don’t have a problem with professional women, but they should never have delusions of grandeur that they can have her cake and eat it too.  If something is important, you make the time.  Andy had zero time for Nate.

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2) Marion in Requiem for a Dream (2000)

Cocaine is a hell of a drug!  Ok, so it was heroin in this particular film, but let’s carefully examine the character of Marion: pretty little thing with no real responsibility, whose apartment is being paid for by her parents and has an ambitious little drug dealing boyfriend by the name of Harry showering her with gifts, fun, attention and plenty of snow.  It’s difficult for me to have any sympathy for Harry because he is a severe horse’s ass, but I guess it takes one to love one, or so it seems.  Marion really falls for the high of heroin and she proceeds to go to extreme lengths to get more.  She carries on with the psychologist she used to have an affair with for money and she volunteers for gang bang duty for pure product.  What seals Marion as a terrible girlfriend is her violent reaction to Harry not scoring more H from a mass supply deal gone bad where the buyers rushed the sellers in desperation and they responded by showering the crowd with bullets.  Harry’s lucky to have escaped with his life and she’s pissed he didn’t get drugs.

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1) Asami in Audition (1999)

Shigeharu’s wife dies and he is stricken with depression and loneliness, but with the help of his friend in the film business, he comes up with a way to get back into the dating scene.  Granted, holding an audition for a fake part that’s really interviewing women with potential for Shigeharu to date is dirty, but even he doesn’t deserve what he gets; namely, a closet psychopath who puts on a great performance to tell men exactly what they want to hear only to bring her wrath down upon them all.  Asami makes Shigeharu fall in love with her so naturally she responds with assaulting him at his home, torturing him with acupuncture needles, cutting off his left foot and plots to murder his son.  Asami represents the danger of intense obsession, the likes of which make Fatal Attraction seem like Sesame Street in comparison.