Four stars. Rated PG-13, for nonstop action violence, considerable grim content and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.23.14
This one cooks.
The X-Men film series has earned
high marks from its debut back in 2000, notwithstanding the frustrating rival
studio issues that prevent these characters from operating within the larger
tapestry of the “Marvel Universe” project that includes Iron Man, Thor, Captain
America and the Avengers.
 |
| After learning that black-ops types plan to conduct dangerous — even lethal — medical experiments on some helpless mutants, a furious Raven (Jennifer Lawrence, second from right) gets quite irate with the goons responsible, while helping the others escape. |
Director Bryan Singer got
Marvel’s “merry mutants” off to an excellent start with the first two films,
and he returns here, batteries fully charged, for a rip-snortin’ adventure that
satisfies on every level.
Longtime comic book fans, who’ve
followed these characters since their debut back in September 1963, can point
to three periods of writer/artist genius during the series’ half-century
history. Old-timers still cite the Roy Thomas/Neal Adams run, despite its
brevity, as the highlight of 1969 and early ’70. The subsequent generation
scoffs at that choice, pointing instead to the bravura Chris Claremont/Jim Lee
run from 1989 through ’91.
In between, though, we enjoyed
four years of greatness from late 1977 through early ’81, thanks to Claremont’s
imaginative stories and artist/co-author John Byrne’s artwork. And that run
produced a two-parter, “Days of Future Past,” which remains one of the all-time
best comic book stories, anywhere ... not to mention one of the most ingenious
time-travel narratives ever concocted (and cited as such in a recent issue of
the British pop culture magazine SFX).
Fan reaction was guarded, when
word broke that this new X-Men film would adapt that classic tale. Doing it
justice would be difficult enough; carefully sliding it into the big-screen
mythos already established by the first three films and 2011’s X-Men: First
Class, even harder. Screenwriters Simon Kinberg, Jane Goldman and Matthew
Vaughn therefore deserve considerable credit, because they pulled it off. And
then some.
Failing to give Claremont and
Byrne a “story by” acknowledgment, however, is utterly indefensible. And I
rather doubt that Claremont was mollified by his eyeblink cameo.
To a degree, this film also has
been shaped by the wattage of its primary stars, most notably Jennifer
Lawrence, who has become huge since first playing the shape-shifting
Raven/Mystique in First Class. Hugh Jackman’s ultra-cool Wolverine also is
front and center, as are James McAvoy’s angst-ridden Charlie Xavier and Michael
Fassbender’s smoothly malevolent Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto.
But wait, I hear you cry. Patrick
Stewart and Ian McKellen also appear in this adventure ... and aren’t they also
Xavier and Magneto?
Well, yes ... and that’s the
nature of time-travel stories. Done properly, we get to eat our cake, and have
it, too. And this is one tasty treat.
Events begin in a ghastly future
that will look familiar to fans of the Terminator series: a dark, dystopian
realm where all of humanity has been subjugated — or killed — by the terrifying,
shape-shifting robots (Sentinels) initially designed to protect “ordinary” people
from mutants. (Read in your favorite real-world racist/apartheid parallel; the
symbolism is deliberate.)
The Sentinels have become
virtually unstoppable, although the remaining X-Men — noble mutants, each
gifted with a different and unusual power — are doing their best to hang on.
A precious few remaining stalwarts,
led by the mind-reading Xavier and metal-shaping Magneto (Stewart and
McKellen), have made a final stand within a mountainside shelter in China.
While a handful of guards stand watch — Storm (Halle Berry), Bishop (Omar Sy),
Colossus (Daniel Cudmore), Blink (Bingbing Fan), Warpath (Booboo Stewart) and
Sunspot (Adan Canto) — Xavier guides Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) through a
desperate gambit that will send Wolverine’s consciousness back in time, to his
younger self in 1973, and the moment when a single incident triggered the
events that led to this horrible, worldwide outcome.
The catastrophe: Raven’s
assassination of Dr. Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), inventor of the Sentinel
program. In the wake of that murder, with Raven identified as the culprit, all
nations united behind a shared desire to rid the world of all mutants.
But once activated, the Sentinels
took their programming a bit too seriously ... because a vast majority of
people have “aberrant” DNA sequences that could be viewed as “mutations.”
Armed with the awareness of what
awaits, Wolverine awakens in 1973, where the bulk of this story takes place,
knowing that he must unite the younger Xavier and Magneto, so they all can stop
the renegade Raven.
Yes, it’s the ultimate
time-travel cliché: As with Stephen King’s recent novel about an attempt to
stop Kennedy’s assassination, Wolverine & Co. are trying to prevent the
similar death of a “bad” guy. And, perhaps to demonstrate that they’re fully
aware of the toys with which they’re playing, this film’s scripters cheekily
introduce the younger Magneto in an exotic underground prison cell, where he
has been incarcerated since being found responsible for Kennedy’s death.
How else could that fateful
bullet’s trajectory have been along such a curved path?
The resulting adventure, a taut
131 minutes granted impressive snap by editor John Ottman, is cleverly divided
into distinct acts, each with an “impossible” challenge. The first, involving
the need to break Magneto out of his prison far beneath the Pentagon, serves as
a marvelous introduction to young Peter Maximoff (Evan Peters), not yet known
by his mutant handle of Quicksilver.
The attitude-laden Maximoff is a
great character, wonderfully played by Peters, who joins the team strictly for
kicks and grins. This sequence injects a welcome level of playfulness mostly
absent from the rest of the film, while also foreshadowing even better things to
come.
Elsewhere, the enraged Raven —
feeling betrayed by both Xavier and Erik (as per events in the previous film) —
has been mounting her own clandestine crusade to free young mutants from nasty,
black-ops “experimentation” programs sponsored both overtly and covertly by
Trask and his lieutenant, Stryker (Josh Helman, suitably vicious).
Those who’ve followed previous
X-Men and Wolverine films will recognize the name Stryker, just as this story’s
Wolverine has a horrific flashback upon first seeing him here.
Lawrence gets considerable screen
time, second only to the always engaging Jackman, whose cigar-chomping
Wolverine remains one of the best-cast Marvel superheroes brought to the big
screen. Jackman can be counted on for snarky verve and methodical mayhem, but
Lawrence deftly delivers impressive emotional complexity: Raven, although
operating with similar lone wolf ferocity, has yet to become a cold-hearted
killing machine.
Her mounting rage over Trask’s
efforts, however, is about to tip her into berserker chaos.
Xavier, battling despair over the
dissolution of his dream for a peaceful co-existence between mutants and
humankind, is similarly conflicted. McAvoy also shines as yet another
intriguingly flawed character, and that’s an important hallmark of this film,
and the entire series: The primary protagonists constantly battle uncertainty
and demons of their own creation, and these inner conflicts are skillfully
portrayed by the top-notch cast.
Think about it: Actors with the
range and depth of Fassbender, McAvoy, Lawrence, Stewart and McKellen, playing
characters once dismissed as one-dimensional nonsense from disposable comic
books? We truly live in a great era. (And longtime comic book fans definitely
are enjoying the last laugh.)
Fassbender’s Magneto is regal,
aloof and also at a tipping point: an implacable man who bears grudges and
grimly takes the path of least resistance, no matter the collateral damage.
Dinklage, as well, is quite memorable as the chilling Trask, a scientist who
regards morality as something for lesser beings, and therefore finds an ally in
this saga’s President Richard Nixon (Mark Camacho, at times eerily dead-on).
Nicholas Hoult makes the most of
his large supporting role as Hank McCoy, better known as the professorial Beast,
who must take care lest he lose control of his own blue-furred other self. Back
in the future, Page’s Kitty Pryde bears the emotional weight of this desperate
gambit, while Fan’s Blink is fascinating, establishing a solid premise despite
having very few lines. Shawn Ashmore’s Bobby Drake/Iceman, always at Kitty’s
side, delivers the obligatory “But can this work?”-type dialogue with
surprising verisimilitude.
Ottman also contributes a
rousing, blood-pounding score and makes droll use of 1970s pop tunes.
Production designer John Myhre concocts a horrific future, while also
set-dressing a richly detailed 1973; he also is responsible for the unstoppably
scary future Sentinels, while sfx supervisor Cameron Waldbauer handled the
first-gen robots of 1973.
Although the PG-13 rating feels
right, parents should be advised that, at times, this is a very bleak and
sometimes shocking story. The future-realm Sentinels are the stuff of
nightmares, and plenty of good characters come to extremely bad ends, a few of
these deaths particularly horrific.
I’m also not persuaded that all
of the time-travel hiccups get worked out to full satisfaction, particularly a
key detail regarding a bit of Raven’s spilled blood. But that’s probably
kvetching too much.
Die-hard X-Men fans likely will
be disappointed by the extremely short shrift given numerous other characters,
notably Rogue (Anna Paquin), Havok (Lucas Till) and Toad (Evan Jonigkeit). But
it is quite nice, in a welcome epilogue, to see a few other familiar faces.
Given the size of the cast and
complexity of the story, however, Singer deserves kudos for orchestrating
everything so well, maintaining suspense and plot momentum while building to a
literally smashing finale. Five films in, this X-Men series continues to deliver,
and I can’t wait for 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse.
No comments:
Post a Comment