X-Men are among us!

June 5th, Monday-I finally got around to seeing the latest X-MEN movie. Now, I'm a huge fan of the comic books so I see the movies with a little more of a critical eye when it comes to the characters, so when they completely change a character's mutant superpower or give it to some other nameless mutant I get a little annoyed. But I got over it, because they die fairly quickly. In fact, so many mutants die you can't even keep track of who they are, let alone what kind of crazy superpower they possess. And as a movie fan as well, I also thought, yes, a flaming car being thrown at people and exploding is really fantastic to look at but do you have to repeat it FIVE times? After the second shot of a flaming car hurtling towards unarmed soldiers, I thought, ok, that's nice, what else can you do? The filmmaker's also move the Golden Gate Bridge and place it so that it connects to Alcatraz. The first thing I thought was, that's really gonna put a damper on the ferry tours. Plus, traffic is going to be hell. Daryl's reaction was, why even bother? Just commandeer a boat and ferry all of the mutants over, or better yet, use the helicopters that are already enroute. The plot revolves around the manufacture of a "mutant cure" and there's the question as to whether or not being a mutant necessarily needs to be cured. Those mutants afraid of involuntary "curing" by a government afraid of what they don't know, are not unreasonable in their assumption, especially when the government starts putting them in guns to control the "bad" ones. But the plot is really not that important here, or at least to this director. It's all about the fighting and explosions. There's a fight between Pyro and Iceman or, to get elemental, fire vs ice. As they shot bolts of fire and ice at each other the only thing I thought was shouldn't there be some rain as a result, maybe, at least a little mist? I mean, this is Alcatraz, why not fog? But then, that's the responsibility of Storm, who's so powerful she controls the weather, but gets too preoccupied fighting one mutant, to really have any effect. I did like the appearance of Angel, a mutant who has wings and can fly, but this poor actor was given way too little to do. The effect of him flying was poetic and lovely and kudos to the effects people. Plus, his hair was hairsprayed to the hilt and given frosted highlights, just to emphasize the angelic head. In fact, the hair on these mutants made me think that maybe the mutant gene also comes with a phalanx of serious hairdressers because everyone looked terrific even when they were supposed to look tortured and beaten up. Nearly all of the "hero" mutant ladies had long shiny hair, and the "bad" lady mutants had hair that made me think they were all the members of some punk band. It helped that they all wore black and were tatooed. There's a huge buildup to the terrific powers of Jean Grey, telepath/telekinetic extraordinaire, but when the fighting starts she just stands there like a statue. Wolverine, a man with claws of adamatium, supernatural agility, an almost feral ability to sense danger and smell fakers, and quick healing powers, has a moment where the special effects really shine as bits and pieces of his body repeatedly get torn off and then heal. What I wouldn't do to have an immune system like that. Ellen Page does a great job as Kitty Pryde, a girl who can walk through walls, and you really believe that she's smarter than Juggernaut, played wonderfully by Vinnie Jones. It's a summer movie so it's too much to hope for subtlety and character development, but if you like pretty people flying around in skin tight suits with explosions and gunfire going off around them, then this is the movie for you. (A side note: Beast, a blue, agile mutant who happens to be extraordinarily smart (no one is ever ordinary in these movies), was one of my favorites in the comics and I did not like the casting of Kelsey Grammar in the role, but he did better than I thought. Thank goodness his stunt double was the one flying around and pouncing on people because I can't see Kelsey Grammar doing that.)