Apocalypse: An Exercise in Bloat (a movie review post)

With each new X-Men Universe offering from Fox, I find myself more and more longing for the day when Marvel will refuse to renew the license to Fox and re-make the X-Men in the same style as they've done with the Marvel Universe movies from their own production company (the only recent exception being Deadpool). It seems that big studios cannot wrap their collective heads around the concept of building up the world, first, before deluging it with characters and blowing it up (yes, I'm looking at you, too, Warner Brothers). I mean, seriously, it doesn't have to be world-threatening every time.

This one, in particular, got off to a bad start with me. We open some 5000 years ago in Egypt during a ceremony in which En Sabah Nur, later to be known as Apocalypse, is transferring his consciousness into a new host so that he can take the man's mutant power. The ceremony is being held inside a great pyramid. A pyramid which has been built with a... Look, I'm having trouble even saying this, but it's been built with a self destruct mechanism. One of the great pyramids in Egypt with a, yes, self-destruct device. Seriously.

Then, when it's activated, not only does the pyramid collapse in on itself... The solid stone pyramid collapses in on itself. What? Anyway... Once it had done that, it proceeds to collapse right on down into the ground, becoming completely submerged and blocking it from the sun.

There is none of that that makes any actual sense. Sure, you go right ahead and try to win yourself a No Prize by coming up with an explanation that works, but there is none of it that will actually make any rational sense, especially the part where the pyramid is swallowed by the earth.

We're less than 10 minutes into the movie at that point (okay, maybe 15), and I'm already struggling.

The next major issue with the movie is characters. There are too many and too many of them with no introduction. There's been demand since the X-Movies started for everyone's favorite character, whomever that may be, but Fox has gotten into the habit of just tossing them in without bothering to tell the audience who they are, basically relying on audience knowledge. This is fine under two conditions:
1. The character takes no part in the story, as with Jubilee in Apocalypse. Or any of the background students at Xavier's school.
2. The audience is only made up of fans of the comics who already know all of the background information they need to have.
It's alienating to non-comics fans when there are a bunch of characters running around without any information provided as to whom they are.

That's one of the things Marvel Studios has done exceedingly well, especially since many of their movies have dealt with little-known characters outside of the world of comics fans and conventions, is to introduce characters in a plausible and meaningful way. Even with Spider-Man, probably the character with the least information given about him within the context of a movie, in Captain America: Civil War, there was an appropriate amount of background given to give the character context for the movie.

Fox failed to do that with pretty much every character they brought into Apocalypse, including characters who have previously been in X-Men movies. The introductions of Nightcrawler and Angel were flimsy at best. Storm, given the fact that they've never really revealed any of her background prior, was hardly better. And Caliban and Psylocke were abysmal. And, I have to say, Psylocke psi-blade is not a lightsaber; it's a psychic knife that doesn't have any physical manifestation. (Unless they changed that sometime since I quit reading comics?)

The story is plenty bloated, too. The whole capture by Stryker is completely superfluous to the actual story and is only there so that they can work Wolverine into the movie in a completely gratuitous killfest. That was at least half an hour of the movie that could have been used to further the elements of the actual story. Or cut out completely.

The Magneto plot line is also -- I don't know what to call it -- unnecessary. It provides the only moment of the film with any real emotional content, but, considering where things are left at the end of Days of Future Past, it felt contrived. That would be because it was.

All of that said, it might sound like I didn't like the movie, which is not precisely true. I didn't like it, but I also didn't not like it. It wasn't horrible; it just wasn't all that good. Still, I'd watch it again before Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice any day of the week.

I'm not a fan of the whole re-booting thing, but the X-Men is a franchise that needs to be re-booted and, this time, it needs to start with a plan, lay a foundation, and grow from there. It's too big a universe to keep throwing pieces of it in without laying the groundwork for them.

Steve Jobs (a movie review post)

There's nothing about this movie that made me want to go see it. Steve Jobs was an asshole and, despite what may have been brilliance, I have no respect for the man. It doesn't take much, really, to just not be an asshole. And, despite thinking that Fassbender has been a fine Magneto, I have not thought much of him as an actor. If you need someone who can brood, Fassbender is a good go-to guy. No, the only reason I went to see this movie is because it has delusions of Oscar-hood.

That said, I came away pleasantly surprised. Not that it changes my opinion on Jobs, which is what it felt to me like what the movie was trying to do. It's very much a "See, he was just misunderstood" kind of movie. It's hard to misunderstand when someone is, rather purposefully, being an asshole.

But the movie was pretty good!

That the movie is good is completely based on the strength of the acting. Fassbender surprised me. As I said, I've never been overly impressed (or even slightly impressed) with him, so it was good to find out that he can do more than just brood and be angry. He had a strong performance in this. Then, Kate Winslet was even better.

Now, I like Kate Winslet. A lot. She's undervalued. I didn't even recognize her at first in her role as Joanna Hoffman. So, as good as Fassbender was, Winslet was better. Fassbender had to carry the movie, but I'm not sure he could have done it without someone good in the role of Hoffman. Winslet certainly made Fassbender's job much easier.

And without a doubt, there was no better person than Seth Rogen for the role of Wozniak. There's not really anything more to be said about that.

The movie is set around three major product launches in Jobs' career. I found that particular structure for the movie to be interesting while watching it. However, upon reflection, I've decided that it actually hampers the movie. The reason that it hampers the movie is that it is, in fact, a movie. The structure is such that everything that happens is through dialogue. We don't actually see any of the action of the story other than Jobs walking around and talking to people. As soon it was over, I felt like I'd been to a play -- and plays are fine; I like plays -- but, when I go to a movie, I want to see a movie, not a play.

So I'm glad I went to see it, because the acting was excellent but, if I had it to choose over, I wouldn't go see this in the theater. There's no compelling reason to do so.

Avengers: Age of Ultron (a movie review post)

The second Avengers movie opens in the middle of a mission. In one sense, it's odd to step into it in the middle of the fighting; however, it serves to show the camaraderie of the group. You can see that they have actually been working together enough to have banter and to have "moves." The way Thor and Cap work together throughout the movie is particularly impressive. Basically, what we have is a fully functioning Avengers team. For about five minutes. Give or take. That's about how long it takes for things to go to Hell.

The movie continues the progression of the Infinity War story, which, since it's been announced as the next movie, I'm not treating as a spoiler, but, more importantly, it sets the stage for the next Captain America movie, which I'm also not treating as a spoiler since it's also been announced.

Beyond that, there's not much I can talk about without spoilers, but I will say this (because it was in the trailers and virtually everyone must have seen pictures by now):
The fight between Iron Man and the Hulk was amazing. Iron Man's Hulk-buster armor is awe inspiring.

Oh, and I really, really hope that this Avengers is also setting up for another solo Hulk movie. Now that we have Mark Ruffalo, it's about time.

Which brings us to the actors. I don't know what there is that can be said about the returnees that hasn't already been said. There's no weak link. Not even Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, who has emerged as a more central figure in the team dynamic. It's good.

So let's talk about the newcomers:
Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Quicksilver -- He was adequate. It was more that there wasn't enough screen time for him to get a feel for him as a character than it was about the acting. The character in the movie is not the same as the Quicksilver from the comic (who is, more than anything else, haughty), so there was nothing to draw from. I think his signature line really worked for him, though.

Elizabeth Olsen as the Scarlet Witch -- She was suitably spooky in her movements and, although there is a bit more development with her, it still wasn't enough for me to get a handle on her as a character. Again, she doesn't remind me at all of the character from the comics.

Speaking of comparisons to the comics...
I mentioned in one of my earlier Marvel Studios reviews the need to be okay with the divergence of the movie universe from the comic universe. I get that, and I'm okay with it. I don't have a problem with the link to Magneto being removed from the brother/sister duo (though I know that there has been a lot of pissing and moaning about it in some circles). I don't have a problem with the changes to the origins of Ultron and... well, I'll leave him nameless, just in case. The movie universe is not the same. That's fine. The lack of relation to the comics with the case of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch just leaves me without a comparison to make. They were fine. I just need to see more development before I can form an opinion.

James Spader as the voice of Ultron -- Since his bizarre run in The Office, I've found his new quirkiness fascinating. He used it well as Ultron, playing off of the personality of Tony Stark perfectly. He was great.

Age of Ultron is a great addition to the ongoing Marvel movie story line. In many ways, it is a standalone movie, sort of like an episode of a TV show, something Joss Whedon does well. It has a concise story arc that begins and finishes in  this movie, and you don't really need to have seen any of the other Marvel movies to understand what's going on. Having the background makes it a richer, more full experience, but you don't need to have seen them. On the other side of that, you can see the various plot threads the pass through this movie come into it and go back out again (especially the stuff with the Infinity Gems), and that takes more than a small amount of skill to weave those things through without them being a distraction to the main story.

I think I had one small complaint with the movie, but I don't remember what that was, now, so it can't have been that big a deal. It's probably not quite as fun as the first one, but that's about it. I would probably call this a 4.5, but I'll give it the full 5 just for bringing in some of the side characters, especially The Falcon.

X-Men: Days of Future Past (a movie review post)

There are times when a movie fails to work for me because it's an adaptation that fails to actually adapt the source material. However, the source material for this movie has become so broad that you can't accuse it of not being faithful to it because you just can't tell what it's trying to be faithful to in regards to said source material. That said, there is one image that will always be associated in my mind with the "Days of Future Past" story line:

And, yes, Wolverine actually dies in that issue but 1. It ended up being a future that was prevented. 2. It was before Wolverine had become "too big to fail" (too popular to die). You'll see none of that in this movie. No, my problem with the movie is that it fails to be faithful just to the Fox X-Men franchise and, really, there's not so much there that it's impossible to do.
But more on that in a minute.

Yes, there will be spoilers. Consider yourselves warned.

As a movie, X-Men: Days of Future Past is fine if somewhat (a lot) predictable. The opening fight against the sentinels is fantastic. Well, except for the part where Kitty Pryde can send people into the past. What the heck? The powers of Kitty have long been established, not just within the comics but within the Fox X-Men universe, so giving Kitty the ability to send people consciously back in time seems a bit gratuitous. If they wanted a mutant to do that, why not just put in a mutant to do that rather than give that power to someone who shouldn't have it? Or, you know, include Forge in the lineup, because he would have made a nice addition to the movie.

The other main issue I had with the movie was Xavier's struggle with what amounted to drug addiction. That whole thing felt easy and contrived and, while I get that they needed to present Wolverine with some obstacles to overcome to complete his mission, that one felt gratuitous. The idea that Xavier would sacrifice his mutant ability so that he could walk again and pretend to forget his pain was too far outside of the character we know to really be believable. At least, that's true coming at it from the standpoint of the comics. Maybe, it's plausible looking at it from just the movies, but I'm not feeling it that way, either.

But, really, the movie is fine. Well, except for the appearance of Quicksilver, which was completely out of context. We get Quicksilver but not the Scarlet Witch nor even any mention of her. Also, there was no acknowledgement that Quicksilver is Magneto's son and only even a very vague possibility of that even being true in the movie. So why use the character if you're not actually going to use the character? Just make that some other character that only exists in the movie universe. Honestly, it felt more like a jab at Disney and Marvel Studios who have Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch lined up for the next Avengers movie.

However, the scene where he saves everyone in the kitchen is fantastic.

But, really, the movie is fine. It is. It's enjoyable. The cast is great. Of course, Jackman carries the film. His performance of Wolverine continues to be flawless. And Jennifer Lawrence was so much better in this one than she was in First Class. I continue to like Shawn Ashmore as Bobby Drake, and I really wanted to see more of Bishop and Blink, and I don't mean more of them in combat. It would have been nice to see them as characters, too.

All of that said, the thing that disturbed my enjoyment the most was the feeling that the whole movie was an excuse for Bryan Singer to fix all the problems he caused when he dropped out of X-Men 3 to go off and make that horrible Superman movie. So let's look at that a moment:
Singer had a plan for X-Men at the time. No one really knows what that plan was because he didn't share much of it and I kind of doubt he even knows, now, what he was doing then. But, in the middle of pre-production for X-Men 3, not only does he go off to make Superman, but he convinces James Marsden (Cyclops) to go with him (and some of his writers from the previous X-Men movies). Understandably, Fox gets pissed at both of them and vows that neither will ever work with them again and, just to prove their point, kills Cyclops off during the opening sequence of The Last Stand.

From there, a bunch of stuff happened in X3 and the other X-Men related movies that Singer wouldn't have done but, you know, he wasn't there. Fox and Singer make up; Singer returns to X-Men; Singer wants his characters back, those characters being Cyclops and Jean Grey. Basically, Days of Future Past is a story that creates a brand new X-Men world and allows Singer to ignore all previous X-Men continuity. He gets to bring back Cyclops and Jean and do whatever he wants from this point on. Until he decides to, again, abandon Fox's X-Men and leave someone else to try to figure out what he was doing. The whole thing lessens my enjoyment of Days of Future Past, which may not be fair to the actual movie, but Singer bothers me enough that I can't just ignore it.

In the final analysis, if you've liked the X-Men movies, there's no good reason that you won't like this one. Probably, it's one of the top three out of the, what?, seven movies. I think my count there is correct. As a series of movies, the X-Men movies still fail to approach what Marvel has been doing over at Disney but, as a single movie, this one is probably on par with the Iron Man sequels. It's good; it's just not awesome.

You Know You've Made It When...

You know you've made it as an actor when you get turned into a Lego minifigure. I think it used to be when you were turned into any kind of action figure, but, these days, especially after McFarlane Toys came onto the scene in the mid-90s, almost anyone can get turned into an action figure. It ceased to be something difficult to achieve. However, it's still noteworthy to get turned into a minifigure even if minifigures don't look like the actors.

Even more noteworthy? Getting turned into two completely different minifigures. And, yes, okay, this topic completely came out of a conversation with my sons. They have a completely disregard for action figures because, well, all sorts of movies get action figures (or, at least, used to; I suppose that trend has died down somewhat in the last few years), but only the really cool ones get made into Lego.

Of course, this whole conversation started with Harrison Ford.

Star Wars was the first Lego franchise, so you can almost say this all started with him.

That's one of the very first Han Solo minifigures, back when they were still yellow like regular Lego minifigures. Now, they look like this:

And, of course, the second incarnation of Harrison Ford as a minifigure:

There ensued a long "discussion" of what other actors had two different character minifigs. [Don't ask why discussion is in quotes; just accept it.] Here's what we came up with:

Chris Evans:

Johnny Depp:

Samuel Jackson:

Ian McKellen:

Christopher Lee:

Orlando Bloom:

Those are the ones we came up with. Ones that have actual, physical minifigures. There are a few more that have two different characters but one of the minifigures is only in one of the Lego video games.

If you can think of more, let me know!

Pop Culture Class featuring the X-Men!

Yes, it's that time again. Time for another lesson in pop culture, so put on your pop culture hats and let's get started. Oh, and remember; it always stays crunchy in milk!
Before we get into the movie itself, let's talk about some trailers. I'm a big fan of trailers. My wife frequently gets upset with me for wanting to watch them on DVDs. She wants to just go straight to the movie, but I like to watch the trailers. Today, two trailers I hadn't seen before.

First up is the trailer for Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Now, I've been seeing blurbs for this  one for a while, but I've been ignoring them. I still remember the disaster that was Tim Burton's attempt to revive the Apes franchise, and I couldn't keep the bad taste out of my mouth whenever I saw anything about this new one. I haven't been interested in checking out the trailer for it, so it took having it shoved in front of a movie that I was watching for me to pay attention to it. The first hook was James Franco. I can't help it; I like the guy. I'm not saying he's the best actor ever, but, my gosh, he's impressive. He took over 60 hours of class in one semester (and I thought I was impressive when I did 24 hours one semester). The next hook is that this isn't simply another ape movie. It's a morality tale about what we're doing to our world and the irresponsibility with which we use technology. I went from having less than zero interest in this film to really wanting to see it.

I have only thing to say about the other trailer: Hugh Jackman. Okay, well, Real Steel, surprisingly, looks like it may prove to be a decent film even without Mr. Jackman. However, Hugh being in it almost makes it a must see for me. Which, actually, is surprising, since, when I first heard they were making a movie based on Rock'em Sock'em Robots, I was aghast with disbelief. I mean, what's next Operation: The Movie? Or, maybe, Monopoly? Wait, I know! Battleship! The producers have, wisely, done away with any ties to the toy, at this point, and, what's left, is what looks like a genuinely good movie.

At this point, have you forgotten what movie we're here to see?

X-Men: First Class gets the opening exactly right. It returns to the same scene that opened the first X-Men movie, so we see, again, young Erik Lehnsherr being dragged away from his parents in a Nazi concentration camp. We get slightly more of what happens to Erik, this time, though, and we also get to meet Sebastian Shaw, played expertly by Kevin Bacon.

However, from there, the movie bounces around and forward through time and feels a little rushed. Like there was more they should have been showing but had to cut it all out. That's always difficult when they're trying to provide enough back story and introduce several characters all at the same time, and they almost pulled it off smoothly, but not quite. Things (mostly) smooth out when we get to the present day of 1962. Oliver Platt gets a role, and, I have to say, I love Oliver Platt, so it was a joy to see him in  the movie. Rose Byrne, of Bridesmaids, is in as Moira MacTaggert, and she is also quite good.

The main failing of the movie may just be a failing in me, although I'm not convinced. It might be one caused by the studio, in  this case Fox, not Marvel, not really knowing what audience they want to target. Marvel seems to have worked this out, for the most part, in  their own movies, but the X-Men franchise seems to be struggling with it. The conflict lies in how to deal with fans of the actual comic books. If you stray too far from the comics, the fans get into an uproar, but, sometimes, if you stay too close to the comic, the broader audience won't go see the movie at all (I could be wrong, but I think Warner Brothers is about to have this problem with Green Lantern (which is not to say that the movie's not going to have a big opening, but I think that may be where it ends)). When movies adapted from comics first started getting popular, that's how the studios approached it, balancing fans against people that never read comics, people who only knew of the characters peripherally. I'm finding my issue lies in a third area, that group of people that at one time followed comics but has been away from them for an extended length of time. This is the audience, the nostalgia audience, that Fox keeps messing up with. And it's a much larger audience than the audience of current fans. These are the people with the kids who, if the movie is good, will take their kids back to the same movie over and over again.
All of that to say that one particular character in the movie really bothered me. Bothered me to the extent that it was distracting to me. For someone currently following the X-Men comics, this character shouldn't be an issue, but, as I watched the movie, not having even looked inside an X-Men comic published in the last decade, I couldn't see Azazel as more than a cheap Nightcrawler rip off. That character, in particular, decreased my enjoyment of the movie, because Nightcrawler has always been one of my favorite X-Men.

Of course, I came home and did my background research before I started this post and discovered Azazel is a character that's been introduced since my sojourn in the comic book world ended. And he's such a Nightcrawler rip off because he's, yes, Nightcrawler's father. I won't go into my issues with that, since they have nothing to do with the movie. Most people, though, aren't going to go home after the movie and look up the character and find out there's a (unspoken) reason he's in the film. Again, maybe my reaction is just mine, but I would be surprised.

The only real failing of the movie is that it succumbs to that long held movie tradition of the crash course training event whereby a completely untrained individual or group becomes expert at what they're doing in a matter of moments. In this case, the training of the X-Men lasts an entire week, and they actually comment on it during the movie, "Look at what we've accomplished in just a week..." For a movie that spans 18 years, you'd think they'd have worked out a better way than to cram all the training into that last week of the storyline, but no... It's unfortunate.

Other than that, it's a good movie. Fox seems to have learned from its mistakes with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, although they may have also created some continuity issues between the two movies. Maybe they'll work those out at some point, but I doubt it. Now that I know Azazel is a real character, I'd actually go see it again. There's a lot to absorb in a movie like this, and it would just be nice to watch it without getting prickly every time Azazel pops onto the screen.

As for the cast and characters, as I already implied, Kevin Bacon made an excellent villain. He's undervalued as an actor, so it's good to see him in a high profile role, again.

January Jones is perfectly cast as Emma Frost, the white queen of the Hellfire Club. She goes from the role of the ice queen Betty Draper (Mad Men) to embodying that image literally. She doesn't show a lot of range, but, then, she doesn't need to.

James McAvoy is a pleasure as Professor X, or, really, just Charles. There are glimmers of the character as performed by Patrick Stewart in McAvoy's performance, and, really, what more can you ask for than that? The only issues with the character come from the writing and not the acting. The issue stems from the desire to create a more basic conflict between Charles and Eric than one just of method. They play Xavier not just as wanting peaceful co-existence between mutant and human but as wanting the humanizing of mutants. Not that he wants them to not be mutants, but he wants them to be indistinguishable from humans. He sort of comes off as a bigot in this respect.

The purist is, of course, Magneto. He believes in embracing mutantness, and, well, if you've seen the other X-Men movies, you know where this goes. Michael Fassbender does an admirable job in the role. Once he dons the helmet, he even rather looks like Ian McKellen.

It was nice to see Banshee included. He's another of those X-Men that I really like that's often overlooked. He's an interesting character that they're really never delved into enough, so it was cool to see him in the mix. Caleb Jones did an adequate job in the role, but, honestly, I just kept seeing Rupert Grint superimposed in the role.

Which brings us to Jennifer Lawrence. I'm sure all of you fans of The Hunger Games have been wondering when I'd get to her. Unfortunately, I don't have anything really positive to say about her. No raving about her performance. There's also nothing bad to say about her performance; it just wasn't anything that stood out. Possibly, the role didn't require anything of her other than to stand around and be herself, look pretty, but Mystique never really came into focus. There was a lack of emotional intensity that should have been present.

Oh, and there's an awesome Wolverine cameo. That alone is almost worth the movie even if it had been horrible. Since it wasn't horrible, the Wolverine cameo really is icing on the cake. Not awesome cake, but good cake. With awesome icing.