Category: #WWMD

#140RVW

No so much bad as completely unnecessary. What more did we need to know about this character after he was featured prominently in 3 movies?

What’s more:

This movie fills in the gaps that were left after 3 X-Men movies that focused nearly exclusively on Wolverine. Wait, what gaps? It’s like when artists like Tom Petty & Bruce Springsteen feel compelled to record “solo” albums; guys, it’s your band, with your name – what, are you being held back?

So why was this movie necessary? Good question. Let me know if you figure it out; I never did. And that’s really the problem with the movie – it just isn’t really needed. We knew enough about this character; possibly too much. Filling in every gap doesn’t accomplish anything. It may seem to satisfy our need to know everything, but once we do know everything we realize we were probably better off with a little mystery.

Quick thoughts:

• Liev Schreiber is quite a good villain.
• Script does the nearly impossible feat of making Sabretooth an interesting character.
• First sign of trouble: casting a rapper as an actor. Nearly always the wrong choice.
• The blades have never looked less convincing; stick with practical effects, guys.

• Boxing with Blob? Why? Easily the most wasteful five minutes in any Marvel film, ever.
• Didn’t expect Cyclops to show up. Thought this was just going to be the B team mutants.
• Sigh, wire work. Always so much wire work.
• How many times in this movie do Wolverine & Sabretooth have essentially the same fight? Stand twenty feet apart, hold arms out to side and flex, Sabretooth grins, Wolverine yells, and they charge.
• Some of these effects are really unacceptable for 2009.

Mutant rundown (SPOILERS):

• Gambit – fights with playing cards and pool cues. Please…This character must have been created during Happy Hour…
• Someone named Agent Zero. I still can’t figure out if this was supposed to be a mutant, and I’m tired of looking up things that should have been made obvious by the filmmakers.
• There are mutants named Bolt, well played by the always entertaining Dominic Monaghan, and Kestral, played by the never entertaining will.i.am.
• His love interest in the movie is a mutant? I admit I started to get bored around this point in the movie. I’m guessing her ability is to advance the plot.
• Emma Frost looks really cool.
• Deadpool – I gather that this character has a Boba Fett-type following, though I don’t see it based on the film, although they changed the character’s arc massively. They’re making a movie just for him. Sadly it will also star Ryan Reynolds.

Poster:

Trailer:

Bechdel Test:

Fail

Main Cast	Hugh Jackman Logan/Wolverine, Liev Schreiber Victor Creed, Ryan Reynolds Wade Wilson, Danny Huston Stryker
Rating	PG-13
Release Date	Fri 01 May 2009 UTC
Director	Gavin Hood
Genres	Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Plot	A look at Wolverine’s early life, in particular his time with the government squad Weapon and the impact it will have on his later years.
Poster
Runtime	107
Tagline
Writers	David Benioff (screenplay) and, Skip Woods (screenplay)
Year	2009

#140RVW

One of world’s most beloved franchises is revived by the creative teams behind Forgetting Sarah Marshall & Flight of the Conchords. #whoknew

What’s more:

I think many of us were cautiously optimistic about this. I was really pulling for it. The Muppets were a HUGE part of my childhood and I never stopped loving them.

Hoped that the impressive talents involved would do justice and not try to be hip. My expectations were comically leapfrogged…

What comes through clearly is the obvious love that everyone involved has for the Muppets. Writers Jason Segel & Nicholas Stoller, along with director James Bobin take the absolute perfect approach: love but not reverence. They are fulfilling a geek dream of restoring a franchise, but are simultaneously updating it for today. That sort of phrase usually scares me, but in this instance updating is not a dirty word. They’ve brought these characters back and made room in our world for them. The characters are unchanged but not entrenched.

One of the best film-making tools for trying to find out if something old can be renewed? Approach the question directly. By having the characters themselves search for and ponder their relevance, the audience just gets to come along for the ride. I love when Chris Carter even sneers about the old-fashioned, Dom DeLuise era of variety shows.

The music numbers by Bret McKenzie are show-stopping, and though he won an Oscar for “Man or Muppet”, I still feel he was robbed as he wasn’t allowed to perform it on the show.

The movie is something less than perfect, of course, but it is so much fun that you will never notice… 

Poster:

Trailer:

wait a minute…no, here’s the poster & trailer:

Poster:

Trailer:

http://youtu.be/Mq5LfuvRBVM

Bechdel Test:

FAIL

#140RVW

Among the least likely movies ever to come to fruition: Roald Dahl (!) adapts Ian Fleming (!) children’s book; Goldfinger sings! #SoWeird…

What’s more:

If this isn’t the single strangest children’s movie of all time it will do until I think of another one.

Disney hit it out of the park with Mary Poppins, so Bond co-producer Cubby Broccoli tried to replicate the success by hiring the Poppins musical team of the Sherman Brothers and Dick Van Dyke for good measure. (They even tried to get Julie Andrews, but she had the good sense to notice what a blatant rip-off this was going to be.) And by now he’d certainly gotten the hang of Ian Fleming’s writing, what with producing 4 Bond movies by this time.

You know, no analysis of the James Bond movies would really be complete without looking at this bizarre film. There are a ton of connections, although most of them support my theory that Cubby’s nose for quality may have been on the fritz at this time. Among other things:

• Desmond Llewelyn, the gentile & well-loved Q from the Bond films, has a cameo as Coggins, who according to the dialogue, “Wouldn’t light your pipe if his house was on fire.” The  fact that Llewelyn is as likable as ever even in this small role makes it a curious bit of casting…
• Gert Fröbe, best known for playing Auric Goldfinger, turns in a “performance” and even “sings” the worst song ever written, “Chu-Chi Face”…
• Otherwise accomplished children’s author Roald Dahl, who previously did unspeakable things in “adapting” the Fleming novel “You Only Live Twice”, is brought back to work the same magic on this novel.
• Director Ken Hughes must have gotten the job by doing such a terrible job with the non-Broccoli-produced Casino Royale the year before.
• Bond screenwriter Richard Maibaum also did some script doctoring.

So if a kids movie straight from the 007 team was an admittedly odd idea, how does it all work? Not bad, actually.

Plusses:

• First off, it looks great. Gorgeous, colorful film-stock, shot in scope. Colors are bright and the picture is detailed.
• The Sherman songs, while not as consistently solid as Poppins, do contain some gems, nearly all sung by Dick Van Dyke. “Hushabye Mountain” is particularly lovely.
• Van Dyke is really on form here and justifies his leading man status. There is possibly no more under-rated talent in film history.
• Sally Ann Howes is fine, I suppose, and character actor Lionel Jeffries is a lot of fun as the grandfather.
• The kids may be a bit precocious, but not cloyingly so, and they have a great rapport with Van Dyke, Howes & Jeffries.
• The song & dance numbers are particularly epic; the dancing frankly outclasses the songs they dance to.
• My daughter used to sing and dance along like a wind-up music box doll and that makes me smile to this day…

Minuses:

• Just about everything after the intermission. (Oh yes, there’s an intermission. Why did this tool ever go away?)
• Once the movie goes into the dream sequences this just gets REALLY weird. Benny Hill is in this…
• The Child-Catcher had to be deliberately designed to make children have nightmares. Creation of this character has to be classified as a type of child abuse…
• I did mention it was 1968, yes? Ah, well, it’s good at it. What a trip…

Fun fact: Reportedly soft-rocker Phil Collins is in there somewhere with all the kiddie-winkies in Vulgaria. This kid had some agent; he’s also in Hard Day’s Night!

Poster:

Trailer:

Bechdel Test:

FAIL

#140RVW

BAMF! Singer knocks it out of the park with this sequel, based on a Claremont classic. Despite unwelcome addition of more Halle Berry (ugh).

What’s more:

This one came out on my birthday, so I would possibly give it a better review based just on that, but this thing didn’t need to be graded on a curve. Was the best superhero movie of its day and is still one of the best of all time.

Story based on a Claremont classic. So good. The best thing going for this, as with all sequels, is the freedom from having to re-explain everything and spend half of your run-time setting up the premise. This movie blasts out of the gates with the assassination attempt; hits the ground running and never looks back.

Sure, there’s far too much Wolverine, and once they unwisely gave Halle Berry an Oscar she was able to demand more unwarranted screen-time, but for the most part Singer manages the large mix of characters well. Except for Cyclops; he gets hosed.

This isn’t the kind of genre-defying movie that Dark Knight was, but it is a top 5 comic book movie. Last chance to see what Singer could do, and he goes out on top. It is so unfortunate that we’ll never know what X3 would have been like with him. He set up the Dark Phoenix storyline; wish he could have delivered…

 

Spoiler-filled commentary:

• Nightcrawler is my favorite X-Man, based entirely on this opening sequence. Far beyond anything that happened in the first movie. Kickstarts the movie.
• I know from listening to the commentary that as the first movie was a rush job and Jackman was a last minute add, they didn’t have time to get Logan’s hair right. They were happier with how it turned out in this one. I think you got it right the first time. Everyone else got better haircuts, though.
• Hey, Storm lost her accent.
• Jean’s power growing – bring on the Phoenix!
• Nice job of building the anti-mutant tension. Was more global in first one, here it’s more among the common people.
• Brian Cox is a good add.
• The Cerebro effect is so much more developed, and excellent. Needs to be as it plays such a major part in the story.
• I love that we’re sheltering Nightcrawler here in Boston…
• So great when high-tech sci-fi is held back by the technology of the time; Mystique has cracked into secret files and has to wait for the data to print?
• Bamf!
• Love the attack on the school. Beautifully done. Great to see the different mutants at work. And Wolverine finally let off the leash…
• Professor Logan?
• Iceman “coming out” to his parents is hysterical.
• Alan Cumming may be the most versatile actor working today.
• Pyro! Great fire effects.
• The uneasy alliance between Magneto & the X-Men is excellent.
• Magneto recruiting Pyro is so good.
• Mystique is the best – what a great assault on Stryker’s compound.
• James Marsden as Cyclops is once again relegated to the bench. So unjust. I guess they had more scenes with him shot but had to cut for time. Wonder if adding extra scenes with Halle Berry was at fault. (Not really a question; it was.)
• Lady Deathstrike is an unnecessary addition to this story. Hate when these hero movies use cool characters when they know they’re just going to off them. Such a waste…
• I know they were trying to make the Empire Strikes Back of the series, but in some ways it is more the Wrath of Khan of the series. Either way, good role models, to say the least…
• Phoenix rising…

Poster:

Trailer:

#140RVW

Solid start. With the opening scene, Singer lets you know this is going to be a serious film. Comic book movies would never be the same…

What’s more:

Mutants. One of the many reasons I always read DC Comics, not Marvel. Not that DC didn’t have its own goofy stuff, but I just hated the idea of mutation. In theory it makes for great story material. In practice, it’s a loophole for writers that allows them to justify anything they feel like. Once you’ve opened the door to allowing characters to change their physical being, it’s tempting to use that capability for everything.

All by way of saying that I’m not that familiar with all of the characters and storylines of X-Men. From what I have read, this seems very much in the spirit of the comics.

The biggest criticism I have of X-Men is the same problem with all superhero series starters; you spend so much time developing the setting, characters and tone, there’s no screen time left for a serious showdown. It would be so much more satisfactory to just leave the battle with the villain to a sequel; there’s never enough breathing room to create anything other than a surface-level good vs evil conflict. Interestingly, I read that the treatment that author Michael Chabon put together actually did put the villains in the sequel; wish I could see that.

The other major issue is the promotion of Wolverine to the focus of the entire film series. Considering how the character is the linchpin of this movie, it’s sort of amazing they went with an unknown actor. Yes, I love Wolverine – everyone does. But focusing on any one character necessarily leaves other characters out in the cold. How much you can about the rest of the X-Men being relegated to the bench depends on your knowledge of the series.

But in spite of the Wolverine obsession, this is a good, solid movie that made the next decade-plus of superhero movies possible. Hopefully you think that’s a good thing…

Other odds and ends written down while I watched this for first time in years:

• Patrick Stewart’s voice – yes. Wish he’d do more voice-overs or audiobooks.
• Opening scene so good at setting tone & theme of series.
• The anti-mutant tenor provides a perfect setting for these stories.
• Gorgeous framing of shots by Singer & DP Newton Thomas Sigel.
• McKellen: what a massive talent. And barely on the radar for most of us at this point in his career – how much that would soon change…
• The acting in this is so thick.
• Hugh Jackman is such a discovery.  Wonder if the Wolverine obsession of these movies is due to the character or Jackman. Probably both…
• Watching this for the first time in a long time. Forgot this was made at the dawn of the age of excessive color timing.
• Sabertooth is so ridiculous. One of the only missteps in the vision for this movie.
• Ray Park as Toad. Don’t forget this was right after Phantom Menace. What a great talent for such a foolish character…
• Famke Janssen almost makes up for her Bond villain with performance as Jean Grey. Almost…
• Introduction of the school is so well done. You can’t wait to see more glimpses of the characters.
• James Marsden great as Cyclops. As to Halle Berry’s Storm…ugh.
• Bruce Davison is so perfect in this part.
• Mystique…
• Anna Paquin’s  now you hear it now you don’t midwestern accent is a bit surprising from an Oscar-winner. Although Berry is also trying on an accent that doesn’t fit. These questionable Oscar selections sure do a lot of damage down the line…
• Cerebro is a neat room, but if there is a dorkier helmet to be found they must have given up looking for it…
• Ah, the old “I can shape-shift into anything” plot device. The first refuge of the lazy writer, just after time travel and before cloning…
• Magneto – oh, they did find a dorkier helmet…
• The practical effects used in the stand-off at the train station make all the difference in the world.
• Uniforms are an improvement over the blue & yellow spandex, if not by a lot…
• I’m not a big X-Men comic reader; couldn’t they have found anyone better than Toad?
• I want one of these cool 3D map things!
• Fights pretty good, but too much wire work, like everything post-Matrix.
• Believe it or not, the “know what happens to a toad when it’s struck by lightning” line was written by Joss Whedon. A rare mistake by the legend.
• Pretty good battle, although the whole thing feels like a paltry climax for such a good story. Little more than a warm-up for the sequel.
• Love the cell for Magneto…

Poster:

Trailer: