X-Men: First Class
Jun. 4th, 2011 10:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kindkitI saw it yesterday and mostly loved it. It could just as easily have been called Magneto, since it's very much his story, and Michael Fassbender's charismatic performance as Erik dominates the film. His Erik is a glamorous BAMF, and yet it's clear--to Charles at least, and to the viewer--that his cool exterior is a shell around intense, almost unbearable emotions.
James McAvoy, who sensibly doesn't try to outshine Fassbender, is very good as Charles, with the blithe self-centered naiveté of privilege and the manipulativeness of the self-assured. But, importantly, McAvoy doesn't overplay that; you can always see the underlying seriousness, see who Charles Xavier will be in forty years.
The rest of the cast is also good (special mention for Jennifer Lawrence as Raven and Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy) except for January Jones, who doesn't have the presence or poise to carry off Emma Frost. I wouldn't have minded more scenes of the young team, and I was glad that each character at least got some development and agency.
Will it sound weird to say that I don't think this movie was as slashy as many others seem to? There's certainly an intense connection between Erik and Charles; the scene where Charles first goes into Erik's mind and we see them both crying is amazing, cliché or not. And occasionally the filmmakers deliberately play up the subtext, as in the "recruiting Angel" scene where they're lounging on the bed together. But . . . I dunno, maybe it's just that nothing can really compare to the backstory in my head, where Charles and Erik actually are a couple for many years, instead of having a UST-ish friendship for a few weeks. The film instead gives us "we're brothers," and Charles kissing Moira McTaggart (who was awesome, by the way, and if there must be het I wholeheartedly approve of this relationship) and Erik kissing Raven, which was great in its own way (I loved that Erik truly believes that mutants are more beautiful the more different they appear from "normal" humans), but . . . . The thing is, nothing in the later movies makes sense without the assumption that Charles and Erik had known and cared about one another for a long time before they became enemies. So I spent some hours after the film telling myself "I really liked that, and yet I don't want it to be canon for the other films" before realizing that it can't be canon, because in X3 we see a much older Charles and Erik working together to recruit kids for the school. And isn't Charles walking in that scene? So First Class is an interesting AU that doesn't have to affect my head-canon for the other films, yay!
Speaking of walking, I was not expecting the scene where Charles is shot. It makes perfect sense in this 'verse that Charles's paralysis should be Erik's fault, but I still wasn't expecting the movie to go that far instead of saving it for a sequel. The obligatory slashy "I will hold you in my arms and mourn" scene was obligatory, and slashy, but two things made it interesting: Erik's blaming Moira (jealous much, Erik?) and Charles rejecting Erik's claim that they want the same things. I was a little bit shocked that Charles did that, because it's a rejection of Erik himself as well. There's nothing Erik can do after that but leave. If Charles (who to be fair was in pain and distress, not to mention angry as hell at Erik) had said, "Yeah, we do, but later let's have a chat about means, okay?" the break could at least have been deferred, maybe even prevented.
In my head-canon for this film, there's some kind of reconciliation, but it's not a lasting one because Erik, who emotionally is about as resilient as a sheet of glass, never quite trusts Charles again.
Now, a couple of things I didn't like. First of all, killing off the only black character is NOT ON, damn it. (And secondarily, film, if you want us to read Havok and Darwin as lovers, which I think you did, kindly don't be so coy about it. Canonically queer characters: you can have them if you dare!) Showing the only other character of color, Angel, turn to Shaw's side could have made a really good point: the people left on Charles's side are pretty much privileged white people who think they can trust the system, while the characters of color already know they can't. (The exception is Erik, who we know doesn't trust the government at all but who is not going to be on Shaw's side while Shaw lives.) Unfortunately, that point, which I think was there in the scene where Angel makes her decision, gets lost later when we see her smugly drinking champagne with Shaw like a James Bond femme fatale. You'd think someone on the film would have noticed that they killed one CoC and turned the other evil.
Second, I think the parallels between Erik's "mutants are homo superior" stance and Nazism were made a little too pointed. Having Erik literally turn into the thing he hates is already a cliché (one that I'm suspicious of because it tends to be used to discredit dissent), and making it so screamingly obvious, with Erik saying "I agree with you, actually" and literally taking over Shaw's organization, plus wearing that bloody helmet, doesn't help any. That storytelling choice asks us to accept that Erik is stupid, that he can't recognize what he's doing. Now, I'm willing to believe that Erik is all kinds of emotionally stupid, but I don't think he's politically stupid. I could buy a gradual process in which the oppression of mutants builds up over years, and Erik moves away (after a lot of bitter experience) from Charles's non-violent gradualism to a belief in violent revolution as the only hope, and even to a belief in mutant superiority. But the sudden switch is too much, too soon. Erik remembers what Nazism leads to. (On the other hand, holocaust survivors are not necessarily immune from racism, as we see in the real world. So Erik's disconnect is not impossible. But, well, I want to believe better of him than that, because in so many ways he's right.)
So, a flawed movie, but one that I still enjoyed. I'm wondering what its effects on the fandom--such as it is--will be, especially whether people will try to resolve the canon contradictions or will treat First Class and X1-3 as different universes.
James McAvoy, who sensibly doesn't try to outshine Fassbender, is very good as Charles, with the blithe self-centered naiveté of privilege and the manipulativeness of the self-assured. But, importantly, McAvoy doesn't overplay that; you can always see the underlying seriousness, see who Charles Xavier will be in forty years.
The rest of the cast is also good (special mention for Jennifer Lawrence as Raven and Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy) except for January Jones, who doesn't have the presence or poise to carry off Emma Frost. I wouldn't have minded more scenes of the young team, and I was glad that each character at least got some development and agency.
Will it sound weird to say that I don't think this movie was as slashy as many others seem to? There's certainly an intense connection between Erik and Charles; the scene where Charles first goes into Erik's mind and we see them both crying is amazing, cliché or not. And occasionally the filmmakers deliberately play up the subtext, as in the "recruiting Angel" scene where they're lounging on the bed together. But . . . I dunno, maybe it's just that nothing can really compare to the backstory in my head, where Charles and Erik actually are a couple for many years, instead of having a UST-ish friendship for a few weeks. The film instead gives us "we're brothers," and Charles kissing Moira McTaggart (who was awesome, by the way, and if there must be het I wholeheartedly approve of this relationship) and Erik kissing Raven, which was great in its own way (I loved that Erik truly believes that mutants are more beautiful the more different they appear from "normal" humans), but . . . . The thing is, nothing in the later movies makes sense without the assumption that Charles and Erik had known and cared about one another for a long time before they became enemies. So I spent some hours after the film telling myself "I really liked that, and yet I don't want it to be canon for the other films" before realizing that it can't be canon, because in X3 we see a much older Charles and Erik working together to recruit kids for the school. And isn't Charles walking in that scene? So First Class is an interesting AU that doesn't have to affect my head-canon for the other films, yay!
Speaking of walking, I was not expecting the scene where Charles is shot. It makes perfect sense in this 'verse that Charles's paralysis should be Erik's fault, but I still wasn't expecting the movie to go that far instead of saving it for a sequel. The obligatory slashy "I will hold you in my arms and mourn" scene was obligatory, and slashy, but two things made it interesting: Erik's blaming Moira (jealous much, Erik?) and Charles rejecting Erik's claim that they want the same things. I was a little bit shocked that Charles did that, because it's a rejection of Erik himself as well. There's nothing Erik can do after that but leave. If Charles (who to be fair was in pain and distress, not to mention angry as hell at Erik) had said, "Yeah, we do, but later let's have a chat about means, okay?" the break could at least have been deferred, maybe even prevented.
In my head-canon for this film, there's some kind of reconciliation, but it's not a lasting one because Erik, who emotionally is about as resilient as a sheet of glass, never quite trusts Charles again.
Now, a couple of things I didn't like. First of all, killing off the only black character is NOT ON, damn it. (And secondarily, film, if you want us to read Havok and Darwin as lovers, which I think you did, kindly don't be so coy about it. Canonically queer characters: you can have them if you dare!) Showing the only other character of color, Angel, turn to Shaw's side could have made a really good point: the people left on Charles's side are pretty much privileged white people who think they can trust the system, while the characters of color already know they can't. (The exception is Erik, who we know doesn't trust the government at all but who is not going to be on Shaw's side while Shaw lives.) Unfortunately, that point, which I think was there in the scene where Angel makes her decision, gets lost later when we see her smugly drinking champagne with Shaw like a James Bond femme fatale. You'd think someone on the film would have noticed that they killed one CoC and turned the other evil.
Second, I think the parallels between Erik's "mutants are homo superior" stance and Nazism were made a little too pointed. Having Erik literally turn into the thing he hates is already a cliché (one that I'm suspicious of because it tends to be used to discredit dissent), and making it so screamingly obvious, with Erik saying "I agree with you, actually" and literally taking over Shaw's organization, plus wearing that bloody helmet, doesn't help any. That storytelling choice asks us to accept that Erik is stupid, that he can't recognize what he's doing. Now, I'm willing to believe that Erik is all kinds of emotionally stupid, but I don't think he's politically stupid. I could buy a gradual process in which the oppression of mutants builds up over years, and Erik moves away (after a lot of bitter experience) from Charles's non-violent gradualism to a belief in violent revolution as the only hope, and even to a belief in mutant superiority. But the sudden switch is too much, too soon. Erik remembers what Nazism leads to. (On the other hand, holocaust survivors are not necessarily immune from racism, as we see in the real world. So Erik's disconnect is not impossible. But, well, I want to believe better of him than that, because in so many ways he's right.)
So, a flawed movie, but one that I still enjoyed. I'm wondering what its effects on the fandom--such as it is--will be, especially whether people will try to resolve the canon contradictions or will treat First Class and X1-3 as different universes.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-04 10:37 pm (UTC)Speaking of walking, I was not expecting the scene where Charles is shot. It makes perfect sense in this 'verse that Charles's paralysis should be Erik's fault, but I still wasn't expecting the movie to go that far instead of saving it for a sequel.
Yes. Pretty much this review is the same as mine.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-05 02:20 am (UTC)*nods* I should have made it clearer that I realize that--my next sentence was trying to explain why Erik, who's Jewish and not privileged in many respects, stayed with Charles at that moment.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-05 04:04 am (UTC)