X-Men: What year is it anyway? (movie review)

My cousin, Tommy, told me not to bother seeing this movie. I’m glad that I didn’t listen to him (sorry Tommy). Four of us went, which included two not-so-nerdy wives. Everyone came out of the theater happy.

Don’t get me wrong, the movie has some problems.  I don’t think I’ve actually seen a movie that doesn’t have some flaw, and some of the ones in the new X-Men flick were irritating, but there weren’t a ton of them.

Also, there’s a scene in there that rivals the lobby scene from The Matrix.  Yeah, the scene was that awesome.  Anywho, more details (and spoilers) after the break!

The Wolverine I’m used to

So, I’m not sure what the obsession with Wolverine and Mystique is all about in today’s X-Men movies, but it worked in X-Men: First Class, and it works here. Hugh Jackman (as always) does an awesome job as Wolverine, and Jennifer Lawrence was even better as Mystique than she was in First Class.  What I’m saying is, I’m OK with these two being central characters alongside Professor X despite never being that wild about Mystique’s character growing up.

So, what’s wrong with the movie?  Well, there are a few things that bother me on a nerdy level.  I don’t like Beast “hulking out.”  I like Beast the way Beast was meant to be: always blue, furry, and scholarly.  In Days (I’m not typing out “Days of Future Past” from now on), Hank looks like a regular geeky dude most of the time.  When he gets pissed off, or needs a little extra something, he transforms into Beast.  Bleh.  I mean, I see why they did it (the whole hiding who you are because you’re ashamed of it theme is very prevalent), but I still don’t like it.

Mystique used to wear clothes

I also found it pretty cheesy that there’s a syrum that somehow blocks Professor X’s powers whilst fixing his spine so he can walk.  It’s a cheap device to force him into artificially choosing between “fitting in” and being who he really was.  I think a mental-block (of the variety generated through experiencing an extremely traumatic event) would’ve been more interesting and more believable.

The sentinels of the future looked nothing like the sentinels I grew up watching.  They were ridiculously over-powered, and there were a ton of them.  Seriously, Colossus gets beat down like he’s made of aluminum foil.

Oh, and that’s another thing–there are a ton of mutant cameos in this, but favorites like Bishop and Iceman are only really on-screen to get their asses handed to them.  Again, I get it, they needed to show how unstoppable the sentinels were, and having known badasses get owned was a great way to do it, but come on, gimmie some more Bishop!  I’ve always loved Bishop.

Anyway, I think, by now, you’re getting that most of my qualms with the movie have to do with my own nerdy preferences.  My only legit complaint has to do with Magneto and his control of the OG sentinels (these looked more like the sentinels from the comics, and were the precursors to the nasty super-sentinels from the future).

Magneto simply shoves some metal into the sentinels while they’re on a train and magically starts controlling them.  Yes, he had the schematics, and yes, he was studying them during one scene in his hotel (while stitching a minor head-wound closed behind his head with a floating needle–very cool), but I think the idea was that he reprogrammed them by rearranging the actual circuitry.

There are two problems with that.  First, come on.  Magneto isn’t a computer scientist, so rearranging circuit pathways (that he can’t see) is just bullshit.  Even discounting the fact that he’d have had to rewrite software (which you can’t do by injecting metal into it), the whole scenario is a little far-fetched.  Second; why?  Seems to me, he could’ve accomplished something similar by booby-trapping them with metal throughout their bodies, then simply destroying them publicly to show the poor, inferior humans who they were messing with.

And that’s it.  Those pretty much sum up my complaints.

On to the good stuff.

The slow motion scene where Quicksilver toys with a bunch of guards with plastic guns is freaking amazing.  Seriously, you might stand up and applaud in the theater.  I’m not even going to say more about it, because I don’t want to ruin it for you if you haven’t seen it.  If you have, then I don’t want to ruin it for you when you see it again.

Seriously, Quicksilver is AWESOME in this movie

The differences in the multi-generational Professor Xs were large, prevalent, and well acted.  This movie is kind of a turning point in Charles Xavier’s life, and they made me believe it (minus the cheesy “choose legs or telepathy” bit).  James McAvoy was awesome, and so was Patrick Stewart (of course).

Oh, and it was cool to see Storm actually throw some of her power around. It may not seem like much, but play close attention to the storm she whips up at the end of the movie.

All-in-all, this movie is very good. As of this writing, it’s sitting at 8.6 on IMDB (which is pretty high for that particular site), and it’s earned every star.  No, it isn’t perfect, and yes, I understand the time-travel bits are a little weird, with paradoxes aplenty, but damn was it a good time to watch.

Go see it!  Tommy was wrong.  (Again, sorry Tommy.)