First up, the series opener from 2000. This is more solid than I remember, and a lot more 'mature' than the rest of the Marvel cinematic catalogue, it seems.
The Good: The script's a little exposition-heavy at times, but I think that has more to do with its history as a comic. The interplay between Wolverine and Cyclops also made me smile. I'd forgotten how playful the antagonism was.
The Bad: No mention of Sabertooth being Wolverine's brother, this first time around. Odd, given what happened six years later. The first of Marvel's ongoing revisions to its own movie-canon? More on that later.
The Ugly: Toad may be one of the worst characters in movie history, with Ray Park mugging along like more of a cartoon than the comics and cartoons combined.
Overall: Very enjoyable, with more substance than subsequent Marvel outings.
Sort of great, yet sort of unbalanced. Bryan Singer's handling of the X-Men's themes of community, exclusion and self-discovery feels a little too subtle for the type of movie it's meant to be. That's not to say I don't appreciate what he's done; but there's a muted tension about X2 when there should be more colourful explosions.
The Good: Nightcrawler. One of the best characters in the film - interesting, conflicted, likeable, and criminally underused. I'm annoyed we didn't get to see him in the next movie, but we have a great performance from Alan Cumming here. Also great is Mystique. I'd forgotten what a central role she takes in the films until I watched them all back to back.
The Bad: Well, not 'bad', but as above, Lady Deathstrike is completely wasted in the film. It'd be nice to see her appearing earlier in the timeline (and as 'herself') as in X2 we only get to see her in thrall to Stryker.
The Ugly: It just seems like there's the ideas for two movies crammed into one. Only Wolverine gets any decent amount of screentime, and as his Origins film did it better, X2 feels a bit redundant now.
All in all: A good film, but feels underdeveloped.
Bigger, brighter, and with almost no subtlety whatsoever. That bit I said about X2 and Singer underplaying the themes? He didn't direct the third one (he went off to do Superman), and Brett Ratner has decided that if you hadn't quite grasped the subtext of the first two films, he'd beat you over the head with it this time. It's not horrendously done, but it's certainly out-there.
The Good: Another great turn from Mystique, although after she's turned 'human', there's a scene where she helps the authorities trace Magneto which was cut from the final film. A damn shame, because we don't hear from her again.
The Bad: *SPOILERS* If you stick around after the credits, there's a scene with Moira McTaggart (more on her later), where it's revealed that Charles Xavier is still alive. If you pair this with the final revelation that Magneto's still got his powers, you just about remove any sense of consequence from the film. The only real 'loss' is Jean Gray / Phoenix. Still, I'm sure Marvel cound change their continuity if they wanted, as...
The Ugly: Hank McCoy/Beast appears in X2 in his human form. In X3, he's in his blue/furry iteration. The idea was that when Xavier used Dark-Cerebro in X2, the shock waves triggered the change in McCoy. No matter; it's established (on-screen) that McCoy is in human form at the time of X2. The upcoming First Class movie is due to have him in blue-form, approximately 40 years earlier. I'm just mentioning it now, that's all. Speaking of 40 years earlier, Moira McTaggart is played by Olivia (6th Sense, The Ghost) Williams, as a woman in her late 30's or early 40's. She's supposed to be the same age as Xavier and Magneto, seeing as she's due to appear in First Class as one of their contemporaries.
I don't mind movie-continuity being different from comic-continuity, but it irks me when the films trample all over existing versions without a reboot.
All in all: There's way more in this film, and yet somehow it feels like less?
I won't do a good/bad/ugly for this one, suffice to say it's a great movie. A lot smoother and more coherent than any of the X-Men films, probably because there are less characters to shoehorn in? It's got a depth and character development that I wasn't expecting, and only one real flaw...
Why is Liev Schrieber's character 'Sabertooth'? Don't get me wrong, he's a great antagonist, but he bears no relation to any other version of Sabertooth in any media. Am I meant to believe that the scheming, skilled fighter in XMO:W is the same monosyllabic, shambling mess of brute force in the first X-Men movie?
Although, while I'm on...
• Bone-claws are just daft. Completely impractical (as is demonstrated in the log-fight scene). • Please stop CGI'ing Patrick Stewart to look 'younger'. It's creeping me out. • Danny Huston is good as the young-Stryker, but where did that Southern-Drawl from X2 go?
Other than that, an absolutely outstanding film.
And that, dear reader, was my Bank Holiday Weekend. Bring on First Class!
...should I call you Logan, Weapon-X?
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
Before I start, let's have a small musical introduction...
There is nothin' like a dame, Nothin' in the world. There is nothin' you can name, That is anything like a dame!
Or so claims Oscar Hammerstein in his lyrics for the above song in South Pacific. If you've watched the clip, you can see their (ie: Oscar's) reasoning. Even at the time it was written (for a broadway musical in 1949, later adapted into a film), this claim seems to me to be woefully inaccurate.
The example I'll use for my argument is Judi Dench, the British actress, singer and dame.
While she's instantly recognisable due to her variety of screen and stage work, it would be incorrect to say she shares no similarities at all with her contemporaries. For example, Julia McKenzie and Maureen Lipman sit within the same casting demographic, and have a relatively similar body of work. Unless you're a hardcore fan of any of them, they're quite samey.
It's okay, you don't have to look them up. I've made a quick spreadsheet.
^^ Click for bigger
As you can see, they're actually pretty similar. Not identical; I mean you probably wouldn't get them confused with each other, but there's a reassuring pattern between their lives. Besides, the comparison stipulated in the lyrics is "...anything like...", not "...exactly like...".
With this in mind, I think it's fair to say that Julia McKenzie and Maureen Lipman are pretty much like a dame: Dame Judi Dench. Not only have I proved Oscar Hammerstein wrong, but I've returned 200% of the results required to do so. From now on, I demand that the official lyrics to the song be:
There are some things like a dame, Once you examine the evidence. There are two things you can name, That are similar to a dame!
...now, who do I need to speak to in order to make this happen, please?
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
You can read my original review for Thorover here. This was the first time this year I've actually been able to fit in a repeat-viewing at the cinema. I know, I know. They'll take my card away... So I had to see it in 3D again, because the 2D showing only lasted for a week. That's no biggie, but I'll state again how pointless the 3D is in the movie. It adds little to nothing, and there are no real showpieces for it.
Things I noticed the second time round:
• What I really like about the film, is that we don't see the title-card until the end, after the first batch of credits. The film opens with the names of the cast on-screen, but that's about it. And it's not until the cast have been listed again in the closing that we get 'THOR' across the full screen. It's a stylistic touch, but I liked it.
• I could have sworn when we saw Mjolnir at the end of Iron Man 2, it was just lying in the crater - not embedded in the rock as it is in Thor? I can understand Marvel making adjustments from comic-to-screen, but their inter-movie continuity is getting pretty slack. I'm saying this now, as I'm watching X-Men: First Class in a few days, and I'm wondering what they're going to revise this time around…
• Star Wars comparison? As usual, I'll make something out of nothing and try to forge one... In Revenge of the Sith and Thor, Natalie Portman plays a regular human in a relationship with someone who has shoulder-length blond hair and superhuman powers. In both films, this protagonist can barely handle his own abilities, and these powers are what keeps the hero and his love-interest apart at the end (yeah, I know: Thor doesn't kill Jane). But at the end of both films, the powerful lead character has a scene standing beside his mentor, looking out towards a massive un-operational technological marvel. In RotS, it's Vader and Palpatine, observing the building of the Death Star; in Thor, it's Thor and Odin, looking out towards the destroyed Bifrost. Both characters are ready to 'start afresh' with their mentor, being very different to the way they were at the start of the film. It was just a thought, that's all.
• Dear people-who-make-films: When you put a hot chick in glasses, and expect the audience to believe she's all nerdy and not-at-all-hot? That doesn't work. Kat Dennings (Darcy) is a hottie, and no amount of glasses, ski-hats and shapeless clothes is going to change that.
I enjoyed the second-pass of Thor, but other than picking over potential easter eggs (Southwest Airlines flight 5434, anyone?), I didn't really get any more out of it. I see this as a sign that Branagh did a good enough job for me to grab it all the first time (although it could be argued that the film's simplicity doesn't stand up to repeat viewing).
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Now you know there's been some serious focus-grouping when the ads before a film are all geared towards a specific audience. Selecting appropriate trailers is more common sense; you want to appeal to the punters who have paid to see this movie, so your trailers will likely be the same sort of movie. And there are some ads that play no matter what the film (the current Red Bull / Zebra one, for example).
But just to give you an idea how confident Warner Bros and Cineworld are of the makeup of the Hangover II audience, here's a complete list of the products that were advertised (although not in this order) before the trailers:
Energy drinks: Red Bull, Relentless, Lucozade Energy Alcohol: Peroni, Budweiser, Bacardi Video games: Brink, Rage Deodorant: Lynx
And that was it. Nothing for the ladies. If you're a female and you're watching this in the cinema, the ad-folks don't expect you to be there. I'm not surprised or outraged by this, by the way, it's just not usually this transparent. Anyway, I was reviewing a film, wasn't I?
The rest of this piece will be pretty much exactly what you expect. This is largely because Hangover II, as a film, is pretty much exactly what you expect. The team of Bradley Cooper's Phil, Ed Helms' Stu, and Zach Galifianakis' Alan are back together once more, in a movie that bears more than a striking resemblance to the first installment. It's not bad at all, but there's certainly nothing new here. But then, how much new do you need?
Well, in the first movie, while you 'kind of' knew that the guys would find Doug and make the wedding at the end, there was a freshness in his near-total absence from the film. It was plausible that he may have found his own way home, or even not have turned up at the end. Once he did surface, the formula was balanced and audience-expectation restored. With the second film following the template of the first so closely, when Mason Lee's Teddy goes missing, there's no real tension there (even though we're told early on that he's missing a finger). You know everything will work out alright in the end, so all that's left to do is sit back and enjoy the somewhat formulaic ride.
The Good: For the most part, Zach Galifianakis steals the show as the eccentric Alan, and I particularly liked his meditation-induced flashback, in which he pictures the events of the previous evening with him and his best friends played by 12yr old boys, surrounded by adults. This is genuinely how he sees 'the wolf-pack', and props go to Zach for portraying a borderline-insane character with such humour and sweetness. With perhaps the exception of the part I'll mention later.
The Bad: The photo-montage over the closing credits, as before, has some brilliant shots of the guys' missing-hours. But whereas in the first movie, it was used to visually illustrate some of the things they'd discovered and fill in the rest, this time round it feels like it's being used to tie up all the loose plot-ends they didn't remember to put in the script (how Teddy lost his finger, for example). There's also some unnecessarily heavy language in the first 20 minutes of the film, which seems like it's been put there to get the certificate up to a 15 and lend the film more 'credibility' (much like Your Highness and Hall Pass in that regard). The effing-and-jeffing continues throughout the film, only at a lessened place, and more suitable to the situations the characters find themselves in. Again, I'm not being prudish at the language, but it just doesn't fit the scenes early on.
The Ugly: In the first act, where Zach is ramping-up the mentalness of Alan, his character takes an instant (and for the most part unexplained) dislike to Stu's future brother-in-law, Teddy. This is because he has highly warped social-skills, and sees Teddy as an intruder into the "wolfpack" formed in the first movie. This isn't really explained at the time, though, and as the main cast are Caucasian and Teddy is Asian, Alan just comes off as being a bit of a racist. A couple of 'Chinese' comments later on almost seem to reinforce this, but by the time they finally find Teddy trapped in an elevator, all seems to be forgotten, even if there's no real reconciliation between the two. It's probably just me being a wooly-liberal, but it seems out-of-kilter with the rest of the movie, especially as none of the characters mention it.
All in all: IT'S VERY GOOD, if a little samey. In terms of blokey, gross-out comedy, it's still head and shoulders above the competition, thanks largely to the cast. Personally, I enjoyed it, but I think a third movie would be stretching the concept (even though it'll probably be on the way).
You'll like this as much as you did (or didn't) The Hangover. Make of that what you will.
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
