Movie Reviews

[telerib]

To wit, X2 and LXG - X-Men Two: Evolution and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Two superhero movies, viewed back-to-back.

X2 - I liked X2, despite two or so "WTF?" moments. The Blackbird is being pursued by two fighter jets. Jean Grey is flying the Blackbird, and so one assumes she knows something about elevators and ailerons, and the fact that the control surfaces on high-performance fliers are *really* tricky. Rather than give a bump and a nudge to those and send those two planes tumbling out of the sky, we have Storm summon a bunch of tornadoes. Uh-huh. Well, I guess we had to have Storm do *something* useful.

Similarly, why *did* Jean Grey leave the Blackbird at the end of the movie? Wolverine asks this very question, which made me happy. Professor X answers, "She made a choice," which is a pretty dumb answer. I know this has to do with her becoming Phoenix, but still - that was a pretty dumb answer.

But Sir Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart are always a joy to watch, even if I kept thinking the white-clad McKellan needed longer hair and a beard. The special effects for Nightcrawler were great, and they mostly avoided the "ensemble cast" problem by focusing on Wolverine's angst and Mystique's actions. I'm not a Wolverine fangirl, but at least the movie was coherent this way. And Mystique raised the "evil henchman" job into something interesting, and showed that a *good* hench is invaluable.

Then there was the League.

I didn't mean to watch it. I was just spending time with Moe and wanted to finish my beer. By the time the beer was done, the movie was half over and I was too enthralled by the sheer badness of it.

I was worried that I'd compare it to the comic books. Really, this wasn't even the issue. The movie was so bad on its own that I didn't have to.

This *did* have the ensemble cast problem, in spades. Many of the characters could have been interesting. They had interesting two-minute bits, any one of which could have been expanded interestingly. Wouldn't Dorian Grey be interested in Mina's vampiric immortality? What was their past, anyway? The father-son theme with Quatermain and Sawyer could have been expanded from one shooting lesson into something more substantial. The Jeckyl-Hyde mirror-conversations were actually pretty good (although after Spiderman and LotR, not all that original), even if Hyde seemed too rational in the final scenes. The guy playing Jeckyl could act, too, which probably helped. The Invisible Man got some really great one-liners - maybe a total of four or so. But that's all he was, really.

The director also seemed to miss the point on steampunk. It's not just tanks in 1899. The comics had flying airships powered by some mysterious green stuff that made an anti-gravity field. Walking spider-bots would have been cool. The top of the spider could even have been a machine gun turret. Really, almost anything. But it was just a tank. They did better later, with the metal suits for soldiers (which I thought were robots at first). But I got off on the wrong foot with the tank..

Why was it necessary to recruit Quatermain again? Sawyer invited himself along, so OK there. But M wanted something from each member of the rest of the League - except Quatermain.

And he sent them to foil his own plans in Venice - rather than, say, on a wild goose chase where Dorian could still do this thing - because... why? I did find Dorian Grey to be a villain worth disliking, but the Fantom/M... eh. Whatever. Couldn't hold a candle to either Stryker or Magento in X2. Maybe if he'd been given some interesting dialogue, or even a character...

Why change the relationship between Dorian and his portrait? In the book, he could view it, no problem. (And if he couldn't view it, why had it been hanging on the wall of his home where Quatermain noticed it missing, rather than in the attic where it was kept in the book?) Wouldn't it have been just as cool to have Mina use the same sword he skewered her with to destroy the painting?

Finally, Quatermain's Precision Shotgun of Doom. This bugs me so much mostly because it's so *dumb.* I can only assume that the Great White Hunter was supposed to be shooting a rifle when we see him taking out targets at "900 yards". So why in the name of the Prop Department did they give the actor a double-barreled shotgun? I mean... c'mon people. There've got to be hundreds of gun props in any given studio. Would it have been so hard to pick the right one? After all the (admittedly cool) attention to detail given the ornamentation of Nemo's stuff, we fall down on this? Are you stupid, or do you think I am? There are at least two scenes where the double barrels are clearly visible, even on display. This isn't something I caught in a split-second fraction of film.

And then there were all the things the critics caught that, actually, didn't bother me - the Nautilus in the Ventian canals, the car chase in Venice. I kind of liked the car chase.

But I just spent waaaay too much time going, "WHAT?!" to suspend my disbelief. Sorry.

Comments

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

So why in the name of the Prop Department did they give the actor a double-barreled shotgun?

ObNitpick: There are some versions of safari rifles that are actually side-by-side doubles. You can see an example here.

I don't know why they are made that way or why anyone would want one -- my "leet armory skillz" are rudimentary at best. I do know that it's not out of the question for a Mighty Hunter to have a side-by-side rifle, though.

This page says that it's a question of reliability and having a second shot instantly available -- IOW, if you get a misfire when the Dangerous Critter is charging you, then you don't have to futz with working the bolt and extracting the misfire; you just use the second barrel, and Bob's your uncle.

[telerib.livejournal.com]

All right. I am mollified.

Still, given the lectures he was giving Sawyer, a single shot would've been more appropriate.

[cmccurry.livejournal.com]

Similarly, why *did* Jean Grey leave the Blackbird at the end of the movie?

Probably because the rather violent release of energy caused by her transforming into Phoenix would have been bad news in an airplane. It seemed like her own evolution was being hastened the more she used her abilities and keeping the Blackbird aloft was what threw her over the edge.

Wouldn't Dorian Grey be interested in Mina's vampiric immortality?

More than likely. But given his own abilities, he would not have been able to lose enough blood for Mina to change him. The magic that kept him alive might have fought off the change her own blood would have introduced into him as well.

I did find Dorian Grey to be a villain worth disliking, but the Fantom/M... eh. Whatever.

Dorian was definitely one of my favorite parts of the movie. Stuart Townsend played the sociopathic little bastard wonderfully.

My main objection to League was the introduction of Tom Sawyer though. Especially when I found out that he was kind of a last minute addition because the director thought that the movie wouldn't sell as well if there wasn't an American character (*grumbles about the entertainment industry's condescending attitude*).

[telerib.livejournal.com]

1: I had issues with the 'leaving the plane' thing until Logan actually asked the question. To me, that showed that the movie assumed I had a brain and was using it. The bigger letdown was Xavier's bizarre answer. If he knew, he oughta said. If he didn't, something more normal, maybe, "I don't know. She must've felt it was necessary," would've done. Instead, he does his best Jedi Master impression. Bleah.

2: Dorian/Mina: Might be true. Wouldn't it have been interesting if the characters had been interested in finding out? What I would've liked was if the commonalities between the two immortals that were hinted at where actually expanded into a theme. Surely each would be curious about the other, and how he or she experienced living (or unliving)? The motives could've been utilitarian ('Can I get your abilities/invulnerabilities while keeping my own?'), or sympathetic ('No one else knows what it's like!'), or scientific ('Do you think there's a link between your condition and my own?') or... well, whatever. And/or a mixture of them. Toss the implied romantic/passionate past into the mix, and that could've been its own movie.

I'd have been as happy if the main theme was Quatermain/Sawyer, or Jeckyll/Hyde, or Nemo conflicted between his people and his empire. There were so many interesting possibilities... all neglected, even by action-movie standards.

I mean, off the top of my head, I can think of five scenes from X2 dealing with the Jean/Scott/Logan angst. Certainly not the bulk of the film, but enough to give it some weight and significance. League seemed to be trying to evoke similar relationships with five or so lines, rather than scenes.

X men and LXG

[hueffmea.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to try to redeem them. Well I haven't seen any X man movies. I had my own problems with LXG a lot of which had to do with the assignment of work.
It's very interesting when someone points out to a character in game...I mean movie, that they are useless.
Dr. Jeckle obviously knew a thing or two about chemistry but instead of him analyzing the properties of the mysteries flash powder he's wandering around the Nautilus talking to himself. It almost seemed as though the writer of the screen play had decided to take it upon himself to single handedly make up for all the times women were seen as helpless victims and make Mina capable of doing everything herself.

When they need to recruit Dorian Mina is the one that enables it. When they are being sniped at Mina is the one who rescues them. She even gets several nice scenes to herself where she explains that she's way above any threat level and most of the time she waited until someone else tried something and failed before she'd lift a finger to show them up.
I guess it was important to see how the world's best just paled in comparison to her.

In any case Alan Quartermane was useless since Mina could have captured Hyde all by herself. Tom Sawyer was just eye candy and provided nothing but spunk, Hyde's only job from what I could tell was to wow the audience with special effects and have a climactic fight scene at the end. Grey was a bad guy so he was actually necessary, Nemo was the ride and he filled that purpose admirably. The invisible man was off helping move the plot along for far to long off camera for my taste, and the Mina...well I've already ranted on her.