Have you all gotten comfortable? Do you have a nice warm brandy next to you to enjoy over the course of this post? Excellent. As you may of may not know, I am Dr. Elitist Von Nerddenkaiser PhD, MD, DDS, RN, NCIS and LLC, Licensed high classed patron of the nerd arts.
Today we will be discussing X-men: First Class. Now I have been a fan of the X-men for a very long time and I must say that I was pleasantly surprised at how not completely terrible this movie was. Some would say it was downright good. It was certainly and undoubtedly better than any of its mutant feature film predecessors at any rate. Some might question the overall theme that Mutants were the cause of and solution to the Cuban Missile Crisis, I always thought that was blamed on cheap lagers. But plot out of the way, most of the acting was spot on, and the movie was by all rights entertaining. Kevin Bacon makes a fantastic villain if nothing else. I have heard that this movie has a mistake list a mile long however, poor show on that aspect production team.
For me personally, I was able to set aside my knowledge of the X-men as a fan and was able to enjoy the film as a Film go-er aside from one or two things that I was not able to get past that I will mention in a moment or two. First things first I would like to point out a few of the inconsistencies in this movie that a fan would notice and a few things that I generally just did not agree with. The most noticeable gaff in the film as a fan were the power sets. Namely, Emma Frost, Sebastian Shaw, and Havok as the most noticeable. I understand why Sebastian Shaw was altered for the movie for the sake of the plot however for those of you who do not know, in the film his mutant abilities were somewhat exaggerated. In the source material (The comics) Shaw's power is that he is able to absorb any kinetically forced impact and then channel it into his own kinetic attack. For example if Shaw was punched by you or me, he would receive little to no impact or injury from the punch and then would be able to punch whomever had punched him (or some other person in the area) with the force of his punch plus the original punch. So if Colossus punched him he would have his punch plus Colossus's punch, if he was dropped from a plane, he would have the power of his own muscles combined with the kinetic force of the impact from when he hit the ground from the drop. Simple right? Now, the way that they portrayed his power in the film was that he could absorb ANY kind of energy instead of just kinetic, and would be able to redirect it in whatever form he chose. So in other words he was almost invincible and he could basically create other peoples powers, such as the moment when he took Havok's power and shoved it down Darwin's throat (incidentally I found it quite amusing when someone mentioned to me that he was the only black character in the film and he was the only heroic character to die, and one of the few lead characters to perish, I didn't think about it until it was mentioned but from what I heard, there were a fair amount of people who were understandably annoyed by this). Since I just mentioned havok I will go into his power next. Havok's power is the ability to shoot concussive force blasts from his body (originally his chest but eventually his hands). that basically means that if you are hit by one of havok's blasts, depending on the intensity, it will feel like you had just been hit by anything from a soccer ball knocking the wind out of you, to a freight train ramming straight into you. Havok's blasts however, do not 1: set people or things on fire, nor do they 2: explode. Many people fail to understand the power set of the Summers family but its really not terribly difficult once you think about it. Finally we come to Emma's power set, ignoring the fact that in continuity she should not even have her diamond form and the fact that she should neither be anywhere near the same age as Xavier (she's probably about 15 to 20 years younger) nor the same strength level as he in matters of telepathy we focus specifically on her diamond form. I don't recall how the movie portrayed this but Emma Frost's Diamond form is able to block all telepathy attempting to penetrate her, however she cannot protect anyone else with this ability, also she has no telepathic abilities when she is in the diamond state, however she is gifted with greater strength, stamina and defense than she would have if she were in human form. She also is incapable of feeling any emotion when she is in that state. So the biggest mistake they movie made for me when dealing with her diamond form was when Magneto wrapped the metal bed frame around her body. That bed frame was at best bronze, so first Emma would have been able to rip out of it without even breaking the proverbial sweat and second there is no way that the frame would have had the tensile strength to crack her diamond from no matter how tightly it would have wrapped around her. That really did irritate me.
Having set the powers aside I'd like to quickly gripe about a few other inconsistencies. Firstly, the team very much irritated me. Xavier and beast and Havok all on the same team? you movie producers and directors really do hate Cyclops don't you? I can understand you not putting him on Xavier's team because he was Xavier was his first real student but then to have the gall to put his younger brother on the team instead and to put beast on the team? You have just voided any logical explanation for not having Cyclops on the team. You truly sicken me. Also stop using the first movie's version of Mystique. Rebbecca was able to pull it off because she is extremely sexy but the truth is that its stupid looking, it was stupid looking then and its stupid looking now, but now you don't have an actress who can make it work, so it looks completely stupid. just make her blue and put some clothes on her so the film isn't rated R. Its not that hard. It worked for the green animal women in Star Trek it will work here too. Fools. And what the hell was with that stupid girl with dragonfly wings? You name her angel but that obviously isn't true, you give her a completely weak character type and then you expect us to care about her when she turns evil? no so much. And when the hell did she get flaming loogy powers? did I miss the email that came out before the film that explained "oh even though we're going to have an entire scene about the young mutants showing each other their abilities you the viewer should already know this power exists because she's not going to show it off until the end of the film so that we can have a flying projectile fight. Finally, I hope you film makers don't expect to explain how this movie can fit with wolverine origins can fit with the first three movies. You've painted yourself into a corner using Emma Frost in both movies and having Xavier standing in origins. Several of my friends still think you can explain it, but then again, several of my friends have IQ's that could almost rival that of a pigeon's (I'm saying they're stupid if you happen to have missed that).
Now we come to my big gripe of the film. and it is this:
and this:
I know this might sound a bit sexist but seriously, you couldn't find anyone better than January Jones? Come on guys, out of all the thousands of blond actresses that are already established and those that are up and coming she's what you give us for Emma Frost? At best Jones is a mediocre actress at worst she's boring and pathetic, and to compound on to her lack of acting abilities the only real resemblance she has to Emma is that she has blond hair. Jones is soft looking she has little to no curves what so ever, she has complete chicken legs and ok boobs. But this is Emma we're talking about, the rich mega snob who has gone under the knife and exercised to make herself practically perfect because her ego would accept nothing less. he has a tapered waist flaring hips semi muscular thighs and calves, a tight stomach and good sized implants. I mean they even say in the comics that Emma had a boob job and for this you give us Jones?! it worked in origins when you basically stated that she was 14, but in this movie you have no kind of excuse for why she looks like Twiggy (yes some of you will have to go look up who that is, go have fun). I absolutely do not understand what the higher ups are thinking lately. Especially when Thor has completely perfect casting. Which means I know its possible. You people just hate doing it for X-men movies I suppose.
Well my Cabernet is almost empty so I must bid the rest of you lovely socialites adieu. I hope that we may chat again soon. Perhaps over a game of Croquet.
Ciao.
~ Dr. Nerddenkaiser ~
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