Wednesday saw me and Mrs DMC head down to the local flicks for X Men First Class. Mrs MC has really gotten into the X Men films and in preparation watched the first three last week while I fell asleep on the couch. She was actually quite excited about seeing it and had loads of questions such as who was playing Magneto and Xavier, was Wolverine in it and how it tied into the other films.
When we left the cinema her verdict was "it was a good film but it's not my favourite. Not by a long shot" I told her Longshot wasn't in it but may turn up in the next one. She didn't understand.
The thing is, whilst it is a decent film it suffers from the typical Hollywood machine limitations of bad script written by too many people and characters are in there to sell toys.
I'm not an X Men genius. I know a bit, enough to get by but I hadn't the faintest who a lot of these people were. That they weren't even named or spoke confused the hell out of me. That they were messed about with so Scottish geneticists became American CIA agents, (bizarrely played by an Australian), English and Irish characters were whitewashed into bland Americans with no personality and of course the black guy dies first.
Nicholas Holt cannot maintain an accent in the film, but the whole Beast seems wrong, When did he have hands for feet, and when he transforms into the blue Beast, it's the worst make up I've seen in years. Rather than a blue lion-esque creature we get what looks like a fairground prize, more the cowardly lion than king of the beasts. Mystique's make up is equally bad, making an attractive woman look like a melting waxwork of Thora Birch.
Then there's Matthew Vaughan who can't decide if he's filming a superhero movie, Lock Stock or Oceans 11 as the visual style chops and changes around the place. from multi image montages to ariel battles to dodgy voice overs, it's all thrown into the mix and out comes a mess.
James MacAvoy is very annoying, constantly putting his finger to his temple, playing the most unconvincing drunk and enforcing a bad toff accent. I don't get where the writers came from with Charles, he's turned into some selfish drunk student with bad chat up lines and no compassion for anyone and the idea of me caring what happens to him as a viewer just goes out of the window.
There are good bits, the ariel battle is the most convincing human flight footage I've seen since Frank Spencer took flight Condorman. Rose Byrne and Michael Fassbender give excellent turns as Moira McTaggart and Magneto, and Kevin Bacon is excellent keeping the ham just this side of right as the villain but it's not enough to make what could have been a great film anything more than just 'good'.
One thing still confuses me however- when did the Polish Magneto start talking with an Irish accent?
When we left the cinema her verdict was "it was a good film but it's not my favourite. Not by a long shot" I told her Longshot wasn't in it but may turn up in the next one. She didn't understand.
The thing is, whilst it is a decent film it suffers from the typical Hollywood machine limitations of bad script written by too many people and characters are in there to sell toys.
I'm not an X Men genius. I know a bit, enough to get by but I hadn't the faintest who a lot of these people were. That they weren't even named or spoke confused the hell out of me. That they were messed about with so Scottish geneticists became American CIA agents, (bizarrely played by an Australian), English and Irish characters were whitewashed into bland Americans with no personality and of course the black guy dies first.
Nicholas Holt cannot maintain an accent in the film, but the whole Beast seems wrong, When did he have hands for feet, and when he transforms into the blue Beast, it's the worst make up I've seen in years. Rather than a blue lion-esque creature we get what looks like a fairground prize, more the cowardly lion than king of the beasts. Mystique's make up is equally bad, making an attractive woman look like a melting waxwork of Thora Birch.
Then there's Matthew Vaughan who can't decide if he's filming a superhero movie, Lock Stock or Oceans 11 as the visual style chops and changes around the place. from multi image montages to ariel battles to dodgy voice overs, it's all thrown into the mix and out comes a mess.
James MacAvoy is very annoying, constantly putting his finger to his temple, playing the most unconvincing drunk and enforcing a bad toff accent. I don't get where the writers came from with Charles, he's turned into some selfish drunk student with bad chat up lines and no compassion for anyone and the idea of me caring what happens to him as a viewer just goes out of the window.
There are good bits, the ariel battle is the most convincing human flight footage I've seen since Frank Spencer took flight Condorman. Rose Byrne and Michael Fassbender give excellent turns as Moira McTaggart and Magneto, and Kevin Bacon is excellent keeping the ham just this side of right as the villain but it's not enough to make what could have been a great film anything more than just 'good'.
One thing still confuses me however- when did the Polish Magneto start talking with an Irish accent?
1 witty repostes:
When they gave the role to a German.
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