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Monday, 06 June 2011 13:59

X-MEN FIRST CLASS and the art of the reboot

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xmen 1st classSummer equals heat (although less and less these days), fun lazy weekend afternoons and movies... Yes folks, summer movies. This is the time us writers see the plethora of super - mega - spectacular movies Hollywood throws at us to sustain their bloated budgets for the year. And every year we earnestly wait to see what our, sometimes envied and more successful brothers of the trade, have typed in their Macs for us to see, enjoy, pick apart or just gasp at the gall they have.

Studios, ever hungrier to get more and more cash from the dwindling movie audience, are pushing summer blockbusters earlier and earlier. "Thor" was the first salvo and the memorial weekend is the initiating battle.

Our subject for today is the well-used trend of the "reboot". For those a bit new to the term it means they're re-starting a series or franchise with a frensh new story. Why? Because Hollywood being a bit of a scary-Mary, when it comes to losing money, has been for the last year on a "sure bet" auto pilot when it comes to productions. Also not helping the matter is that the 78% of the movie going public are teens and young adults therefore comic book stories and action movies with loud colors, lots of action and few words are what these young beings digest the most. But anything that has shown previous success will get it's fair shot. But when the public says enought of ROCKY 16, PIRATES 13,  FAST and FURIOUS 9 and many others what is a lowly studio exec to do? The answer :  " Lets feed them the same story but with a new spoon! "   "Brilliant, J.D.!"  (mutters the side kick accountant.)

And hence the new trend of "rebooting" a franchise. So how do you re-boot a franchise? First you want the story to be relatable to your audience (in this case teens). So do you want a story with a bunch of 40 year olds (acting like they are in their 30's) or do you bring the characters age down a bit? Of course you bring down the age! Then you create a new story with a similar vibe but to fit the new characters wants, anxieties and problems.  It's like making a "diet" hot dog, it looks like the old hot dog but with less fat.

So we come to our first example,  X MEN : First class. For all those familiar with the X-Men franchise it started nice with Brian Singers version, then X2 did a decent job the it completely dropped the bomb with Bret "partyboy" Ratner's version called X3 and it then was completely humiliated with WOLVERINE. So they needed to rebirth this money maker and thus choosing an "origins" style movie.

Now I don't envy any writer the job of doing one of these (well maybe the paycheck) since it's very hard to come with something completely original. The writers for X-Men First Class did benefit with two major talents that made this movie swim : James McAvoy and Michael Fastbender, two very good english actors that know how to turn bad cheese into sensible cocktail bites.

The story starts very much like Singers first version with the origins of Magneto  (they even use a similar scene ) and we see a week conflicted child with strange powers he doesn't know how to use and who is at the mercy of a Nazi doctor who wishes to control it. We also see a young Professor Xavier who meets a very young Raven Darkholme (Mystique) and they become close.

Now jump 20 years later and both men are using their powers (unknown to those around them) for their own purposes. Xavier to further his studies and Magneto to further his revenge on his and his families captors. Here is a very interesting principal of the opposing forces at work in the story. While these men will soon come together they embody  the powers of good, through Xavier and that of evil in Magneto (although we can say Magneto's purpose is more hate than evil). We see the tendencies of these two major characters take their own paths, come together, disagree and separate in a fashion that will create a balance of sense to future stories.

The story is well crafted in the sense that these characters can come to meet and work in a believable fashion, which sometimes in superhero movies, the writers make viewers take a leap of faith for some of the characters actions since they think we'll believe it because they're "super" . In X-Men First Class the writers have more respect for us and ease us with some minor exposition but so well crafted that one believes it... and one does because the characters themselves believe it. Again much credit to McAvoy and Fastbender for their very good deliveries of lines that in lesser actors would have been a cheese fest. But I'm also amazed that with the amount of writers this project had, how could they let the story breakdown to a halt when the newly X-members (teens recruited by Xavier, when mutants are still in hiding) have small frat style party?... Again I would expect a little bit more from 7 writers and Singer (who has a "story by" credit ), but again  this is Hollywood and everyone puts their hands in the story pie.

Now the main counter force you always need is a great villain, in this case a "super villain" whom they weakly cast in Kevin Bacon, yes footloose guy isn't the most menacing guy in the planet but he plays his role well (kudos to Bacon's language training - unless they dubbed it which probably was the case) but again I think that the trick of movie surviving a so-so villain is that the main villain was hiding in plain sight and looking straight at us... and it was brilliant! Like most of these super hero movies many of the opposing band of baddies are just cardboard henchmen for the main bad guy to order and scheme around only that these can do cool stuff. Sadly they are all wasted. January Jones as Frost was a big disappointment. For some reason she showed up to work but if they would have placed a mannequin it would have done the same job.

As far as an origin story it is nicely done with some very solid action and FX scenes worthy of the other X-Men movies. Being set in the 1960's also gave a certain edge of coolness that helped with these things. One regret is the make up use on a certain blue character that looks out of place on such a big budgeted movie. These are the times CGI can help an actor emote without looking like he has 2 pounds of cake on his face.

In all I give X-Men First class a solid review. Not excellent but not mediocre either. A good fun at the movies and certainly worthy of this summers praise.

But beware people, the trend of making every known character young is no where is sight of stopping. We are going to have a young Lone Ranger next year, also a very young Tarzan and maybe a teen Charlie Chan... so what will they think of next?... A young George Washington action movie????

 

Read 1756 times Last modified on Wednesday, 05 August 2015 16:16
Published in Front Page Item - old
Mark Sevi

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