X-MEN: FIRST CLASS - Grading+Discussion **SPOILERS!**

I still would have preferred Alice Eve as Emma Frost as originally intended but January Jones was fine.

 

I'm sure you'll get over it.

 

I judged Jones' performance based on the role of her character and the way she played off of Bacon; to me, their relationship was a nice echo of the relationship in Singer's first two X-Men films between Erik and Raven/Mystique, and I thought she even channeled Rebecca Romjiin in a few places, which was neat. I also liked the way Jones played her scenes with the Russian general and Col. Hendry.

 

From what I've heard, I still have a few days here, she doesn't play the role at all like how Emma is supposed to be.

 

I never said it wasn't about that. I was simply agreeing that that's what an X-Men movie should be about.

She doesn't play the role at all. She acts like a robot trying to read a script.

 

That's how she is in Mad Men too.

Well at least I have some good things to expect.

 

Here here turtle and Craig! The issues and dimensions here did it for me.

Found this snippet that shows what Fassbender thinks of all the Cs and Ds


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsD7n_T2pwU

http://youtu.be/CsD7n_T2pwU

Dangit why won't it embed?

 

[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsD7n_T2pwU[/YT]

[YT]http://youtube.com/CsD7n_T2pwU[\YT]

Hmmm yeah I dunno, recopy and paste the link

 

Thanks OWS! Some sites you can just cut and paste the address and other you need to use the share link to embed. Others do it automatically whichever. A lot of forums are being wonky today too. The MFO site was crashed by 200,000 hits. I hope that was excitement and not trolling.

 

I saw the movies this morning and loved it. I get a kick out of it when movies but a sci-fi or fantasy twist on real world events and I though they did a great job of that with all of the Cuban Missile Crisis stuff. I do agree that Bacon, Fassbender (who really would make an amazing Bond), McAvoy, and Lawrence were the highlights of the movie, but I still thought the rest of the cast did a pretty solid job, even Jones. She wasn't amazing or anything, but I didn't see where her performance was as bad as some people think.
As for the people critizing it for not being a civil rights allegory, I have to disagree that an X-Men story has to be about the civil rights specifically. To me, X-Men is just about learning to accept differences of any and all types, and IMO this movie did a great job of dealing with that kind of a message through the arcs of Raven, and Henry.
I'm kinda shocked by the people who seem to have hated the movies so strongly, I can understand not thinking it was amazing, but it was just such a well done movie that I'm shocked to hear people react so negatively.

 

I don't think this film is meant to be a Civil Rights Allegory. I know the cast and crew referenced it a lot, but I took that as more of where they felt the diverging X and Magneto thought from and where they were going. A Sequel dealing full on with the Movement would be sweet!

My rather long review is here:

http://ithinkthereforeireview.blogspot.com/2011/06/x-men-first-class.html

 

nice review. i also enjoyed your Dark Shadows collection 11 review.

 

That was quick Shin! Didn't know anyone was reading the Dark Shadows fun!

 

I have to say that my take was exactly like RoJo's. And, I have thought about your point, too, HoneyBLilly. You're definitely right, she is stiff and robotic often times in Mad Men. But, for some reason there it doesn't bother me nearly as much, especially in the more recent ep's. It's seems that they may have started writing Betty Draper to be more of an "ice queen"/bitch, so it plays a little better (to me, anyway.)

But here, yeah, to me I just kept feeling like she was almost reading cue cards or something. For instance ...,

Spoiler: MINOR SPOILER

...I loved the scene where she's in the isolation room and steps up the two way mirror and cuts the hole ... until she "reads" her lines. The lines were good, but the delivery left me flat.

And, I promise, I don't mean to beat a dead horse. Just trying to clarify.

 

I believe the comic books first took on a sort of Civil Rights tone, but the more recent movies seem to have taken on a tone of being about homosexuality rights than rights for minorities or women.

For example, Magneto tells Mystique that she's working too hard to hide who she "really is" and she needs to be herself. Pretty much a clear allegory to gay people working too hard to stay in the closet when they shouldn't have too.

This similarity is perhaps most clear in the second X-Men movie when Iceman's mother says to him, "Have you tried not being a mutant?"

And, of course, Bryan Singer himself is gay so it would seem to follow the X-Men movies under his watch would take on such a tone.

 

"You didn't ask, I didn't tell."

 

I think the Malcolm X comparisons in the earlier movies were somewhat overblown anyway. I mean, Magneto tried to kill all of non-mutant humanity at the end of X2. I don't know an awful lot about Malcolm but he wouldn't have advocated all non-black people or all white people.

 

I feel the same way when folks take film critques and make it personal.

While Malcolm was was the spokesman for the Nation Of Islam under the influence of Elijah Muhammad, this was the path he was on. They believed Blacks were superior and White were a bane to society. If they couldn't get rid of Whites, then seperate but equal was the only other course of action. Had he not travelled to Mecca and learn the true teachings of the Nation of Islam he very well could have. Due to him learning the truth about Islam, it was the reason he was assassinated by Elijah Muhammed.

 

How dare you.

 

It works better with a back handed pimp slap.