08 Oct X2: X-Men United (2003)

Utterly Pedestrian

I have enthusiastic hopes for big budget action pictures. That’s because the market is so crowded, and the viewing public so visually sophisticated that we know that some thought must go into these things. This is especially so when you are building a franchise, because memories fade. In fact, this movie will probably be forgotten two weeks after the Matrix sequel appears.

But on the other hand, sometimes these projects are so costly, and have such a large distributed creative team that risk drives the thing to the ordinary. In contrast, ‘Daredevil’ was pretty cinematic. The second Harry Potter was a landmark in architectural use of space. The Donners have a reputation for having a deep understanding of how film works and how to intelligently exploit it. So I expected at least a few things excellent.

We DO get movement. We DO have one fight sequence that is well crafted – aptly between the two combatants that are uniquely enhanced by technology. But the sets are amazingly, shockingly, scandalously unimaginative. The little soap opera is predictable and trivial enough – a Marvel legacy. The characters are generally flat. In the comic, they are – compared to other comics – human; here – compared to other film characters – cartoons. Huge Actman overacts hugely in a parody of Russell Crowe. Stewart does his continuing impression of what Shakespeare might do for TeeVee. For some reason the kids here are turned into, well, kids. The only mildly interesting characters are:

-Famke Janssen. She is a very limited actress, but all such professional lives find that one role that is perfect for them. Everything about her fits, especially compared to the other women who are somewhat less limited as actresses. That hair color is something. I wish there were a film hair technician website.

-Ian McKellan, who truly IS a Shakespearean of the British cast, which is to say he is a language rather than a facial/body technician. He molds words, fabricates them into weapons and throws them like the metal globules he steals from the guard’s blood. Watch this.

-Alan Cumming who makes a career out of comically annotating evil.

But these three just do their own thing without any relation to anyone else in the film or creating the film. In contrast, the Jason/girl combo is a pretty thrilling idea especially in the context of being the son of the mad scientist (whose science incidentally seems beyond what the Shakespereans could do). That girl is the creation of Stryker dad after the tradition of Forbidden Planet. Now think about that – and how she is dressed – a minute and the perversion becomes pretty rich and astonishing.

Posted in 2003

Rewatching this two decades later, the best I can say is that was better than the first in terms of the underlying cosmology. But the static nature of the camera is striking. It was required for the effects of the era, supplied by the now defunct Rhythm & Hues.

I have since become a fan of Hugh Jackman’s energy, but none of that is present here.

The sexualisation of the women mutants is thankfully more obnoxious in the current climate.

Posted in 2024

Ted’s Evaluation — 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

IMDB