timepiececlock (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timepiececlock) wrote2009-05-01 09:24 pm
timepiececlock) wrote2009-05-01 09:24 pm
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My impression of the XMO:WOLVERINE movie
Well, now it's confirmed that elegant, pale brunettes are so Logan's type. That's not at all helping me get over my residual Rogue/Wolverine UST from the first three movies.
Generally, I liked it! It's not going to win any awards for brilliant film making, and it certainly doesn't have the ambition of Iron Man or the panache of the the first Spiderman movie. It's too predictable and cliched for that. However, I really don't mind cliche when it comes to superhero movies, and it's only predictable because we've already SEEN the next three movies and thus we know how it must end. It's very hard to surprise viewers in those circumstances.
Still, if you go in expecting a wonderfully explosive action movie that doesn't require much thought and delivers on the big "action" moments, this is a good one for you. Plus gratuitous shirtless muscle from Hugh Jackman! I mean, honestly, that man must be happy when his filming period ends and he's can get back down to Mostly Human Perfect Muscles instead of Unbelievable Deity Muscles.
Liev Schreiber was creepy and hairy and scary; excellent! Ryan Reynolds was...Ryan Reynolds. By which I mean that even though he was a sociopathic murderer, I loved every minute of him being on screen and I kinda wish they'd given him an entire movie to himself. Himself and his wondrous torso! When I found out he'd be in this movie, my desire to see it was doubled, and I'm glad that they brought his character back as Deadpool at the end, even if he was barely recognizable. Now I'm wondering why, if he's so indestructible and ruthless and perfectly violent, he gets to survive. Surely he's going to suffer the god-mode plot fallacy? Ah well, that's for future movies! At least now I'll know who/what Deadpool is when people mention him.
ETA: I saw the Deadpool tag where his sword arm emerges from the rubble and his eyes open. I hear there are others?
Feminist Sidebar!
Was the woman in this movie "refrigerated" or was the trope subverted? I almost feel like it was subverted, because it was overtaken instead by a different trope: the honeytrap cliche, where the woman is a seducer/betrayer/hunter who prays on the delicate feelings of men and causes them to lose their humanity.
Even though she died, I still don't think it counts as a "women in refrigerators" thing, because when she *did* die, it didn't serve Logan's characterization at all. He wasn't there for her being shot, and he was distracted for the whole period where she passed away. When he woke up again, he had no idea who she was and her death meant nothing more to him than any other person's death. I suppose you could say this is the final erasure of her character after serving the plot point of luring him to the island, but since she was shot while rescuing her sister and the other captives, and then apparently had the strength to make her way to Logan's location, I don't think she lacked efficacy in her final moments. She didn't die for the man, she died because of the rescue, and her last conversation with Striker wasn't about Logan, it was about all mutants. Her death and her final actions were about herself, her sister, and all the mutants involved (including but not limited to Logan.)
Thoughts?
By the way, potential viewers: THERE ARE TWO END-CREDIT SCENE TAGS! So definitely stick around. The first one is very quick, but the second doesn't play until after the final credits roll. You'll want to stay and see it.
Generally, I liked it! It's not going to win any awards for brilliant film making, and it certainly doesn't have the ambition of Iron Man or the panache of the the first Spiderman movie. It's too predictable and cliched for that. However, I really don't mind cliche when it comes to superhero movies, and it's only predictable because we've already SEEN the next three movies and thus we know how it must end. It's very hard to surprise viewers in those circumstances.
Still, if you go in expecting a wonderfully explosive action movie that doesn't require much thought and delivers on the big "action" moments, this is a good one for you. Plus gratuitous shirtless muscle from Hugh Jackman! I mean, honestly, that man must be happy when his filming period ends and he's can get back down to Mostly Human Perfect Muscles instead of Unbelievable Deity Muscles.
Liev Schreiber was creepy and hairy and scary; excellent! Ryan Reynolds was...Ryan Reynolds. By which I mean that even though he was a sociopathic murderer, I loved every minute of him being on screen and I kinda wish they'd given him an entire movie to himself. Himself and his wondrous torso! When I found out he'd be in this movie, my desire to see it was doubled, and I'm glad that they brought his character back as Deadpool at the end, even if he was barely recognizable. Now I'm wondering why, if he's so indestructible and ruthless and perfectly violent, he gets to survive. Surely he's going to suffer the god-mode plot fallacy? Ah well, that's for future movies! At least now I'll know who/what Deadpool is when people mention him.
ETA: I saw the Deadpool tag where his sword arm emerges from the rubble and his eyes open. I hear there are others?
Feminist Sidebar!
Was the woman in this movie "refrigerated" or was the trope subverted? I almost feel like it was subverted, because it was overtaken instead by a different trope: the honeytrap cliche, where the woman is a seducer/betrayer/hunter who prays on the delicate feelings of men and causes them to lose their humanity.
Even though she died, I still don't think it counts as a "women in refrigerators" thing, because when she *did* die, it didn't serve Logan's characterization at all. He wasn't there for her being shot, and he was distracted for the whole period where she passed away. When he woke up again, he had no idea who she was and her death meant nothing more to him than any other person's death. I suppose you could say this is the final erasure of her character after serving the plot point of luring him to the island, but since she was shot while rescuing her sister and the other captives, and then apparently had the strength to make her way to Logan's location, I don't think she lacked efficacy in her final moments. She didn't die for the man, she died because of the rescue, and her last conversation with Striker wasn't about Logan, it was about all mutants. Her death and her final actions were about herself, her sister, and all the mutants involved (including but not limited to Logan.)
Thoughts?
By the way, potential viewers: THERE ARE TWO END-CREDIT SCENE TAGS! So definitely stick around. The first one is very quick, but the second doesn't play until after the final credits roll. You'll want to stay and see it.
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Hey, I missed something. At what point did his name change from Jimmy to Logan? Because Striker called him Logan, but Victor always called him James/Jimmy, even in front of striker. Unless his name was James Logan?
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Especially for Silver Fox/Kayla Silverfox, whom they gave the first name "Kayla," which she apparently didn't even have in the comics. (Kinda like how X-Movie 1 gave the first name "Marie" to Rogue, who'd never had a first name before; I believe she's been given the name Marie in the comics since then.) So in the movie half the people are calling the lady Kayla and half are calling her Silver Fox and they never explain the discrepancy.
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Yes. The fundamentals are important with stuff like this. Also, someone somewhere (you? other LJ) pointed out how ridiculous it was that none of the mutants Logan rescued remembered him when he showed up as an amnesiac at the school, which bothered me too.
I don't even remember hearing them say Silver Fox in the movie, but there was a lot of noise in that movie so it's likely I just missed it.
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RYAN REYNOLDSstart-of-the-movie Wade Wilson in a mask: deadly deranged killer AND adorkable loser geek, with bonus regular fourth-wall-breaking. The Deadpool guy at the end (who was played by a different actor!) is a bundle of WTF to me, and I am going to do lalala away his existence quite happily as long as I get a snarky Ryan Reynolds DP in a sequel.I am having unresolved thinkythoughts about Silverfox's death myself, and I'm not really sure which direction it worked if any. I think she was a flat-out honeytrap-turned-refrigeratored-woman in the comics; was this an attempt to not fuck with Classic Plot ZOMG while trying to downplay the bad taste of the original? I don't know how subverted tropes can be when all the female and minority major characters are wicked cool but still all end up evil and/or dead.
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lalala away his existence quite happily as long as I get a snarky Ryan Reynolds DP in a sequel.
Me too, me too! Oh, me too. I geek over RR as much as I geek over Ewan McGregor or Hugh Jackman or NPH. I will be sad, though, if Ryan Reynold's pretty face is all torn up next movie!
BTW, what was DP's original superpower? Was it speed? And what about the gun guy...what was his superpower?
Silverfox...I never thought she'd have a code name, but I guess it makes sense.
I don't know how subverted tropes can be when all the female and minority major characters are wicked cool but still all end up evil and/or dead.
Indeed. I thought Emma Frost would be a much more significant character based on the promos for the series, but she was tiny here. I guess they didn't want to ruin the backstory spoilers for the uninitiated like myself. They were the only two women in the whole movie, really, so it's sad that the only one with significant speaking parts died...
...I'm going to assume that BlondDoctor got out fine! She had dialogue, she lived; that's something. I also thought it was pretty amazing they had an Asian character who had more than one or two lines; too bad he died too.
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Gun Guy / Agent Zero in the comics was a trained marksman but his superpower was to, like, absorb energy if you hit him hard or whatnot. I don't know that much about him, but it looks like the movie changed him to have shooting as his superpower instead. Also to be a both Evil and Dead Asian. Way to go, Hollywood racial sensitivity!
Wade Wilson is hardcore-trained with guns and swords and stuff, but he didn't have original superpowers. He wasn't even a mutant! Long backstory short, he was a human mercenary who agreed to be part of the Weapon X project so he could be infused with Wolverine's healing factor, because he was dying of cancer. So now he's got a healing factor to keep his cancer in check that's probably even better than Wolverine's (decapitation? just a flesh wound!), and I think makes him faster just because he heals more easily, but--DRAMATIC IRONY!!1!--it grotesquely disfigured his skin and addled his brain with like the world's worst super-ADHD poor impulse control.
There's like a running gag with Deadpool running into the X-Men and being all, "Ah, [names of X-Men here], how are you, my fellow mutant chums!" "YOU'RE NOT A MUTANT, DEADPOOL!" "Yes, how fondly I remember my days spent at Xavier's school kicking ass with my fellow X-Men for poor misunderstood mutants everywhere..." "YOU'RE NOT A X-MAN, DEADPOOL!"
So RR will not be a bishonen in future movies, sorry! Though they have already prettied movie!DP up some already. I really really hope that future movies ditch the other godmoddy superpowers they gave Deadpool in the future for just the healing factor again, because he's unkillable but certainly not unbeatable, and above all hilariawesome. He's a trickster like the evil lovechild of Coyote and Bugs Bunny, totally badass and totally fallible. Later this week I am going to pimp some of his comics, which you should give a shot.
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There's like a running gag with Deadpool running into the X-Men and being all, "Ah, [names of X-Men here], how are you, my fellow mutant chums!" "YOU'RE NOT A MUTANT, DEADPOOL!" "Yes, how fondly I remember my days spent at Xavier's school kicking ass with my fellow X-Men for poor misunderstood mutants everywhere..." "YOU'RE NOT A X-MAN, DEADPOOL!"
Heh. Sounds fun. Though I wonder what the distinction is? I can see how Spiderman and Iron Man aren't mutants, because Spiderman is an accident of laser & radiation magic science, not a result of having the mutant gene. But wasn't Deadpool infused with the mutant gene? So isn't he now a mutant, even if he wasn't born one?
All this thinking about Wolverine and mutants and stuff this week put me in mind of the Heroes tv show, which is so horrifically bad that when I do occasionally think about it I'm trying to think of ways to make it less bad. And while watching Wolverine I kept thinking back to Claire's character, who is basically got the same instant healing thing (though she re-grows missing toes, so I don't know what she'd do if she lost her head.) She doesn't have the claws though... but if everyone and their aunt in Marvel has an instant healing factor and not much else (according to the wiki of silverfox you linked, that's her power too), then Claire would fit right in.
It also makes me think about scenarios where everything would be made more awesome if Buffy were involved. Like, I'd love to see Buffy and an army of Vampire Slayers just drop into the Wolverine movie, or anything X-Men, and say "Hey, we got this." And the traditional superheroes would be all "What? Who are you? I am Super Strong Person with Super Invulnerability and Super Speed and Super Eyesight and Super Psychic Powers and who the hell are you to think we should bother?"
And she'd be like, "I'm Buffy Summers. Hi."
"That's not a very impressive name."
"Well if you want to get technical, it's Vampire Slayer, the. Look it up when we're done here." And then the Slayer Army beats the shit out of everyone.
It's not very realistic as crossovers go, but every girl's gotta dream.
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