Doom and Doomer: X-Men: First Class

DOOM DELUISE: This past weekend, X-Men: First Class came out, and the two of us went and saw it together on Sunday. Immediately after leaving the theatre, what were some of your initial impressions, as far as what worked, what things you enjoyed, and what you felt came up short?

DOOM, WHERE’S MY CAR?: Well, overall I’d say it was a good movie, very enjoyable, but a bit too long.

DD: It clocks in at 132 minutes, for the record.

DWMC: I loved the casting of Magneto, and Professor X was good too.

See, my internal clock put it at forever long, so that’s interesting.

I loved the first hour, but as we moved away from Magneto’s revenge story and got swept up in the scope of history, it began to feel a bit muddled.

What about you?

DD: I agree that the Magneto revenge story is easily the best part of the movie, especially that scene in the bar in Argentina.

DWMC: God, yes. That was awesome.

Even before he went super bad-ass on those Nazis, just the dialogue and suspense leading up to it was amazing.

And the scene in the bank too.

DD: Agreed. As for your second point, that the movie becomes muddled once it starts getting swept up in history, I think that’s a very good point. Do you think anything was added to the story, necessarily, by having the climax take place around the Cuban Missile Crisis, or was that just an all-around bad idea?

That’s called a leading question, by the way.

DWMC: Well, we talked about this before.

DD: Yeah, on the porch. So how about you talk about it again so we can put it in our review.

DWMC: Can’t you just go back to the porch security footage and transcribe what we said?

Or, wait…I’m the only one who knows about that. Nevermind. And ignore that flashing light above the toilet.

But I will say that this is the first movie to make me think that the people who want to limit Mutant Rights might have a point.

One mutant almost causes WWIII and some other mutants avoid it. All in all, we break even, but it seems like the world would have been a better place if mutants didn’t exist at all.

It’s basically saying that Cold War tensions would have died down on their own if not for mutants constantly aggravating the problem.

DD: You can say the same thing for just about every X-Men story-arc ever told. In the first X-Men, Magneto was planning on turning all of the world’s leaders into mutants, a process that he didn’t realize was fatal. In the end, the X-Men thwarted his plot, but, again, we break even after some mutants tried to kill everybody and some other ones stopped them.

DWMC: Yeah, now in Superman you could say that General Zod comes to Earth and Superman stops him and it’s the same sort of thing, but somehow it feels different, perhaps because Superman movies never raise the question of whether these people are too powerful to be allowed to exist.

DD: Right, but that’s the argument of the xenophobes in the X-Men universe. The whole point in these movies, and by extension, the comics, is that mutants are here. They’re born this way. They’re not going anywhere. Just because a few of them are rotten and want to kill humans doesn’t mean that we should give into the idea of genocide.

Or even registration, if we don’t take it to its extreme.

DWMC: What about forced de-mutantizing of them?

Let me amend this to say that I’m on the side of equal rights almost all of the time and have been regarding the X-Men always, up until this movie.

DD: I think I see your point. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re saying the big difference between an X-Man or, say, any other minority group is that other minority groups don’t have the power to manipulate minds and set off a nuclear explosion with a wave of their hand. To that end, I think you’re right, and that’s where the sort of racism allegory loses some of its punch.

DWMC: Well, you’re forgetting about Chinese people, but you’re mostly right.

What I really want to talk about is Magneto being an allegory for Zionists.

DD: Please explain.

DWMC: Here we have a concentration camp survivor who repeats the mantra, “Never again.”

Which is a Zionist argument for the need for Israel.

Which, I love Israel, don’t get me wrong.

DD: We all love Israel.

DWMC: I’d love the country more if they’d rebuild that dog-gone temple so we could get the apocalypse underway finally. But here, you can read Magneto as a Zionist who wants not only to create a safe haven for his beleaguered people, but to actively diminish the rights of people he sees as persecutors.

So, he’s gone from underdog to villain, which I think Palestinians would say is a metamorphoses that Zionists underwent.

Once again, not a political statement, just throwing out a few different lenses to use while watching the story. To that end, Xavier would probably be America. Russia would be Russia. Emma Frost is Golda Meier ummmm… Kevin Bacon is Hitler’s Ghost.

Maybe this allegory doesn’t work so well afterall.

DD: Moving on, what did you think of the kids in the movie? There’s Havok, Banshee, Darwin, and Angel. What did you think of them?

DWMC: I thought Angel should be called Pixie. She’s got pixie wings, not angel wings. That just annoyed me.

DD: I was annoyed by all the kids. I thought Banshee was annoying and reminded me of that red headed kid in the Harry Pottery movies. I thought Darwin was kind of cool (that’s right, I’m going to switch tenses a lot, because I don’t care), but then they completely went against his character when he was murdered. His whole power is that HE CAN’T DIE. HE EVOLVES TO SURVIVE. That really annoyed me. Havok was kind of cool, but he didn’t get a lot of screen time.

DWMC: Yeah, Darwin seemed cool, but his death was pretty lame. I hated that scene in its entirety.

Get out there and fight. I know, they eventually try and then they’re pushed back into the room, but when you’re looking out of a big window and seeing a mutant killing tons of dudes, and when you’re Havok, you don’t just stand there, you shoot your energy beams wildly.

DD: I forgot to mention Mystique, mostly because I never got the feeling that she was a part of that group, even though she clearly was. I really liked the actress that played her, and I loved the cameo of Rebecca Romijn, cuz that woman is hot as hell.

DWMC: Banshee didn’t bother me much. He was kind of forgettable.

DD: I think they were all kind of forgettable.

DWMC: However, when Pixie shot his glider arm, how did he continue to fly so well?

DD: The problem is that they didn’t pick very dynamic characters to begin with.

DWMC: Who was in the first class roster in the comics?

DD: Angel, Beast (oh I forgot Beast – – that kid was awkward!), Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Storm.

DWMC: I liked Beast, but I like the scientist character type; however, he kept insisting that using the serum wouldn’t take away their powers and would only make them look normal, and it appeared as if his foot deformity was the source of his power.

I mean, hanging upside down was his power. Can’t do that with normal feet.

DD: And Mystique’s power is that she looks funny. Can’t do that without looking funny.

DWMC: Exactly. I mean, if they’d given the serum to Banshee would he have lost his paleness? That granted him his Irish powers.

DD: I think that whole subplot didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

DWMC: And it was an issue that was dealt with heavily in X-3. So, here’s this movie that’s already pretty bloated and they decide to throw in yet another big theme. That whole naming scene was pretty stupid.

DD: Yeah, I was really hoping that it would go back to being a little more focused after the bloated trainwreck that was X3, which they totally did with the various character studies in the first half, but once it moved past that, it lost a lot of its charm.

DWMC: I seriously doubt that Banshee would have suggested Banshee for his own name.

I mean, if he’s familiar with the wailing spirit of Irish lore, it’s specifically a female wailing spirit.

DD: Yeah, the whole “giving themselves nicknames” scene was pretty damn forced.

DWMC: Also, how does his sound power give him sonar capabilities? He doesn’t have special bat ears.

DD: No, that was a team move, with him providing the noise and Professor X sensing the submarine’s position.

DWMC: Meh.

DD: Ok, let’s wrap this up. Final thoughts?

DWMC: We can do better and should try this again.