Director: James Mangold
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen, Stephen Merchant
Have I Seen it Before: Mystifyingly, only once during its theatrical run. Here, I finally cracked open my blu-ray and experience the black-and-white cut, which has only improved the film. You really should only watch it that way from now on, in case you were wondering.
Did I Like It: When the X-Men movies started now... checks calendar...Oh, Christ...twenty years ago, I think we all agreed that the efforts* of Bryan Singer produced the best possible version of an X-Men movie. It downplayed the more impenetrable space opera elements and tried to take the more human elements of those stories and actually making a film out of them. Was the effort completely successful? No. Did the series proceed to vary wildly in quality and embrace those elements only fans would care about? Yes.
But, here? First of all, the trailer for the film may very well be one of the greatest trailers ever produced, but that’s hardly a fair yardstick by which to judge any feature. Plenty of absolutely forgettable films have managed to spark some kind of imagination from the ad department.
This film—the real, full meal of it—may not be the greatest thing ever, but is so lovingly crafted that I will have a truly difficult time coming up with any complaints about it. Stripping the characters of much of their strength, they are left to feel their way through the proceedings, and it is immediately clear that, best, they will only be marginally successful in their last mission to find some kind of peace. Any time a filmmaker can tell a tragic tale and still leave us with some shade of hope, that is a truly special thing, and the presence of the Marvel vanity card at the beginning of the proceedings should barely be mentioned.
That being said, it isn’t without its faults (I said it would be difficult to complaint, not impossible). As a native of Oklahoma, I don’t remember the mountains off in the distance, but it’s hard to view a film that only kind of has an awareness of one of its locations too harshly. That being said, too many times, a post-modern example of a genre can’t help but make their homage explicit. This movie has Shane (1953) oozing out of the scars left by its adamantium claws. One can feel that kinship, and it is no less powerful if one didn’t have any awareness of that previous film, or the western genre in general. Having the characters watch and then quote from the movie feels like a distraction. What is otherwise a visceral cinematic experience become briefly a movie about people watching movies, which isn’t nearly as fun.
*Is “effort” even the right word when it comes to the films of Bryan Singer? It’s only in the full light of day that we realize he was very nearly fired from almost every movie he helmed after Apt Pupil (1998). That knowledge probably makes X2: X-Men United (2003), with its near mutiny from the cast easier to watch now.