X-Men
X2
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Plot Summary:
Based on the Marvel comic of the same name, X-Men and it's sequel show the plight of mutants with special powers who band together under the benevolent leadership of Professor X to fight against evil mutants and protect themselves against human society which has rejected them.
Opinion:
The X-Men movies are one of the only 'ensemble' comic books to make it to the big screen so far--assuming you don't count Batman AND Robin. Ensemble adventures bring with them inherent advantages and disadvantages. Solo comics tend to have a certain redundancy after a while-the single superhero has the same powers in issue after issue and tends to resolve conflicts the same way (in fact, most of the variety comes from the multitude of 'super-villains' with unique abilities that come along) A superhero team like the X-Men, though, contains a variety of powers and personalities and gives writers more leeway in creating stories--focusing on team adventures in some issues and personal adventures in others. Plus, there's more choices for 'favorites' leading to a potentially larger fan base. Readers who grew up in the early eighties probably remember the superhero ensemble "Justice League" cartoons where Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and a host of others formed a team to battle evil every Saturday morning--including my personal favorites, the Wonder Twins whom, you'll remember, had the amazing power to turn into other things...along with amazingly arbitrary restrictions such as something water-based ("Form of...
A GIANT ICICLE!")
The disadvantage to having a large group is, of course, it means there's a lot more people to develop and keep track of through the course of a series--which is manageable in a serial comic book that comes out every month, but much harder in a movie with only two hours to work with. The good news is the two X-Men movies do as good a job as you could reasonably expect, although naturally some characters get more screentime and development than others. Rogue gets a large part of the screen time in the first (and, not coincidently is one of the stronger characters), but doesn't have much to do in the second. Lady Deathstrike (Kelly Hu) has a lot of potential but suffers from 'Darth Maul' syndrome--a cool villain who doesn't really get to do much until an action scene at the very end.
Helping raise the quality of the X-Men movies is the acting talent--no C-list guys or gals here--including Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, Hugh Jackman, Anna Paquin, Bryan Cox, and others. McKellan, as Magneto, brings a certain 'gravity' to the role, which could have easily become cartoonish given the source material.
One of the reasons for the X-Men movies' success is the effort to integrate them into the 'real world'--not only provide a (somewhat) plausible reason for existing (genetic mutation), but also analyze how society would accept them. The scientific plausibility of mutants like the X-Men still has to be accepted with a great deal of suspension of disbelief--'comic book license', if you will. While it is theoretically possible for genetic mutations to allow humans to have advanced healing capability (Wolverine) or hardened skin (Colossus), a genetic mutation that allows you to...
control the weather? Um...no. (Not to mention that both Cyclops's and Mystique's powers quite casually violate the 'matter-and-energy cannot be created or destroyed' law of physics...but, hey, who's counting?)
No matter, the X-Men movies successfully integrate social and political issues and exciting action scenes together to form a package that's exciting to watch yet deeper and more thought-provoking than others of its comic-book ilk. Recommended to all.
Content Analysis: (1-1-3-0 / 1-1-4-0 on the Baron's scale respectively)
Both X-men movies have 'stylized action violence', which at times can be pretty brutal (for a PG-13 movie), but no better or worse than other comic-book movies from the last five years. The Wolverine/Lady Deathstrike fight at the end of X2 is the most brutal, although it's tempered by the fact that both of them are 'quick-healers'.
One issue that caused a bit of confusion: are Cyclops and Jane Grey married? Jane Grey has a line of dialogue in X2 that suggests they are, but at no other time in either movie were they described as 'husband/wife' even when they were both introduced to Wolverine in the beginning of X1 (where Cyclops uses "my girl" exclusively...seems to me "my wife" would have been very natural and proper to use there, if they
were married.) And since there are only a couple of weeks between the end of X1 and the beginning of X2, it's not likely that they happened to get married in the interim (plus, if that was the case, Cyclops just would have used "my fianc?" instead...)
Does this matter? Well, actually it does...because the whole tenor of the Wolverine/Jane Grey/Cyclops love triangle changes if Jane and Cyclops are married, versus just 'dating'. In the former situation, Wolverine then represents a 'home-wrecker'--a threat to an existing marriage--rather than just chasing after a girl who hasn't committed to anyone yet. Since Hollywood doesn't really care about the covenant of marriage--viewing it as something that can be entered into and broken as casually as changing clothes--I doubt anyone there thought seriously about it. The distinction, though, actually makes a big difference in how the romantic scenes and dialogue are interpreted, and if they
are married, becomes (yet another) subtle attack on marriage and the family.
In-depth Analysis:
The social divide between mutants and regular humans is one of the key issues raised by the X-men movies--discussing (lightly) how the two groups would co-exist and how they would be treated by law. The stories of the X-Men--including both movies--have been thinly veiled allegories where, depending on your interpretation, the mutants could symbolize the plight of McCarthy-era communists, Jews, Mormons, blacks, gays, or any group that at one time or another hasn't really fit into 'normal' society. Talk of 'registering' mutants, and public demagogues asking questions like 'Would you want a mutant teaching your children?' are most likely accurate representations of what would actually happen in a world with real mutants--or at least what the topics of discussion would be. Most prejudices against different groups are rooted in fear--which aren't always baseless (although often highly exaggerated). Communism was genuinely a threat to US interests in the mid-to-late 20th century, yet the witch hunts that arose because of it were caused by overreactions to that threat.
Regarding mutants in particular, though, you could argue that a certain amount of fear is warranted. Imagine you lived next door to someone whom you knew could teleport through walls (like Nightcrawler). Would you
ever feel safe in your home, knowing that no matter what you did, you wouldn't be able to stop him from entering your home any time he wanted to. Your fear and insecurity would be less about whether you knew him and thought he was the type of person who
would enter your home uninvited, than just the fact that he
could. Hanging around one or more mutants whom you knew could read your mind, for example, would also lead to a sense of insecurity. Again, it's not that you'd assume that someone with those kinds of special abilities are more likely to use it for mischievous or evil purposes, but you'd always have the fear that you'd be helpless in case they ever did. Comprehending the sense of vulnerability the majority of the population would feel if such mutant powers existed, makes it easier to comprehend why ideas like 'mutant registration' would be discussed and accepted. (Compare this idea to sex offender registration) Is there a solution? If you lived next door to Nightcrawler, for example, the only way to assuage your fear would be to get to know him and through regular contact come to an understanding that he really wouldn't be the sort of person who would be entering your house and stealing things. (Kind of like trusting a neighbor enough to give him/her your spare set of keys). The more you know him, the more you'd be willing to trust him. In this context, Professor Xavier has the right idea--train the mutants to be responsible and be good examples, and slowly gain the public's trust. (Also, you need to take care of the mutants who are bad examples...)
Let's discuss briefly how the X-Men movies tie into the gay-rights issue. While mutants can be compared to any number of 'oppressed minorities' in US history, the filmmakers had gays specifically in mind as the movies were being created. Ian McKellan (Magneto), who is gay, has stated so directly in interviews, and in fact helped create some of the gay-themed dialogue in the second movie. The most obvious scene comes in the middle of X2 where Bobby (Iceman) visits with his parents and tells them that he's a mutant.
"Have you tried
not being a mutant?" his mom asks awkwardly. The line is meant to (purposely) sound ridiculous, but in a sense Bobby's mom is asking the wrong question. What if she had asked, "Have you tried not
using your mutant powers?"--that's not quite so ridiculous a question anymore, is it? Bobby (unlike Rogue, for example) appears to have total control over when and how much his power is used at any given time. Bobby also, unlike other mutants, has a pretty normal appearance and could pass for a non-mutant if he wanted to. It's not a silly question to ask him if he could 'pretend' to be normal at least and not use his powers in public. (Ironically, this isn't that different in principle than the scene in the beginning when Professor X tells him, "The next time you feel like showing off in public...don't.") Whether he
should hide his powers or not isn't the question, just whether he
could.
In
Part 1 of my Reflections on Homosexuality essay, I discussed the difference between 'identity' and 'action' in regards to homosexuality. Accepting 'mutant' as a symbol for 'gay' then (using the filmmakers' philosophy) we could rephrase Bobby's mom's question as "Have you tried
not being attracted to men?", which refers to one's identity and is somewhat ridiculous, while "Could you perhaps not
have sex with men, even though you might want to?"--which relates to 'action'--is not a silly question at all. By asking the wrong question, the movie shows its inherent bias, and doesn't do much to resolve the vast divide in understanding and communication between the gay and non-gay communities.
There's good and bad in interpreting 'mutants' as directly symbolic of gays, anyway. 'Homophobia' is a over-used clich? used by many to characterize anyone who doesn't accept any aspect of the pro-gay agenda, but by showing a group of people who can legitimately inspire fear (mutants) this can expose the idea of 'fearing' homosexuals as being pretty silly. (One group can do things like shoot lasers out of their eyes and call down lightning from the sky, and the other...well, they date people of the same gender...
scary!)
However, I would warn the gay community against accepting the 'mutant' comparison too heavily, though. Notice that throughout both X-Men movies, the dialogue refers repeatedly to 'humans' and 'mutants', as if mutants were already 'non-human'--an entirely different species. While this may be somewhat accurate for the mutants in the movies given their distinct genetic differences (although every mutant is different from every other mutant which doesn't follow the definition of a 'species'), I'm not sure gays want to accept a representation which basically says they are 'non-human' given the main goal of the gay community so far has not been
separation from human society, but more
acceptance into it.
Random Notes and Comments:
(1) Mystique and Nightcrawler are related in the comics (mother-son), although not in the movies (which you might wonder about since they have very similar blue skin).
(2) Okay...explain this to me: Mystique is able to copy people in such detail that even the fingerprints match, yet Stryker is able to look once at Mystique copying Wolverine and know that it's not Wolverine... Can you say 'plot contrivance'?
