Dear Fox Studios/20th Century Fox: I get that Wolverine is a popular, marketable character. But can we please have an X-Men movie that doesn’t manage to feature him in some way?
Let’s rewind. I should start off by admitting that “X-Men: Days of Future Past” is an enjoyable movie. If I hadn’t seen any of the previous X-movies, if I hadn’t seen the Wolverine movies, if I wasn’t already a fan of comics at large and familiar with the classic comic-book storyline this movie is based upon…I might even have said DoFP is an excellent movie!
But, in direct contrast and opposition to the more outspoken fanboys: it isn’t. An excellent movie, that is.
It’s a decent, enjoyable movie. But far from excellent.
I can see the torches being lit and pitchforks being hefted. Relax, folks; breathe in, breathe out. There, feel better? Remember, I am saying it’s a decent flick. What I’m also saying is that it is far from being “OMG the best X-men movie EVER!!”
First, the basic plot for those who don’t know. DoFP is (loosely!) based on the comic book storyline by the same name. The premise is this: America starts to fear the “mutant threat”, and so authorizes a deterrent program to build robotic Sentinels, guardians of homo sapien whose purpose is to identify, track down and eliminate…well, mutants. Fast forward some decades into the future; the Sentinels have taken their mandate to a higher level, enslaving humanity and turning the planet into a dystopian, Terminator-like existence. The last holdouts – the X-Men – have found a way to send someone’s mind back in time to their younger self. That self-possession will allow our intrepid hero to Change The Course of History™, and by ensuring that certain events do not come to pass make the future a happier place for both homo sapien, and homo superior. Enter: the Wolverine.
Now let’s get my obvious concerns out of the way. I emphasize that the movie is loosely based on the comic, because other than what you’ve read above it bears little to no resemblance to the comics. The main protagonist in the comic is not Logan, but is instead Kitty Pryde, aka Shadowcat. This is really a core shift in focus, as it obviously changes the tone of the rest of the story – from that of an overly-physical brute of a man bulldozing his way through everyone, to a determined young woman who has to convince her younger teammates of an upcoming disastrous future, and get them to act on it. There are so many more changes done in the film associated with this: the inclusion of Bishop, the inexplicable granting of new powers to Kitty as a consolation prize, and the overall shift in timeline from the comic’s late 80s present/2013 future, to the movie’s early 70s present/2000 future. Not to mention (but I will anyway) issues from this movie’s prequel, ensuring that Alex Summers (Havok) couldn’t possibly be Scott Summer’s (Cyclops) younger brother, nor is it likely (although still possible) that Nightcrawler is the son of Azazel and Raven (spoiler: Azzie is dead in the 70s). Comic discontinuity.
But I’m not going to complain (further) about that. My issue here is focused with the cinematic timeline of events that Fox themselves have crafted, all coming to a head in DoFP. To make my point I need to start not with DoFP, but with an earlier movie: The Wolverine.
Question: are post-credit scenes in a movie considered “canon” to that cinematic storyline? It would make sense that this answer is “yes”, correct? I’m going to assume this is so, or what is the point of them? And this becomes an issue I’ll raise later, because if the answer is “no” for one movie it certainly can’t be “yes” for another, not in the same timeline in the same cinematic universe. So: we’re going with “yes” across the board. Canon it is!
**** WARNING! DANGER WILL ROBINSON, DANGER! ****
The following is filled to the fucking brim with spoilers. And I curse a lot, because I’m frustrated with you lot. If you don’t want to read spoilers STOP RIGHT HERE and go no further. Don’t bitch to me that I spoiled the movie for you; why would you be reading something entitled “movie review” otherwise? Dumbasses. The rest of you? Carry on!
At the end of The Wolverine – set in our present day, 2013-ish, Logan is confronted by Old Mags and Old Xavier in the airport. This scene is important to highlight because:
- in that movie, he lost his adamantium claws; they regrew back as his natural bone, sans metal coating, as shown in the post-cred;
- just prior to Magneto’s appearance, a television promo for Trask Industries, “keeping you safe” appears on a screen;
- Maggie tells Logan there’s a threat coming, that “human forces are building a weapon that can bring about the end of our kind”;
- Both Magneto and Xavier have full power levels. Presumably anyway, judging by the power feats they pull off in this scene.
All caught up? Great! Let’s jump ahead to DoFP! Here are some quick timeline complaints:
- Why does Wolverine now have adamantium claws again? Why? He can’t grow adamantium. A special liquid version of it was grafted onto his skeleton. It was a long and complicated and painful process that did this; you can’t tell me he just stopped by the factory and said “buff me up!” So, in the scene where he accidentally cuts Kitty…why are they coated in metal?
- DoFP is set sometime in 1973. Don’t ask me how I came up with that date; your history teachers will smack you with a yardstick if you do. Trust me, this is the year. Given that factoid…Trask Industries is seeking funding to build the Sentinel program. In 1973. But wait! In The Wolverine, 40 years later, according to that airport commercial aren’t they starting the same thing? Isn’t that why Maggie and Chuck showed up to recruit Wolverine, to stop this whole Sentinel thing from happening? W.T.F.!
But wait, there’s more! In DoFP, Future Xavier and Future Charles have a plan – they’re going to get Kitty and her new magically-granted (okay fine, for the sake of argument let’s say she mutated some more and got) Time Travel Telepresence Powers to send Charles Xavier Back To The Fut…To the Past, to save them all. Only Kitty drops the X-bomb on them, that if she tries to send anyone back further than a few weeks their brain will pretty much blow the f*ck up. Which is when Wolverine says “hey now…my brain won’t blow up! It heals!” Woot! Let’s send Logan back!
…hold up here. I’m confused. So: the intent wasn’t to send Logan back; that was just a happy coincidence. Then why did Magneto and Charles show up at the airport at the end of The Wolverine? Are you saying there actually was no plan involving Wolverine at all? Is there just no connection to the scene in the airport in 2013, and the exact same events taking place in DoFP in the “present”, which is the 1970s?
Clearly, at some point after The Wolverine the producers/writers/hacks decided they didn’t want the Stop the Sentinel Program storyline to take place in real-time 2013ish, but instead in 1970ish so you can do this whole double cast thing. Young Magneto, Old Magneto. Cooooooool!
Except you pretty much then dismiss that entire post-credit scene as nonsense, since it couldn’t have happened. The “future” in DoFP is our current “now”, as seen in The Wolverine. 2013ish. I’ll give it say 5 more years; 2018. Which is why “old” Magneto and Xavier don’t look like skeletal corpses, but pretty much themselves. It doesn’t, however, explain why Logan has white sideburns tho’ given (a) how little time has passed since events in the airport, and (b) the fact that his healing factor would prevent his hair from turning white in such an incredibly short time frame. Maybe he saw something that scared him so much, his hair turned white.
Like the script for this movie.
ARRRRRGH! My head hurts! Damn you, temporal paradox! Damn you!
Based on all this then…my earlier idea is wrong, right? Let’s dismiss events in the post-credit scenes, because CLEARLY they make no sense. Agreed? Agreed! Excelsior!
Which brings me to: Charles and Magneto having their full powers and being alive. Not necessarily in that order.
You knew there’d be a catch, didn’t you? Hah! Suckers.
Movie rewind. I need to take you back in time (using my Kitty Pryde Power!), to the third installment in the X-Men series – X-Men: The Last Stand. At the very end, you see a de-powered Magneto shakily hold his fingers out to a (presumably metal) chess piece…and it wobbles. Fanboys across the globe shit themselves; Magneto hasn’t lost his powers after all! Woot! Right? This is a good thing.
Same movie. The fight between Xavier and Phoenix Jean Grey. There is no question in anyone’s mind that Charles is dead, right? I mean, forget the bodybag – get a squeegee. Seriously.
But then: post creds! We see a hospital bed. Some old dude, not clear who. Moira McTaggert strolls in, checks the guy’s vitals…and he speaks her name. She’s shocked; she recognizes the voice. “Charles?”
….*sigh*
So. Let’s jump the shark COMPLETELY here folks and make a number of leaps of faith, because none of this is cleared up in either The Wolverine or DoFP. You’re expected to just accept what they’ve given you and Shut The Fuck Up.
But we know I can’t do that. Hah! Now let’s assume there’s some twin of Charles who existed and, for some reason went brain dead. There is comic book precedent for this, because in fact Charles did have a twin. A twin sister. Whom, it should be noted, as a fetus (yes you read that correctly) he then KILLED BECAUSE HE SENSED SHE WAS EVIL. As a not-even-a-baby. Kinda fucked up there, Charles.
Let’s also assume that for YEARS, Charles paid to keep his twin brain-dead brother on life support. For no reason. Because we’re going to assume that he’s SO brain dead, there’s absolutely no chance of Twin Charles coming back to consciousness. This. Is. Important!
Why? Because our next leap of faith is this: that Charles Xavier, at the moment of his death, transferred his fully-capable mind into the body of his brain-dead twin brother.
This…is some sick shit, folks. Because think about these two points:
- if he was keeping his brother alive because he thought there was a chance that medical science could save him…then he pretty much just killed his own brother to save himself. Fucked up, Chuck. OR,
- that means he absolutely knew there was no brain for his brother to come back to, so he was KEEPING THE BODY ALIVE FOR EXACTLY THIS SCENARIO. Fucked up x2, Chuck.
Also: that would mean his brother was also a mutant of the same ability, because we’re only transferring thoughts and memories here folks. The soul, the spirit. NOT GENETICS!!! You’re not gonna put your mind in someone else’s body and gain magical mutant powers, because they’re GENETICALLY GIVEN.
And by the by…Moira in Last Stand is played by a 45yr old actress,which was in 2006. But I’ll even let you add a few years and assume it happened closer to The Wolverine, in 2013. Let’s say she’s in her 40s in 2010.
The Moira in First Class is played by a 34yr old actress. So again, let’s be generous and assume she’s meant to be…late 20s. In the 1960s.
Bring out the calculator…counting on my toes…carry the one…wouldn’t Moira be like, 60-70 years old at the end of Last Stand? ARRRRGH!!! Let’s not think about Moira, we have enough on our mental plate.
So: F”d Up Chuck is alive and well. I’m gonna give you yet another leap of faith, because I’ll coolio like that. Let’s say Moira actually had a cloned body made instead! Yeah! That makes sense! It takes all the messed up aspects of the original options Off The Muthafucking Table. Charles Xavier is a good guy, he’d never do that to his own brother (his own sister? yeah) AND it explains why the cloned body has the genetic juice to let Charles be all Xavier up in that bitch!
Although this would be a serious cop-out answer. Is this “X-Men: Days of Our Lives”? Because this is really a soap-opera, tele-novella kind of bullshit resolution. It’s a clone! Fine. Let’s go with a Clone Trooper for Xavier.
…but then why make a clone the same age? Seriously, if you’re telling me you’ve had a body all warmed up and ready to go, and I’m like 60-70 years old…why the FUCK would I want to come back as the same age? All my power and experience, but in a younger healthy body?! Hellllz to the yeah, baby!
Also: pick the clone theory, pick the twin brother theory; whichever floats your boat. But neither answers this burning question:
Why is the new body a paraplegic?
Back to DoFP. And the end of The Wolverine. Charles, in both movies…is still in a goddamned wheelchair (to be fair: he’s in a hoverchair in DoFP. But the point still stands.) So why would the new body ALSO need a wheelchair? Are we psychically transferring physical damage now? Fuck that.
I’m not making this stuff up folks, you can check it all out for yourselves.
So again I ask: are the post-credit scenes canon? Because if they are, and this is how Charles is back…none of it makes a lot of sense. Which, to be fair, we did kinda already establish about these post-credit scenes.
But if we then do discount them as pure fiction, there is now NO EXPLANATION for why Charles is alive in the future of DoFP. He just magically appears, like Harry Houdini. Poof.
Need an aspirin? You okay? Okay. Let’s move on!
I’m picking on Charles right now, because there’s just so much wrongness here. Jump to: X-Men First Class. We established, at the end, that Charles was accidentally shot in the back by Magneto (Moira, but let’s not quibble) and paralyzed from the legs down. Wheelchair Prof X, good.
Only: Younger Xavier in DoFP is up and walking around! What!? How! What happened!
Well. It turns out erstwhile Young Hank McCoy, our blue-furred genius, had a formula he’d derived for himself that would suppress his mutant ability to transform into the Beast. He modified this Gene Juice® for Charles; it allowed him to walk, but in the process suppressed his mutant ability to mindfuck people.
…hang on, now. A serum that suppresses a genetic trait – that somehow dampers something inherent within our DNA – can…temporarily? heal a spinal injury.
…how?
No, seriously. How does that work, exactly? Because he isn’t actually healed; it somehow just tricks the body into thinking it’s healed? Because once he stops taking the Juice, his powers come back but so does his injury?
Fox. Come on. You really, really think we’re all stupid as fuck don’t you. That’s the only explanation I can come up with as to how this managed to make it into a script, and onto the screen. No one, not a single person at any screening or board meeting or anything, said to a single writer or producer: “Ya’ll know this doesn’t make any kind of sense, right?”
*sigh*
Okay so let’s leave ol’ Chuckie to figure out his own issues, and step on over to our friend Erik over there. Don’t think I forgot about you, Magneto!
Actually I only have one major gripe with Maggie here, and it deals with the Sentinels. Whom you cheated me out of a classic fight, btw – seeing the old X-Men team fight the classic Sentinels. Fuckers.
But here’s the thing. Magneto – very sneakily, that bastich – snuck onto the trains carrying the Sentinels and laced their innards with metal strands. This, in a dramatic moment later, allowed him to take control of the Sentinels and have them attack humans and, when needed, the “good guy” mutants. Cool plan!
No. No it wasn’t. It was more bullshit, you jackasses. Because how the FUCK does lacing the inside of a plastic robot with metal allow you to CONTROL IT’S PROGRAMMING AND CAPABILITIES? Oh, you can juggle them like goddamn puppets sure – but it doesn’t suddenly give you remote control wireless fucking access to their core programming and data chips,so you can issue voice commands and have them attack your former friends! That was some bullllllllshit right’dere!
Just how much stupid am I supposed to have, to enjoy this movie?
These aren’t even all the arguments I’ve got over why I wasn’t thrilled with the movie. They’re just the most glaringly obvious. Want a quick rundown? Why are the Maximoff’s all Americanized and living in relative comfort? Hell, why is Colossus Americanized? And Storm? Isn’t Sunspot Latino? At last Warpath actually is American. Native American, but still American goddamnit! Can a brother get an accent anywhere? Bueller? Also, could an X-woman please step up and take a lead role anywhere? Okay you can argue that maybe Mystique is a pretty damn take-everyone-by-the-horns antagonist, but all her actions are dictated by her choices as outlined by the men in her life – Erik and Charles. And it all ultimately leads to choosing between which MAN she’s gonna follow. She’s sex appeal, and an object to be fought over between the two Alpha males.
Poor Kitty, reduced to a back-up role in a storyline designed for her. Could someone please answer this for me: if she has to physically maintain the psychic temporal connection between Future Wolverine’s mind and his Younger Wolverine back in 1973 – how does she manage it, when Wolverine has to have been in the past for…a few days, if not weeks? That would mean she doesn’t actually sleep for that entire period Wolverine is in the past.
Weeks. Or Days, if you’re being generous. Either way: she don’t gotta sleep? Eat? Piss? It’s clear that connection has to be held; they made a point of showing how his freakout in the past almost broke it, and she had to refocus to pull him (push him?) back. Anyone want to even try and explain this?
Annnnndddd…yes, I’m going to pull out the race card. Because really, that’s why Bishop got added. If not (and forgive my crassness here) we’re talking about this as the movie: 2 old white guys need a young white girl to send a middle aged white guy back in time to save the world. And a bunch of minorities in the background act as meat shields to protect them until they pull it all off.
I can hear the indignity from all the way over here. Yes, “minorities in the background”, you heard me. Some Black dude with dreads; some Hispanic dude who turns into fire. An Asian chick who opens doorways. At least they had Iceman as the token (oh wait, that’s the only one of these whose name you’d known from the other movies!) Even the Russian, who doesn’t have a Russian accent, didn’t get his name mentioned (see: Colossus.) Now folks, I know all their names; I’m a comic fan. But picture Joe Nobody walking into this flick; my descriptions? That’s what he’ll see. There is Storm, who I think had about 2 actual lines before getting turned into an African Satay.
It’s about a lack of diversity, which interestingly enough is exactly what the X-men – in the comic books – represent. It’s okay to be different, no matter where you’re from or where you grew up. And this movie really didn’t have a whole lot of it.
Now tell me again why this is supposedly the best of the X-flicks?
– Trickster out
