Like any geek worth her salt, I saw the movie this past weekend. I try not to pay too much attention to casting, spoilers, or even trailers, so I was really surprised to see will.i.am in the movie. As the sole brother, I expected him to make me proud. All I can say is that he didn’t completely embarrass himself, but being pwned by Liev Shrieber is… well… not very gansta.
Anyway, if we’re just scoring on the manflesh, the movie gets an A, as demonstrated at the review here. However, if we’re scoring on portrayal of female characters, the movie gets a big old F, as discussed here.
I tried to enjoy the manflesh as much as possible.
Your review for Fantasy Magazine was great – I like the fact that someone else out there wishes for an awesome Gambit to appear somewhere in the movies. Le sigh…
As someone who’s been tired of the Wolverine fetishization for around 15 years, and who’s always felt like Cyclops gets a bad rap because he’s not as ‘adult’ (meaning juvenile power-trip ultraviolent bullshit fantasy) as Wolverine … I’ll be giving the movie a skip.
—Myca
“I like Storm,” she said without any particular relevance.
Is it just me, or was Wil.i.am’s costume almost totally identical to that worn by Cleavon Little in Blazing Saddles?
If so, while the makers of Wolverine may not be able to make a good movie, they can at least recognise one.
Disappointing in its treatment of female characters AND characters of color, particularly female characters of color.
Ah…I went to see it last night. It’s like the writers don’t even try anymore. “Dialogue? That’s for those Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith types! We’re just going to grunt and state obvious plot points.”
The highlights for me were the boxing scene and the exchange between Zero and Wolvie at the logging site. It had real humor and a bit of the spark that made Wolverine so outstanding in the first two movies (there was no X3! I promise! It’s all just a bad dream!) Still, it would be nice for other characters to get their dues – Deadpool, Gambit…heck, even I though Cyclops got the short shift through the movies and I’m not a terribly big fan of him.
Besides, I still think the final reveal should have been…..OMEGA RED!
I read something a while ago that said one reason the dialogue and hence character development has gotten so bad in action movies because so much of the money they make is from the international market. It’s cheaper to translate and then subtitle and/or dub really simplistic dialogue and characters, than to do the more complicated translations of more complicated dialogue. So they just don’t bother any more.
This made me laugh. Like how porn is “adult.”
I blame the trend in comics on a combination of:
1) Frank Miller is a douchebag.
2) A really tragic essential misunderstanding of the message of The Watchmen.
and
3) Backlash against the Comics Code Authority and the bullshit sanitized nature of our media in general.
I mean, the problem is that things like sex and violence actually are part of real life, and thus an actually mature comic that aims for an unflinching look at life will include them and, of course, it’s really frustrating to constantly encounter comics that artificially avoid those topics … but they, on their own, don’t make something mature.
They provide the illusion of maturity for children in the same way that an overly cynical pose is how children play at adulthood. They’re ‘mature’ in the same way that Death Wish is an insightful look at the problems of inner city life.
At some point publishers figured out that rather than looking for the next Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Kurt Busiek, Bryan K Vaughn, or whoever, they just needed to show The Punisher shooting a bunch of doods or Wolverine going hog-wild with his claws, and *boom* instant edginess.
Next stop: Mark Millar and Garth Ennis.
So yeah, it pisses me off a lot.
—Myca
In fact, I’d argue that publishers figured this out long before Neil Gaiman, Kurt Busiek, or Bryan K Vaughn came along. :-)
There’s another reason, though. Violence in comics is fun. I’m not saying it’s the only thing that’s fun in comics, but it is fun.
I mean, I remember being a kid and reading Frank Miller’s Ronin (this was before Miller began entirely sucking) (spoiler warning) and there’s the point where the demon has to be killed with the magic sword, but the sword can’t kill the demon until it’s killed a truly good man, and as the demon comes up behind the hero and prepares to rip the hero’s throat out, the hero thrusts the sword backwards through his own chest, impaling himself and the demon both….
Okay, I was a kid, which is why I didn’t see it coming. But that was really… fucking… cool.
And to tell you the truth, I still find crap like that cool. I love the scene in Kill Bill where Uma Thurman slaughters fifty thugs with a longsword. It’s not high literature, and I can’t blame anyone for not enjoying that sort of thing, but I like it. Sometimes my mind wants candy.
Bloody, violent, candy.
Oh, sure, my point was just that they realized that they could produce edgy ‘adult’ titles without good writers, not that they specifically didn’t need ‘those guys’.
Oh, totally. I don’t want to give the impression that I’m opposed to sex or violence in comics (or movies or books or whatever), just that there’s a difference between Kill Bill and Death Wish. Violence isn’t enough on its own, and it’s certainly not enough when it appeals to our ugliest impulses.
—Myca
Because it needed to be said.
—Myca
Just to be clear, I’m not opposed to sex and violence in stories, in whatever medium. I just find it kind of amusing how words like “mature” and “adult” get used in standard English – like “he’s very mature for his age” – versus the type of stuff that cause a video game or comic to get that label – totally gratuitous violence, etc.
You mean, I’m not the only one? It’s like, Cyclops isn’t a “bad boy” like Wolverine, so he gets a bad rap for no real reason…
Cyclop’s potrayal in the X movies has been abysmal. Is he the leader of the X-Men? I sure as hell couldn’t tell. His portrayal in Wolverine is better.
Myca:
I’m interested, how do you like as a writer in the industry now? I vaguely familiar with the time period of the comic crapiness you’re referring to I think, (90’s is it ?). I’m assuming you’re referring to the rise of Image and more independent comic shops? If so, I’m curious who you liked out of that period since it’s the one that I’m most familiar with (once again I’m probably younger than you). My experience was that the edgier stuff was pretty crappy to decent (i.e. the stuff Rob Liefeld and McFarlane left Marvel over), but that Marvel seemed to have a better record. I was particularly taken with the mid 90’s X-Men when Scott Lobdell was writing. I think that was the time in which there was more characterization in the writing. I feel like that that has decreased since then. Also, if you’ve read it, what do you think of Joss Whedon’s run in Astonishing X-Men?
True, but that’s always been the case, hasn’t it? No matter what tone of writing for
mainstreamcomics is currently fashionable, there will always be a top 10% of creators who have a genuine vision that’s coming through, and the rest either lack the talent, or the vision, or just the luck to make it all come together.Well, I agree. But I’m not sure that talent and appealing to our ugliest impulses are contrary. Lots of people would argue that “Preacher” was a very good comic book, and maybe it was, but it always made me feel like a horrible human being to read it.
I feel I need to step in at this point and ask what crack people who like Scott Summers are smoking, because I have never liked him in ANY iteration of X-Men ever, ever, ever. OMG EVER.
My general reasons for disliking him are summed up in this post from a while back about the bad boy/good boy dichotomy. In specific, I’ve never been a fan of Scott’s self-righteous crap.
In the movies it was decidedly worse because James Marsden is not the best actor and I’m sure he wasn’t given much. He had almost zero personality and no leadership skills and NO charisma. I hate love triangles and I really hate guys who attempt to get with women knowing that said women are in monogamous relationships, and yet I found myself yelling at jean to please just get with Logan already because at least they had some chemistry together. I don’t think it would have been hard for her to have chemistry with a wet paper bag when the other choice was Scott.
Well. That’s the first thing that’s made me interested in watching one of those movies.
…excuse me. Was thinking of James Marsters. (Also, was wondering why someone would cast Marsters as Cyclops.)
Glimmer of interest gone now.
the angry black woman:
Cyclops is one of my favorite characters I just think people often write for him poorly. There are plenty of interesting things I think they could explore with him. For example, why was Cyclops the first X-Men chosen by Prof. X? Why does it seem most of Cyclop’s serious relationships are with telepaths (like Prof. X, Jean Grey, and now Emma Frost)? Or why is it telepaths seem drawn to him?
See, that’s what I hated about the X movies. In the comics there’s a reason why Cyclops is leader. Almost all the rest of the X-Men agree that he’s good at his position. Even Wolverine agrees to that. The movies don’t show that.
The love triangle is no more in the comics ever since Cyclops “cheated.”
I agree on liking Cyclops in the comics. Personally for me it was the fact that he had such a basic power (eye beams that thanks to a head injury he can’t turn off) so the writers had to add something extra to have him on par with the likes of Storm, Jean, Gambit, etc… Yeah superpowers are cool to read about but to me someone like Cyclops kinda brought things back to Earth a bit by way of having to add a little extra character to him which is quite the opposite (at least to me) of Wolverine, who writers have let slide with little to no back ground (or at least cohesive background) for the last couple of decades under the guise of his memories were erased.
And speaking of the XMen movies am I the only one that serious hated the way Sabertooth was done in that first movie? Everyone knows he is not just stupid mute muscle but instead very smart and very dangerous. I mean who can believe that such a character could be Wolverine’s rival (even though the rivalry never comes up in the movies)? But I could do a whole post on my likes/dislikes of the character portrayals in that trilogy so I’ll stop here.
Yeah, Cyclops is nowhere near my favorite of the X-Men from the comics (That’s Beast, thanks.), but I do think he’s got some interesting personality quirks that justify a lot of his tight-assery. I mean, he was put in charge of what’s basically an armored tank division when he was … what … 16? 17? Of course he’s obsessed with being the good, responsible one. The poor guy’s got to be a tight-ass, because for his entire adult life, if something goes wrong, 1) people probably die and 2) it’s his fault.
In the movies, though, they set up a pretty awful and unlikable straw-Cyclops for Wolverine to be snarky at, “Oh Wolverine! You stole his motorcycle! Grand theft is so rebellious of you!”
Also, I think that Wolverine, both in the movies and the comics, tends to reinforce certain repellent views about male gender roles (and especially the Wolverine/Cyclops dynamic in the movies emphasized these gender roles), as well as being a major source of annoyance for me in comics over the past 15-20 years, so if it comes down to a conflict between him and Cyclops, though as I said, I’m not a huge Cyclops fan by any means, I’m cutting Cyclops some extra slack.
—Myca
Myca:
I’m curious, could you elaborate more on this? Also what do you think of Whedon’s work with Cyclops and Wolverine (assuming you’ve read it)?
Danny:
Yeah, I thought Sabertooth was poor to decently done in the first movie. Apparently Sabertooth can barely talk, and seems nothing more than a bland thug. I can also say that Storm seemed uninteresting to me, which is very different from her character in the comic. What sucks is that Halle Berry is a pretty capable actor, but had pretty much nothing to do (at least far as characterization is concerned). I don’t feel they showed Storm’s character at all. Of course mostly everyone got the short end of the stick in the movies, save Wolverine.
I blame Bryan Singer for all of this. I don’t know if he ever read the material he was making a movie for, but to me there’s a lot in their characters that he missed that could’ve translated to the big screen. This is not only true of X-Men 1 and 2 (i’m trying hard to forget the third x film) but of Superman Returns also.
I blame Bryan Singer for all of this. I don’t know if he ever read the material he was making a movie for, but to me there’s a lot in their characters that he missed that could’ve translated to the big screen.
I’m sure he did but his I think his pitfall was he read the material and went “OMFG Wolverine is badass! We have to dumb everyone else down so that he can get the spotlight.”
Also, I think that Wolverine, both in the movies and the comics, tends to reinforce certain repellent views about male gender roles (and especially the Wolverine/Cyclops dynamic in the movies emphasized these gender roles), …
By chance are you talking about the “stoic badass that is hurting on the inside but thinks he can’t afford to show it because he thinks its a sign of weakness” vibe he puts out?
In the end I think Singer and the the director of XMen 3 (which was ruined by trying to stuff way too many characters into it) got caught up in pop culture appeal and in the their efforts to make those movies for everyone the long time fans got the short end of the stick. And I’ll say that something like that is what messed up Spiderman 3 (well at least for me). Vemon is Spiderman’s greatest foe plain and simple but being his greatest foe translates into maybe 30 minutes of screentime? I still say they could have ran the alient suit storyline, thrown in some other villain (like Kraven the Hunter), and had Parker lose the suit at the very end of the movie just to see Eddie Brock get the suit after the credits roll. That way Venom would have had his own movie, like any supervillain that is someone’s greatest foe should.
Making this movie R-rated would have helped it out in so many ways… they wouldn’t have had to try so hard to soften up such an inherently gory story line