I’m going to jump in here and disagree with Scout. I thought
Days of future past was not terrible. In fact, I would argue that that should
be Bryan Singer’s byline. Bryan Singer: Not Terrible. His whole career could be
summed up by those two words. But what interested me is how, despite frequently
roaming between shrug-worthy and laughably bad, the X-Men movies have always
been about way more than just being X-Men movies. But this most recent movie
has somehow become a closed cultural loop. An allegory for nothing but itself.
Which I kind of liked.
The first X-Men
movie is a product of its age. It was the first superhero movie that didn’t
suck. And to all you guys who love Donner’s Superman or Burton’s Batman, I’m
sorry, but those movies suck. I’m not going to say X-Men is fabulous. It is simply not shitty. It turns being a mutant
into an allegory for being institutionally ostracized. And it is pleasant. Talented actors bring home
the various ways in which we handle our stigmas and there are some not
laughable super hero fight scenes. All in all it is a sort of bland film, but a
strong statement. This genre does not have to suck. Singer opened a door which
other more talented people (Raimi, Favreau, Whedon, Black, the Russo Brothers) eventually
walked through.
X2 is what people
are talking about when they say “Hollywood’s Gay Agenda,” and I love it for
that, and Alan Cumming, who is just too much fun. The movie brings its allegory
sailing home with a coming out scene to boot. There are less cringe-worthy one
liners than its predecessor, and one ingenious action set-piece for the ages. It
is about being gay and it has no interest in beating around the bush.
The X-Men and Wolverine movies went on to continue to use
mutant powers as allegories for lots of things and with varying success. But
the whole franchise became wildly uneven without Ratner’s intense middle ground
directing.
I was interested in what Singer would do when he finally
returned to his franchise after so many years apart. Now that we are in a
golden age of super hero films (an age he helped create), what would Days of Future Past be about. Because it
would sure as shit not be about the characters and plot. Well, weirdly enough,
the movie is actually an allegory for itself. It is two hours and ten minutes
of Bryan Singer saying “Look, guys. We’ve really fucked this all up. Somewhere
in the past we made a mistake and now our once golden franchise is ruined. Let’s
go back in time, ditch everyone except Hugh Jackman, and make the whole thing
about Jennifer Lawrence. Because people seem to really like Jennifer Lawrence.”
This movie is so aware of its own place as a movie in a franchise that it
manages to ret-con out, entirely, the Brett Ratner shit show that was X-Men: Last Stand and give all the old
stars the happy ending they deserved. It’s a nice sentiment. The stakes have
always been the franchise, not any of these people’s actual lives, and in the
end, it was not “the day” that was saved. It was the franchise.
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