X-Men: Days of Future Past & Godzilla
May. 25th, 2014 08:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beck_lizI had Friday off work, so I decided to celebrate by seeing a movie Thursday evening. X-Men: Days of Future Past (to be henceforth referred to as XMDOFP because good grief) was showing later than I wanted to be out that evening, but there was a Godzilla showing at 6 PM. Then my plan was to see XMDOFP early Friday morning and then Belle after that. Unfortunately, when I got there Friday to pick up my tickets, I was told they "hadn't received" Belle and that the showings of it were canceled. So I've no idea what was going on with that. I'd still like to see it, but I have no idea if it's still showing anywhere locally. So I'll just be talking about Godzilla and XMDOFP, Godzilla first because I have a good deal more to say about XMDOFP.
So I quite enjoyed Godzilla, more than I thought I would. The only other version I've seen is the one with Matthew Broderick in it, and this one was definitely better (although I have only vague memories of that one, having not seen it in 16 years). When I came home and checked out what people were saying about it, I saw that a lot of people were complaining about the lead guy, Ford, being incredibly bland and boring. Which he was. But I didn't really notice it during the movie because for the first portion of it there was a lot of Bryan Cranston & Ken Watanabe, and for the last portion of it there was Godzilla. And honestly, it really felt more like Godzilla was the lead than that Ford guy, which is good, because Godzilla was a lot more interesting. Anyway, the movie managed to keep me engaged and wondering what would come next, surprised me a number of times, and had me cheering for Godzilla after he defeated the other two monsters and swam away from San Francisco. So I was most entertained and am very glad I went.
Now for XMDOFP. This was such a great X-Men movie. There are still some things that don't quite make sense (how long were Charles & Hank shambling around the mansion doing ... whatever????), but for the most part I think it hangs together really well. And it fixes X3, possibly wiping it out of continuity entirely. Which I love, as I just attempted to re-watch X3 this weekend and ended up fast-forwarding through it. I thought I remembered more individual scenes I liked in the thing even if the movie as a whole stinks, but it turns out not so much.
So, the things I enjoyed about this movie:
1) Raven/Mystique was the one who had to make the choice to save us all. I love that in the end, she was the one who decided. And that she was disagreeing with both Erik and Charles as to their actions and motives throughout the movie, not being coerced by them. Also loved that she was the one actually getting things done. She was the one saving mutants from experimentation, she was the one trying to protect mutantkind while Charles and Erik moldered away in their respective prisons.
2) Loved that Charles got his head out of his ass and told Raven he'd been an ass. And apologized. I liked Charles a lot in 1st Class, but one of the things I disliked was his arrogant paternalism, particularly towards Raven. Love that he finally realized it, even if it took his future self giving him a talking to.
3) Loved that Wolverine didn't take over this movie like he did X3. And X2 and X1 to a lesser extent. He so could have, and I know people are disappointed that Kitty didn't get the "go back in time" role. But what we got was a Logan who was self-aware, who had a good, snarky relationship with Charles (I would not be surprised to see more Logan/Charles fic upcoming), and one who was absolutely nowhere near the climax of the movie. He got chucked into the river by Magneto and was firmly out of it afterward.
4) Erik the failboat. So it hit me today, after rewatching the rest of the X movies, that Erik is a major failboat. I thought it was just young Erik, but no, it's older Erik, too. Until he stops acting on his own stupid bright ideas without discussing them with others first, he just keeps making idiotic decision after idiotic decision. But somehow I still love this idiot anyway and want him to get together with Charles??? I just want to whack him upside the head a bunch and make sure that he actually discusses things with Charles first, because good grief. At least this movie seems to have wiped out the worst of his bad decisions in X3, and possibly even that whole "Hey, let's make Charles responsible for genocide!" thing in X2. Maybe?
5) Quicksilver's "Time In a Bottle" scene was completely unnecessary for the plot of the movie, and yet it would have been a lesser movie without it. I loved it, and I really liked the brief introduction to the character that we got.
6) Loved all the 2023 mutants, particularly Blink, Bishop, and Warpath, and I really hope we get to see more of them in future films. Blink's power in particular was super-cool looking; I loved how they handled it. That must have required a lot of story-boarding to figure that out.
7) Loved Logan waking up in the mansion and Jean and Scott are there. First I loved it (as I mentioned above) as an indication that X3 didn't happen (and possibly much of X2), but also as someone point out, if it had been just Jean, it would have felt like Logan was being rewarded. With Scott there, it's just business as usual. And honestly, at this point, I'm tired of Logan's thing for Jean and really hope that stops being a thing in future films. I was never a big fan of that relationship to begin with, and I really disliked how they handled his reaction to her death in last year's Wolverine movie. But bringing this back to the point, the only thing that would have made that sequence better is if Erik had wandered in as Charles was realizing Logan had just come back to the future.
ETA 8) I forgot. One thing I really liked also was Hank. Aside from his enabling Charles (which he deserves a good smack for), he was just such a great character. I loved seeing him start to grow into himself and get used to being blue in public. I also really liked that Hank's a Trekkie, because of course he is.
So those are my thoughts. I am very much looking forward to the next movie (although I had to look up what that end credits scene was because I was clueless while watching), and especially looking forward to all the fanfic. *rubs hands gleefully*
Anyway, what did you all think?
So I quite enjoyed Godzilla, more than I thought I would. The only other version I've seen is the one with Matthew Broderick in it, and this one was definitely better (although I have only vague memories of that one, having not seen it in 16 years). When I came home and checked out what people were saying about it, I saw that a lot of people were complaining about the lead guy, Ford, being incredibly bland and boring. Which he was. But I didn't really notice it during the movie because for the first portion of it there was a lot of Bryan Cranston & Ken Watanabe, and for the last portion of it there was Godzilla. And honestly, it really felt more like Godzilla was the lead than that Ford guy, which is good, because Godzilla was a lot more interesting. Anyway, the movie managed to keep me engaged and wondering what would come next, surprised me a number of times, and had me cheering for Godzilla after he defeated the other two monsters and swam away from San Francisco. So I was most entertained and am very glad I went.
Now for XMDOFP. This was such a great X-Men movie. There are still some things that don't quite make sense (how long were Charles & Hank shambling around the mansion doing ... whatever????), but for the most part I think it hangs together really well. And it fixes X3, possibly wiping it out of continuity entirely. Which I love, as I just attempted to re-watch X3 this weekend and ended up fast-forwarding through it. I thought I remembered more individual scenes I liked in the thing even if the movie as a whole stinks, but it turns out not so much.
So, the things I enjoyed about this movie:
1) Raven/Mystique was the one who had to make the choice to save us all. I love that in the end, she was the one who decided. And that she was disagreeing with both Erik and Charles as to their actions and motives throughout the movie, not being coerced by them. Also loved that she was the one actually getting things done. She was the one saving mutants from experimentation, she was the one trying to protect mutantkind while Charles and Erik moldered away in their respective prisons.
2) Loved that Charles got his head out of his ass and told Raven he'd been an ass. And apologized. I liked Charles a lot in 1st Class, but one of the things I disliked was his arrogant paternalism, particularly towards Raven. Love that he finally realized it, even if it took his future self giving him a talking to.
3) Loved that Wolverine didn't take over this movie like he did X3. And X2 and X1 to a lesser extent. He so could have, and I know people are disappointed that Kitty didn't get the "go back in time" role. But what we got was a Logan who was self-aware, who had a good, snarky relationship with Charles (I would not be surprised to see more Logan/Charles fic upcoming), and one who was absolutely nowhere near the climax of the movie. He got chucked into the river by Magneto and was firmly out of it afterward.
4) Erik the failboat. So it hit me today, after rewatching the rest of the X movies, that Erik is a major failboat. I thought it was just young Erik, but no, it's older Erik, too. Until he stops acting on his own stupid bright ideas without discussing them with others first, he just keeps making idiotic decision after idiotic decision. But somehow I still love this idiot anyway and want him to get together with Charles??? I just want to whack him upside the head a bunch and make sure that he actually discusses things with Charles first, because good grief. At least this movie seems to have wiped out the worst of his bad decisions in X3, and possibly even that whole "Hey, let's make Charles responsible for genocide!" thing in X2. Maybe?
5) Quicksilver's "Time In a Bottle" scene was completely unnecessary for the plot of the movie, and yet it would have been a lesser movie without it. I loved it, and I really liked the brief introduction to the character that we got.
6) Loved all the 2023 mutants, particularly Blink, Bishop, and Warpath, and I really hope we get to see more of them in future films. Blink's power in particular was super-cool looking; I loved how they handled it. That must have required a lot of story-boarding to figure that out.
7) Loved Logan waking up in the mansion and Jean and Scott are there. First I loved it (as I mentioned above) as an indication that X3 didn't happen (and possibly much of X2), but also as someone point out, if it had been just Jean, it would have felt like Logan was being rewarded. With Scott there, it's just business as usual. And honestly, at this point, I'm tired of Logan's thing for Jean and really hope that stops being a thing in future films. I was never a big fan of that relationship to begin with, and I really disliked how they handled his reaction to her death in last year's Wolverine movie. But bringing this back to the point, the only thing that would have made that sequence better is if Erik had wandered in as Charles was realizing Logan had just come back to the future.
ETA 8) I forgot. One thing I really liked also was Hank. Aside from his enabling Charles (which he deserves a good smack for), he was just such a great character. I loved seeing him start to grow into himself and get used to being blue in public. I also really liked that Hank's a Trekkie, because of course he is.
So those are my thoughts. I am very much looking forward to the next movie (although I had to look up what that end credits scene was because I was clueless while watching), and especially looking forward to all the fanfic. *rubs hands gleefully*
Anyway, what did you all think?
no subject
Date: 2014-05-26 01:44 pm (UTC)I really liked the movie, because let's face it, it was practically made for fandom, but I kinda didn't think it was big enough or funny enough for the general x-men audience? I do hope it's successful though. I like where they're going with these characters.
no subject
Date: 2014-05-26 09:47 pm (UTC)And Jennifer Lawrence's currently popularity. I really, really hope so. I'd love to see a movie with her being majorly awesome throughout. :-)
I do hope it's successful though. I like where they're going with these characters.
Me, too.
no subject
Date: 2014-05-27 02:32 am (UTC)I was surprised with Godzilla. While I am tired of too much CGI in films I needed something mindless to see today. This had such a nice story to it but I really wanted to see Cranston all the way through it or at least more of Wantanabe and Straitharn and less of the kid with the big eyes.
Some of the visuals were outright beautiful, dreamlike and I was put in mind of Terrance Malik and the beautiful cinematography he prefers. Seeing the fights taking place in the distances through ever moving clouds of smoke and debris made it all the more tangible. The men parachuting in with their smoke streams trailing after them, the way we rarely saw all of everything at one time was exciting.
I liked that Godzilla was the hero. Our audience was not full but they were interactive so there was so cool cheering when Godzilla pulled out his last big finish.
Good way to spend a hot day!