Twentieth Century Fox
From left, Michael Fassbender, Caleb Landry Jones, James McAvoy, Rose Byrne, Jennifer Lawrence and Lucas Till in 'X-Men: First Class.'
Preaching mutant pride with endearing fervor, "X-Men: First Class" proves to be a mutant in its own right—a zestfully radical departure from the latter spawn of a sputtering franchise. This prequel draws new energy from supersmart casting, plus the shrewd notion of setting the beginnings of the X-Men saga in the early 1960s. That allows the youthful mindbenders, forcefielders and shapeshifters, along with their earnest Svengali, Charles Xavier, to reshape the Cold War. (Did you really think it was a Soviet blink that saved the world from nuclear annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis?) It also gives the filmmakers a chance to play with such stylistic signatures of the era as split screens, Rudi Gernreich-like clothes and the beginnings of James Bond extravagance.
Watch a clip from "X-Men: First Class" starring Michael Fassbender, Caleb Landry Jones, James McAvoy, Rose Byrne, Jennifer Lawrence and Lucas Till.
The film, which was directed by Matthew Vaughn from a screenplay he wrote with Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz and Jane Goldman, begins these beginnings with a preface that takes place in a World War II concentration camp. There, a Mengele-like Nazi monster takes an interest in a Jewish boy with superpowers. No, not Einstein—he could have been an X-Man, but he was too old. This boy's name is Erik Lensherr, and he grows up in no time flat to be played by one of the main strokes of casting genius, Michael Fassbender: Erik will become the epitome of weaponized fury known as Magneto.
That's the fun of prequels, of course—getting to see who everyone was way back when. The most enjoyable revelations include James McAvoy as the telepathic Charles, touching his forefinger to his forehead and seeing deep into others' brains; and Jennifer Lawrence as the blue-skinned Raven, a tender adolescent having lots of trouble in the area of self-acceptance. "I don't know what's gotten into you lately," Charles tells her. "You're awfully concerned with your looks." Kevin Bacon makes a marvelously despicable villain, Sebastian Shaw: His superpowers barely fit beneath the umbrella of towering evil. Rose Byrne's CIA agent, Dr. Moira MacTaggert, and January Jones's Emma Frost, pop in and out of the proceedings to lesser effect, notwithstanding Ms. Byrne's startling beauty and Emma's diamond-faceted skin.
Getting to see what everyone can do is fun too, but only up to a point in a repetitive section devoted to recruitment and training. Training sequences always feel familiar, whether the recruits are learning hand-to-hand combat with bayonets or how to focus their flames and beams on various targets. An especially laggardly passage is set at a secret CIA installation, where too many mutants temporarily spoil the froth.
Still, these young prodigies must test their powers before they use them. Then, as the movie tells us, they've got to grow up and save their country, since the White House and the Kremlin have staked the fate of the world on a game of chicken over whether the Soviets will or won't deploy nuclear missiles in Cuba. (Lurid science-fiction? Alas, no, historical fact.) Fortunately for their country and the world, they are equal to the task. One of them even invents the extremely supersonic SR-70 Blackbird.
Fortunately for the film, the missile crisis puts an end to the dramatic lull. As soon as war threatens, "X-Men: First Class" regains its momentum, and then some, with Strangelovian twists—a circular war room, a rogue vessel that can't be reached—and a climax that uses newsreel clips of President Kennedy on TV to lend credibility to an exuberant rearrangement of history. This fifth episode in the series isn't a masterpiece—one puzzlement is the uneven cinematography—but it's summer entertainment of a very high grade that leaves you with an appetite for more of the same with the same core cast. And a couple of uncredited cameos turn the neat trick of being revenants from the future.
'Submarine'
Weinstein CompanyCraig Roberts in 'Submarine'
Richard Ayoade's phenomenal debut feature tracks the coming of age of 15-year-old Oliver Tate, a precocious English schoolboy living a life of befuddled passion inside his head while he fumbles with the realities that surround him. The film, adapted from Joe Dunthorne's novel and set in an unspecified but not too distant past, is wonderfully funny and subversively affecting. Beyond portraying the familiar pain of adolescence—Oliver imagines his own death, steeped in bathos, in order to imagine his glorious resurrection—"Submarine" provides a highly original investigation of how kids that age are trapped in the synaptic coils of self-reference.
Watch a clip from "Submarine," starring Craig Roberts and Sally Hawkins.
Oliver, as played to perfection by Craig Roberts, can't see his would-be girlfriend Jordana (a remarkably confident performance by Yasmin Paige) for the tentative child she is because his insufferable narcissism brings out her edgy petulance; she could pass for a dominatrix in training. Sally Hawkins is Oliver's mother, Jill, a ramrod-rigid neurotic who wanted to be an actress until someone said her tongue was too big for her mouth. (Her son's mind is too big for his skull.) Noah Taylor is Oliver's father, Lloyd, a marine biologist and marital jellyfish. (Drowning in depression, Lloyd treats his son like a valued but distant friend.) Just about every member of the cast flirts with perfection, but the one who woos and wins it most spectacularly is Paddy Considine as the Tates' next-door neighbor, Graham, a two-bit New Age guru whom Oliver sees as a superstar instead of the fatuous peacock that he is.
Mr. Ayoade, the writer-director, is anything but self-referential. He seems to have taken inspiration from such diverse sources as Danny Boyle, Richard Lester, François Truffaut, "Amélie" and "A Taste of Honey." (Ms. Paige's Jordana reminded me of Rita Tushingham's poignantly spunky Jo.) Still, "Submarine" is one of a kind. The twin prongs of its plot consist of Oliver's efforts to save his parents' marriage from the threat of Graham's adulterous allure, and to woo and win Jordana. But the film's singular essence is its evocation of the scintillating intellect, the immature judgment and the emotional maelstrom that constitute Oliver's inner life.
'Beginners'
Focus Features
Mélanie Laurent and Ewan McGregor in 'Beginners'
Another Oliver, played by Ewan McGregor, occupies center stage in "Beginners," which was written and directed by Mike Mills. This Oliver is well past adolescence, at least chronologically. He shares the stage with his father, Christopher Plummer's Hal, who looms larger in death than he did in life. (Both performances are superb, and, through the son's self-questioning and the father's self-dramatizing, beautifully complementary.) The story Mr. Mills tells has a strong autobiographical component; his father came out at the age of 75 and embraced the life of a gay man after living with his mother for 45 years. The film is stylistically self-conscious, almost to a fault, and almost unmanageably ambitious. There's a sense of the filmmaker trying to get his mind around the whole culture that produced him, as well the parents who put their indelible stamp on his psyche. Yet the film's special mixture of sadness, comedy and hope sneaks up on you and stays in your memory.
Watch a clip from "Beginners," starring Ewan McGregor and Christopher Plummer.
Sadness threatens to be Oliver's constant life companion. As the child of emotionally opaque parents, he has either kept the women in his life at a distance, or run away from them when intimacy threatened. Comedy flows, often ruefully, from Hal's late-life eruption of heedless love for a partner of dubious fidelity. So does hope, though. Mr. Mills holds out a chance, if only a chance, that the son may learn from his father's unexpected example in the course of Oliver's new relationship with Anna, a lovely eccentric who's played by Mélanie Laurent. (She was the theater owner in Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds.") For all the feyness of her behavior at first, Anna is so original, and poignantly beautiful, that she could inspire hope in a heart of stone.
Cool.
No comments:
Post a Comment