Few films are as gratifying as X-Men: The Last Stand. The effects are seamless, plot complex, emotions driven and social issues nuanced and prescient. The movie as dream is utterly captivating, and since most will focus on the entertaining aspect of the film, I just want to point out a few social aspects worth noting.
The mutants are humans merging with nature; as ciphers for us, they are hybrids. Typically in sci-fi, hybrids are part machine. In the case of X-Men, the characters are elemental or animalistic. In a sense they are the earth force re-balancing the human realm, which at first resists the mutants and insists on instituting a policy of “curing them” (made possible by a genetically engineered serum). Unlike typical sci-fi, the conflict is not mediated by technology, but rather by biology (and bio-science). As the struggle ensues between the mutant factions, the battle goes mano-a-mano, albeit the group that harnesses the perfect balance between the forces of nature and human prevails.
As an example of “sustainable media,” the X-Men strikes an equilibrium between cinema’s tendency to obliterate nature through the spectacle of destruction (both in the act of making the film and symbolically), and to bridge the natural world through its fusion of electricity (a biological force) and communication. It eliminates the false barrier we make between the environment and media, for in our world, media is the environment, yet it has a hybrid quality like the mutants. Though few are willing to admit it, we in the high-tech world are cyborgs, but in a good sense. Our fusion with technology is not into a false world, but into one of complexity and hybridity. There are dangers, of course, due to the unsustainable paradigm of our collective operating system. Yet we also have an opportunity to leverage interdependence. As operators, each one of us has the ability to input new data into the system as it self-organizes. As Buckminster Fuller once said, on Spaceship Earth there are no passengers, only pilots. Just as the new beings in Xavier’s Academy for Gifted Youngsters learn to harvest their abilities for the collective good, so too can we not reject our powers, but embrace them for the evolutionary challenges that await us.
Note: the title of this post is not only lifted from my beloved Devo, but also from a chapter in an excellent book on film and ecology:
“EcoMedia (Contemporary Cinema 1)” (Sean Cubitt)
“Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!” (Devo)
“Devo – The Complete Truth About De-Evolution” (Rhino / Wea)
heh. I’m always fascinated how perspectives of the SAME thing can be so different.
I felt that the movie in, at least in my view… how do I describe it… oh yeah, right, ahem… Sucked big time.
Before I explain why, I will say what I liked about the movie…
As a big fan of movies, I appreciated the fact that Brett Ratner stepped up to the plate of a tall order. After former director Brian Singer ‘jumped ship’ from Fox Studios to WB to direct DC Comics very own Return of Superman, I anticipated that the feel of what made the last two X-men films fun, would go with him. He took what Singer started and brought it in a new direction, but still ‘played by the rules’.
As a former big fan of comics, especially of X-men comics, I really dug the shear brazen shock of the movie. Killing characters off completely unexpectedly while introducing new ones at the same time… that’s what made comic books FUN. Sure the sub-lined political effect is awesome, but seeing both goodguys loose and badguys win sometimes is so much cooler. Seeing on-screen my favorite characters come to FULL life still gave me chills (The Danger Room, Iceman, Magneto).
Now on to why I hated the movie so much.
The 1st half was amazing; they introduce the Danger room, they bring back characters, they introduce new characters. Then with such a great set up for a story, they drop the ball with a horrible use of cool characters, horrible climax, and to top it off they throw in so many cheesy pep talks, I was almost embarrassed when the audience was laughing and mocking the movie. The plot itself, while again, Ballzy, was just retarded.
It’s like a bad pro-wrestling storyline, the writers come up with a plot for the bad guys to give a really cool sounding threat against a hero, but when the bad guys actually do it, it isn’t very cool looking and is actually very weak and detracts all forms of potential threat the bad guys could ever have again.
I think because I was so much of a fan of the comics, I will admit I was a little bit biased. They changed characters (how hard is it to give Colossus a RUSSIAN ACCENT for crying out loud!?!?), they chose to use/introduce LAME characters (Even though he’s supposed to be Kid Omega, he’s pretty much a character named Quill, one of the dumbest marvel characters ever… I mean come on they could have used SO many other cool characters), they turned one of the greatest villains in history into a feeble old man (although the last few seconds before the credits redeemed it SLIGHTLY), and the ‘hidden’ last scene after the credits was the icing on the cheese cake.
I still encourage people to see it, but just know that it is the worst of the three. For a so called ‘last stand’, I can’t help but laugh.
*applauds*