#foxmen

Spoiler Alert For The New Mutants

I grew up a huge music fan, and one thing I heard about time and again was the contract album. That album that was farted out by a band in order to fulfill a contractaul obligation and get them to another, hopefully less parasitic contract. “Cocksucker Blues,” by the Rolling Stones is one of the more famous examples. Van Morrison turned in thirty songs of unlistenable garbage to get out of a contract. It’s a shame that he’s continued to release unlistenable garbage on a new contract, but sometimes that’s how it goes. Dark Phoenix is not unlistenable garbage but it definitely stinks of contractual obligation. And that’s too bad, because this movie takes some risks that a lot of people had been looking for.

This is the only movie that involves weird alien space stuff, and weird alien space stuff has been a cornerstone of the X-Men since the beginning. Like, the X-men are on some next level tinder because half the dating pool for that team involves planets no one has heard of. And I would have rather watched a movie involving the weird dick pics that come through an interstellar Tinder(Sequel? Call me, Nolan.) This movie very directly and rapidly introduces not just the D’Bari, but other alien races and a whole ass magical space-bird. As if that wasn’t ballsy enough, they proceed further to...oh, excuse me. I’m being informed that the movie does shockingly little with any of it.

It’s not just that, it’s that the movie telegraphs a lot of the “big surprises.” The trailer promised a funeral, and it’s not that hard to guess who’s going to die, considering Mystique looks like she had her makeup applied as a Snapchat filter. Maybe I should just be thankful she didn’t get a fifth “Can she be trusted” plotline. Xavier’s arrogance gets called out, and in a better way than in X3(shudder), but it’s not much of a punishment to kick him out in the last movie. It’s the “thoughts and prayers”of the cinematic X-Men. It’s an easy thing to do if there’s not going to be a follow up.

Genosha gets introduced for only one scene and-you know, I’m being harsh on this. I’m going very negative, when this movie actually does something big very well. A lot of things this franchise started with First Class come to fruition. Charles Xavier’s arrogance isn’t hinted at, it’s put on pretty full display. Hank even gets a big yelling scene. Sometimes subtlety isn’t the way to go. Magneto has sequestered himself completely from humanity, just like he’s been trying to since Fassbender took on the role. It makes sense that his next step is to claim a small island and shut himself off. Hell, watch the Genosha portion of the movie and tell me he’s playing cards with any of those extras. His living space looks like his hobby is appearing on FBI watchlists. But the point is it fulfills a character arc. If you listen to the commentary, Kinberg seems well aware of all this. He mentions several times that he wasn’t trying to make The Godfather, he just wanted to put something out that fans would enjoy. And as easy as the jokes would be, I genuinely believe he tried.

But trying doesn’t equal success. This was his first time directing a movie and it shows. A lot gets introduced from the comics but Kinberg hardly innovates anything here. Let’s take the final action setpiece, the big train fight. Not to say the train has been lacking as an action setpiece in films before, but this isn’t even the first train fight in X-Men. If this movie added something new or offered a different take on the idea, I could see it. But it’s just another train fight. People jump on the train, rip it apart, and eventually it crashes. And I don’t accept the argument that the guards being called MCU is a coincidence.

Logan is the type of movie Marvel will never make. Moreover, it’s the type of movie they’re fundamentally incapable of making.

Logan was a risk, even after Deadpool. Deadpool was a crass comedy, but it was a character that hadn’t yet become popular in movies, but Logan? Hugh Jackman was their star. It’s precisely the reason Origins was such a tonal mess, the producers wanted their star to help introduce new spinoffs, while Hugh Jackman wanted to make a darker Logan, the way his solo comics introduced a darker, more violent side of a character that was often toned down for his team appearances. The Wolverine was darker but still aimed to be part of the X-Men universe, as evidenced by the absolute worst mid-credits sequence in modern cinema.

This movie, by contrast, does it’s best to distance itself from the established X-Men universe. Xavier is far removed from the bespoke tailored suits and palatial mansion that surrounded him for many of the previous films. Wolverine is playing chauffeur to bridesmaids and getting scammed on medication, and Caliban is there mostly to take joy in the misery. I described this to a coworker at the time as, “great, but the first half-hour is just people yelling at each other.” If you’re going to show a guy seeking redemption, it makes sense to show him at his lowest first.

X-23 is one of my favorite characters and I remember they did a good job of depicting her. Unlike the irascible but generally likable hero Jackman portrayed, we get X-23, younger and angrier. It works for the movie, and feeds into the idea that to be redeemed, first you have to have somewhere to climb.

I don’t remember much of Pierce, but i do remember X-24, something I believe to be a creation for this movie. In x-23′s origin story, the idea was that the Y-chromosome was damaged, only allowing them to clone Logan as a female. But here, we get Logan fighting Logan which is a a literal way of depicting his own inner struggle. This is a good comic book movie, but it’s still a comic book movie. Sometimes things have to be spelled out with punches.