Stories of a Star

Hey, so I know I haven’t been on tumblr in like… a year or something. Sorry! I haven’t been too busy or anything, but with youtube, twitter, and dailybooth I haven’t really felt a deep need to post anything on here. Anyway, now the time has come for me to tumbl once more. This is not an indicator that I will start tumbling consistently. I may post this and then abandon tumblr for another year. I may start posting daily. Mainly, it doesn’t matter how frequently I post cause this is my tumblr and I can do whateva the fuck I want with it! …it’s 3:12 in the morning.

So the reason I’m making this post is cause tonight I went to see the midnight premiere of X-Men: First Class with Tyler (my boyfriend, for those of you who don’t stalk me on my other social networking sites). I wanted to film a video reviewing it, but I look haggard and I don’t want to wake my parents up by talking, so on with the written review.

I’ve been a fan of the X-Men movies and comics ever since the very first movie came out. The second one was definitely my favorite. Third was a big disappointment and Wolverine was a monstrosity at best. I heard this new one was getting good reviews and that Bryan Singer (young, but brilliant director of X1 and X2) was somewhat involved in creating the story, so I was pretty hyped up about it.

The movie was… good-ish. I actually thought the acting and screenwriting were a lot less cringe-worthy than most action movies I’ve seen lately… most of the time (ie. “I can’t feel my legs… I can’t feel my legs… I can’t. Feel. My legs.”). The actors playing Xavier and Erik were both very good. I also surprisingly loved the character of Emma Frost and the actress who played her. She totally embodied what I loved about Mystique in the previous movies. I only wish there had been more of her in the movie, but I’d guess she’ll show her stuff in sequels to come. Kevin Bacon was… Kevin Bacon. And the girl who played Mystique had some great moments, although the scene between her and Beast with the syringes was by far the worst in the movie. Bad screenwriting, bad acting, bad everything. Bleh. I was also not a fan of the gratuitous amounts of fake, squirt bottle tears used for many shots. I don’t think there was one real tear for the entire two hours, and there was a decent amount of crying.

The effects were surprisingly terrible. Something that was so charming about the first two movies was the perfect balance of practical and computer generated effects. Bryan had a way of molding the shots together so that everything looked completely real and touchable, even with the limited computer technology of the early 2000’s. Now, in 2011, they use a surplus of CGI and it ends up looking like a fake piece of video game crap. I don’t think there was one CGI landscape in this movie that even looked as real as a miniature. The beach shots looked like they were taken from a Sims game. So, as far as the CGI goes, I give it two thumbs down. The teleporting and diamond-body affects were cool I guess, but was that anything they couldn’t have done in like… 2004? Nope.

And don’t even get me STARTED on Mystique’s new makeup. She looked like a little shiny blow up doll. It was such a step back from the redone X2 design. And it didn’t in any way make her character seem more youthful or relatable. In fact, it made the scenes when she was fully Mystique pretty uncomfortable to watch.

The plot was fine. I don’t even bother with comparing it to the comics, but it does tend to annoy me when it strays from the movies it’s trying to be a prequel of. For example, in the first X-Men, Xavier tells Wolverine that he and Erik built cerebro together, however in this movie Beast builds it. It’s nit-picky and nerdy, but it nonetheless bugs the crap out of me. Climax of the movie was a little lame. Blah blah blah.

Although I have my gripes with it, I did enjoy the movie much more than X3 and Wolverine, but it doesn’t even touch the first two. I still hope it does well, because I’d like the series to continue. Hopefully the next prequel-sequel can improve on this one.

Oh and also, what was with no clip after the credits??? And the X in the 20th Century Fox logo didn’t glow for a few frames after it went dark!!! Does anyone know what I’m talking about? No? I’m just a supernerd…