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Summer Blockbusters: They Are Now Among
Us
All I know of X-Men is what I've seen in movies, and
this is what I've learned: Each mutant has a special power
that can be employed in the service of humanitarian good or
exploitative evil. He either comes to terms with his power
or lets rage and paranoia consume his life. That said, is
it any wonder that many gifted young people withdraw from
parents with Harvard dreams, finding life more tolerable within
the inked world of comic books? In a culture in which intellect
is suspicious and youths' gifts are the courted for exploitation,
is it any wonder that gifted children lash out at a world
looking to cash in on what God, or genetic chance, gave them?
In a world in which parents want material success, teachers
want them to behave, colleges want their cash, and employers
want their souls, comic books are understanding, even instructive—a
Dr. Spock for how to grow up gifted and resist the urge to
unleash evil on the world. That's what X-Men gives
them.
From a literary view, the brilliance of X-Men is how
the special powers of each mutant is an extension of his personality:
Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), the caged animal whose fists erupt
into steel in fits of anger. Rogue (Anna Paquin), the shy,
mistrusting girl whose boyfriends are, literally, comatosed
by her kiss or healed by her touch. Or Pyro (Aaron Stanford),
the anti-authoritarian who plays with fire. Then there's Professor
Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellan), two old
friends who have become counterparts over dealing with the
humans. Xavier is the Martin Luther King / Thoreau figure
who believes that education gives hope for understanding;
he can read minds with a machine called Cerebro, as if peering
into the over-soul. As for Magneto, he's a Holocaust survivor
and student of The Once and Future King who, understandably,
sees humanity's unlimited potential for evil, irrational deeds—if
anything defines man's capacity for evil, it's bending metal
to one's will.
The mutants' conflicts with the humans defines the second
predominate theme of X-Men: How America treats its
minorities. The mutants are ostracized because they're different—not
just different, mind you, but threatening because they
aren't understood. They're a problem, so say the senators,
and they must be dealt with—I fully expected the
President to say that the mutants needed to be "rounded
up" or "smoked out of their holes." Nightcrawler
(Alan Cumming, enjoying his FABULOUS! blue latex skin and
cape) sneaks into the White House to try to kill the President,
which prompts the passage of the Mutant Registration Act,
a Patriot-like law that gives the government authorization
to terrorize all mutant groups based on the actions of a small
band of rogue mutants. There's even some Colin Powell-inspired
evidence of "Mutant Training Facilities" that justify
pre-emptive strikes against mutants. The humans' paranoia
erupts into violence when the government crashes Professor
Xavier's School for the Gifted, the agents looking much like
the INS agents who retrieved Elian Gonzalez. We're drawn so
deeply into the mutant conflict that Magneto's declaration
of resistance "by any means necessary" starts to
make sense, much like Malcolm X must have made sense to Muhammed
Ali. "Doesn't it ever wake you in the middle of the night?"
Magneto asks Xavier, "The feeling that they will pass
their foolish law—or one just like it—and come for
you?"
If that's not enough current events for you, Dr. Grey and
Storm find Nightcrawler, the devil with a heart of gold, in
the rafters of a Catholic church—in Boston, no less.
The rest of the plot involves the X-Men struggling within
their own ranks while teaming up to save their own race: Professor
Xavier must be saved from General Stryker (Brian Cox), who
hates mutants like Ethan Edwards hates Injuns. Stryker uses
his government position to advance his own agenda of systematically
wiping out mutants. By keeping his personal terror meter constantly
on Red Alert, he can justify military actions against innocent
people. You see, his son failed at Xavier's school—not
because of dad's overbearing parenting, mind you, but because
Xavier must have been a bad teacher. So let the scapegoating
begin. In short, X-Men informs us that American violence
is mostly the result of paranoia wrought for personal agendas,
and gifted children alienate themselves from parents who won't
accept them—or, as Iceman's mom asks, "Can you try
not being a mutant?"
I will stand by the assertion that the new generation of
comic book movies are works of art—artists gravitate
to money just like the rest of us, which brings us the joy
of seeing the two most revered Shakespearean stage actors
of their generation discussing how best to employ their superpowers.
Bryan Singer's film casts a spell because this is a camp-free
zone: This world could exist in ours, and to a metaphorical
extent, it does. The antagonists cannot overplay the parts
and descend into Jack Nicholson's Joker territory—this
is serious stuff, and McKellan's Magneto treats his mutant
mission with the gravity of Richard's rule over the House
of York. Which is not to say that McKellan cannot be fun,
but he resists the urge to broadcast the performance like,
say, Kenneth Branaugh would. McKellan obviously enjoys hanging
out with the kids; he seems genuinely intrigued, almost turned
on by Pyro's antics with his Zippo ("That is an amazing
gift you have there Pyro. You are a God among insects, never
forget that."), but casts the same glare at Xavier that
Macbeth might at Banquo. McKellan might strike you as an unlikely
action star, but he elevates both this and The Lord of
the Rings because he genuinely seems to buy the material.
Sure, it's not Shakespeare, but McKellan seems to respect
the artistic vision enough to treat it without contempt—unlike
the great Shakespearean actor Sir Alec "OB-Wan"
Guiness.
The same can be said for Brian Cox's Stryker, whose performance
resists the histrionics that Dennis Hopper would bring to
the part—and it should be noted that he is a veteran
of the British stage. There's also a pair of Oscar-winning
actresses lurking in the cast (Halle Berry and Anna Paquin),
and the rest are visually fit for their parts, especially
new additions Pyro and Deathstrike (Kelly Hu)—yet more
formidable foes for sequels to come. But special merit must
go to the blue latex duo of Alan Cumming (Nightcrawler) and
Rebecca Romijn-Stamos (Mystique). Cumming's natural flamboyancy
is encased in the latex, I think, so he's forced to express
it entirely through his hands and eyes. In addition to all
his special effects breakthroughs, I also think Brian Singer
has stumbled onto the perfect dramatic method for supermodels:
Employ them for characters with no lines and force them to
act with their most expressive features, like their tits,
or, say, their ass. Which isn't fair in this case; Stamos
has developed a swagger for Mystique that exudes seductive
evil.
In the end, though, a lot of credit must go to Bryan Singer.
There's an impressive clarity in his vision: He initiates
the mainstream audience into the X-Men world without, reportedly,
sacrificing much of the original spirit of the comic. His
stories have taken the comic's template and imposed timely,
worthy subject matter onto it. With such a sprawling cast,
it would be easy to lose most of the characters—though
Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is obviously the main story, Singer
manages to weave subplots upon subplots into the narrative
to create intrigue and interest. And in X2, he whets
our appetite for a handful of sequels: Will Rogue ever act
on her feelings for Wolverine, though she knows it can't go
anywhere? And what about her boyfriend Iceman, whom she can't
even kiss? Will he still be cool when his passions overwhelm
him? Will Wolverine and Cyclops be able to coexist? And what
about Wolverine's past? And is Deathstrike genuinely attracted
to him, or merely after him for his power? The list could
go on and on. And none of this is to mention the design of
the film and Singer's use of the camera. The dark, metallic
tones seem just a beat into the future, somewhere between
the present and Minority Report. In fact, Singer's
action sequences remind me of Master Spielberg's, as does
the design of the film: A future of intrusive government is
a dark one indeed.
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