Amidst the impending extermination of mutants by sentinels, the only mutant who seems to have enough resolve to survive time travel, is sent 40 years back to save the mutants, by preventing the very event which triggered the creation of sentinels …
Sounds interesting??? Worth 8.8 rating on IMDB??? Best X-Men movie ever???
After 20 kms of bike ride trip through innumerable signals, red lights and traffic filled with disappointed RCB fans, my answer is a resounding NO.
This was my first X-Men movie, but whatever little I have read about the other installments or gathered from their trailers, it seems all the movies are centered on the theme of constant conflict between mutants and humans. This installation isn’t different either. However, what isn’t clear to me is the reason for the conflict. In this movie, the reason for conflict seems to be because of human’s insecurity vis-à-vis a superior mutant race. This insecurity can’t be denied, but what we can’t also deny is, if such a race were to exist, there would always be even stronger urge for humans to make peace with mutants and use their powers for benefit of mankind.
Anyways, the central premise of X-Men franchise is not what bothers me in this movie. What bothers me is the thinness of the plot, usage of DNA and other technologies in 1970s which would hardly have been imagined in times of Nixon, similarities of sentinel attack in the movie to the attack of in Matrix revolutions.
If the human mutant conflict is in evitable as seen in innumerable X-Men installments, then how is it possible that only one single event 40 years back, resulted in creation of sentinels. Surely, 40 years would have seen enough of mad scientists, biologists, genetic engineers and events to result in creation of something like sentinels. And if the martyrdom (if I were to use that term) of Dr. Bolivar Trask was the event that triggered creation of sentinels, X-Men don’t modify that event drastically enough to convince humans that mutants don’t pose any threat to them, all human insecurities are baseless and therefore there’s no need to create a set beings designed to exterminate them.
Now that I have expressed my problem with the plot, let’s turn to execution. If time travel wasn’t enough to grab audience attention, how about throwing in the assignation conspiracy of JFK?? Surely, Indians aren’t the only ones given to hero worship. One American movie portrays Abraham Lincoln as Vampire slayer, while this one suggests JFK to be a mutant himself. The dialogues around JFK assassination do grab some eyeballs, but as you try to come to terms with this revelation, you find yourself being convinced of an ill conceived plot of freeing someone imprisoned 100 or so ft. beneath the most heavily guarded establishment of them all, the Pentagon.
From there you know what’s in store for you. Matrix, like bullet stunts with the subtle difference of guns and bullets being made of polymer to avoid being made useless by our metal manipulator, Magneto.
There isn’t much of suspense in the movie either, because you know what will happen eventually, even though the mutants do try to confuse you thoroughly by their not so obvious plans and actions.
All in all, if this is the best movie of X-Men franchise, then I am beginning to wonder whether the franchise is worth it at all???
Sounds interesting??? Worth 8.8 rating on IMDB??? Best X-Men movie ever???
After 20 kms of bike ride trip through innumerable signals, red lights and traffic filled with disappointed RCB fans, my answer is a resounding NO.
This was my first X-Men movie, but whatever little I have read about the other installments or gathered from their trailers, it seems all the movies are centered on the theme of constant conflict between mutants and humans. This installation isn’t different either. However, what isn’t clear to me is the reason for the conflict. In this movie, the reason for conflict seems to be because of human’s insecurity vis-à-vis a superior mutant race. This insecurity can’t be denied, but what we can’t also deny is, if such a race were to exist, there would always be even stronger urge for humans to make peace with mutants and use their powers for benefit of mankind.
Anyways, the central premise of X-Men franchise is not what bothers me in this movie. What bothers me is the thinness of the plot, usage of DNA and other technologies in 1970s which would hardly have been imagined in times of Nixon, similarities of sentinel attack in the movie to the attack of in Matrix revolutions.
If the human mutant conflict is in evitable as seen in innumerable X-Men installments, then how is it possible that only one single event 40 years back, resulted in creation of sentinels. Surely, 40 years would have seen enough of mad scientists, biologists, genetic engineers and events to result in creation of something like sentinels. And if the martyrdom (if I were to use that term) of Dr. Bolivar Trask was the event that triggered creation of sentinels, X-Men don’t modify that event drastically enough to convince humans that mutants don’t pose any threat to them, all human insecurities are baseless and therefore there’s no need to create a set beings designed to exterminate them.
Now that I have expressed my problem with the plot, let’s turn to execution. If time travel wasn’t enough to grab audience attention, how about throwing in the assignation conspiracy of JFK?? Surely, Indians aren’t the only ones given to hero worship. One American movie portrays Abraham Lincoln as Vampire slayer, while this one suggests JFK to be a mutant himself. The dialogues around JFK assassination do grab some eyeballs, but as you try to come to terms with this revelation, you find yourself being convinced of an ill conceived plot of freeing someone imprisoned 100 or so ft. beneath the most heavily guarded establishment of them all, the Pentagon.
From there you know what’s in store for you. Matrix, like bullet stunts with the subtle difference of guns and bullets being made of polymer to avoid being made useless by our metal manipulator, Magneto.
There isn’t much of suspense in the movie either, because you know what will happen eventually, even though the mutants do try to confuse you thoroughly by their not so obvious plans and actions.
All in all, if this is the best movie of X-Men franchise, then I am beginning to wonder whether the franchise is worth it at all???
No comments:
Post a Comment