Transformers, No. 3 - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (need I really go into its backstory? No!) is the poster movie for the “just turn off your brain and enjoy” school of film watching. Amongst many thoughtful movie fans, it has generated an intense amount of hatred, with which I agree, though hopefully with moderation. As a sequel to Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen errs in a lot of significant ways. It doesn’t repeat to an absurd degree, possibly because even the relatively more stately Transformers is already a freeform jazz sort of blockbuster. Rather, Revenge of the Fallen takes the classic sequel maxim of going bigger, as director Michael Bay tests just how much bigger it can possibly become, but in a way that is still strangely mellow and inconsequential.

By sacrificing nearly every sane thought in human history in its quest to achieve every horrible sequel sin possible, Revenge of the Fallen loses the following – story, plot, characters, emotion, basic comprehensibility. Even while at least one lesson was learned – the action is clearer, especially in regards to the robots. Plus I took several Advils before this movie, and didn’t drink. Everything else is just a magnification of the rather damning faults already present in all “Transformers” media.

It’s like a litmus test. At what point do you totally bail on Revenge of the Fallen, or can you follow its arbitrary form of explosion-based stream-of-consciousness all the way to the overblown finale? For me, there are intentional moments of rule-breaking (changing continent in mid-scene with no justification, or altering the universe’s rules for a single set piece), almost as though Bay knew the challenge he was creating for calmer, more rational viewers. Do you surrender entirely to the willful anti-intellectualism of Revenge of the Fallen, or do you draw the line and say “No, I like a good popcorn movie, but even these unpretentious films need to respect their audiences to at least some degree?”

Because Revenge of the Fallen is, by design, an exercise in thumbing its nose at good storytelling (while embracing purely technical skill), it is not sporting to approach the film by standard means. As often individual shots have no greater context, rather I choose to just pick out random moments of known idiocy. Sometimes I shall just nitpick…

- 10,000 B.C. one-upped with a 17,000 B.C. intro, to no end

- The setting is now “today,” as opposed to Transformers’ “present day”

- General masses of collateral damage left unaddressed

- “Punk-ass Decepticon.”

- Sam’s (Shia LeBrlspltttt) parents maintain an obsession with rap culture

- Perpetual gay Chihuahua dog anus sodomy:


- Random object found (sliver of the Cube) just in time for the sequel, and never sooner

- Single scene Gremlins plagiary wedged in

- The state of alien knowledge changes in each scene, with hugely varying degrees of acceptance

- Bumblebee’s voice, though restored at end of Transformers, is gone again

- Sam gives up Megan Fox (Megan Fox) and a sentient transformin’ car for a frattastic college freshman experience, simply to artificially return us to “relatability”

- References to “the president” seem a preemptive rejection of Obama’s anticipated pacifism, following Transformers’ “parody” of Bush

- Sam’s mother buys “pure Hawaiian green” marijuana brownies, having missed all pop culture since 1936. As proof this is not our physical universe, the marijuana affects her like methamphetamines, which entirely demands a multi-minute detour, because this movie isn’t 147 minutes long or anything


- A Decepticon “camouflaged” as a gigantic metallic saber-toothed tiger doesn’t really make logical sense, but that’s consistent with the toy line

- Humans can rarely see Decepticons hiding in plain sight, because to them the CGI is not yet rendered

- Decepticons can now also transform into humans (specifically, supermodel blondes, for those odd males without a taste for Megan Fox), in keeping with no preexisting brand lore I am aware of. This fembot was presumably enrolled in advance at Random Generic East Coast College just in case Sam went there, and just in case Arbitrary Shard Rules X, Y and Z were to occur…or something

- Bumblebee cockblocks

- Bumblebee ejaculates on the fembot


- Autobots hide in a massive photogenic graveyard without repercussion (“without repercussion,” the Automot mantra)

- The screenwriters cannot do basic arithmetic (though they do cop to this), as 5 – 1 + 1 ≠ 6. Though maybe Decepticons count differently

- A general observation: The plot conditions change roughly every 5 to 10 minutes as it conveniences the latest pre-shot set piece

- Sam cannot stand Dwight K. Shrute, professor. Instead one of those loopy plot tumors inspires him to act out – i.e. to combine his mother’s stoned capering with LeBooooooooof’s Ian Malcolm

- “Standing up on web-chat dates” is now the grist for major emotional arcs!

- More traditionally, so does a male’s inability to mouth the word “love”

- “What’re ya lookin’ at, slobberpuss?”

- “Ow, that’s my eye, you crazy bitch!”


- Director in-jokes are usually hidden in some way

- The fembot reads textbooks on astrophysics. In America, this is how you know somebody is evil

- The fembot runs through a Terminator/Species “homage” (read: rip-off), which would completely upend the rules of this universe/franchise, if they were to ever to commit to an idea for longer than one scene. ADHD must be an entertaining condition!

- Sam vomits randomly. I do not remember this from the theatrical cut!

- In most movies, the hero dangling hundreds of feet in the air would have some excitement to it. Michael Bay’s approach kills that connection – a problem he shares with the Star Wars prequels

- Sam undergoes a variation on that “swallowed biomechanical insect” scene early in The Matrix, the assumption here (as when any movie is stolen from) is that Bayification makes a scene automatically better


- Optimus Prime dukes it out with multiple Decepticons in a forest, and I genuinely have no complaints

- …until I realize all other Autobots are lost in a continuity error, in order to facilitate Optimus’ rather early death (in keeping with The Transformers: The Movie)

- It has been shown robots can be resurrected by pieces of other robots, as with Megatron’s return; this will for whatever reason not work for Optimus. It has been stated Sam’s Cube Shard can restore robot life; this will for whatever reason not work for Optimus. What was that about the plot proceeding arbitrarily?

- The Decepticons just ripped down an American flag! That’s the last straw!

- France is a land of mimes, snails, and incomprehensible words. This is the live action, serious version of Team America

- Oh look, Michael Bay is destroying Paris…again

- The Decepticons just murdered at least 7,000 people randomly, without provocation, and without ultimate dramatic implication. At least it makes for a nifty special effect

- Skids and Mudflap:


- “That’s old school, yo.” “Read? We – we – we really don’t do so much readin’. Not so much.” “That’s ‘cause you a pussy.”

- John Turturro’s glorious wedging back in

- The movie has circled around a deep, dark conspiracy. As with all movies which do that, it turns out to be ancient alien architects. Why do people keep insisting the Egyptians couldn’t construct their own buildings?!

- “Wanna throw down, you pubic fro head?”

- Ass:


- The Shard, which might’ve been used to revive Optimus, is used instead to revive Jetfire, who reveals how to revive Optimus.

- Opening the doors of Washington D.C.’s Smithsonian reveals an airfield in Arizona. This decision was made solely for the better visuals

- A Decepticon (but not Megatron) humps Megan Fox’s leg


- Jetfire farts a parachute

- Jetfire teleports everybody to Egypt, even though he is a jet, an event which has never happened before, and never shall again, because the plot…

- “You landed on my testicles.”

- The Sahara is mistaken for Las Vegas, reflecting the characters’ small reference pool

- “Beginning. Middle. End. Facts. Details. Condense. Plot. Tell it.” A rare lucid moment from our screenwriters?

- Plot, revealed 90 minutes in: A million billion jillion years ago, possibly during the 15th century, the Deceptoboticons hid a sun-destroying machine within Egypt’s pyramids, for shits and giggles mostly, and to fuel a sequel, should the need someday arise. The titular Fallen wants to destroy our Sun, for Energon, but he needs the Matrix of Leadership, hidden a whole several miles away from the pyramids, inside Sam’s mind, and…Okay, re-simplifying: MUST STOP BAD GUYS

- Car chase: 25 seconds

- An Egyptian midget is played for laughs

- Sam and Megan Fox have their first opportunity for a calm heart-to-heart, in reference to something which happened an hour ago (movie time)

- Petra: within driving distance of Giza

- Skipping DVD. My player has entered self-preservation mode

- The pornographic destruction of the Great Pyramid proceeds for our delectation, with an expected minimum of cultural sensitivity.

- Oh hey, Luxor is also right next door to Giza!

- Marines arrive with Optimus’ body, for Sam to somehow revive (in a way even Sam doesn’t understand). Rather than airdrop it right next to Sam, they drop it several miles away, so Sam can race through an action sequence first

- Winds strong enough to suction up entire vans, but not Turturro

- Oh hey, Sam’s parents are here in Egypt now!...for whatever reason

- “I don’t know what’s going on!” More self-aware dialogue

- Military pornography. I’m impressed Bay held that load for so long

- Decepti-scrotum!


- This action sequence has been going on for twenty-five minutes, which is enjoyable in that lizard sort of way. It also temporarily cripples the critical facilities

- Sam dies and goes to Transformers Purgatory (!), which is apparently exactly what was needed to bring both himself and Optimus Prime back to life


- “Fulfill your destiny.”

- “This was always your destiny.”

- “Let’s roll.”

- With nigh a half hour of buildup, Optimus flies in to do battle at once with both Megatron and the Fallen. Oh, this is gonna be utterly kick-a- Oh wait, it’s over already…

- Sam loves Megan Fox, a touching and permanent moment – until Dark of the Moon

Many smart people I know have the enviable skill of being able to fully embrace Revenge of the Fallen on its own terms. They possibly notice the obvious plot holes and awkward non-plot, but don’t see that as important – not when shit blows up real good-like. I do not share this skill. When watching it with them (that’s back in 2009, shuffling to the theater with the same resigned sense of duty as we all once brought to Attack of the Clones), it was nearly an out-of-body experience. Am I that far beyond the average moviegoer? Why am I enjoying the movie purely as a sort of Manos exercise, while others are perfectly pleased to grant it just under a million jillion bazilgzjillion dollars in box office?

Then, two years later, I go and watch The Tree of Life with a like-minded audience of appreciative cineastes, and all is well. I think there’s a value in judging films by their own intent, and embracing an action movie on more simplistic terms than an art film. (I also hold art films to an impossibly higher standard.) Yet I believe that, despite my desires to be cinematically all-embracing, that there are certain movies that are simply worthless…and Revenge of the Fallen sure does straddle that line!

Transformers, No. 2 - Transformers (2007)

Where’d the idea of doing a live action Transformers movie come from? Well, nostalgia, the ongoing sense that every revered 1980s property could (nay, should) be brought back for the old audience with a filter of maturity, while also appealing to younger, newer audiences. Filmically, the same rough 2007/8 period renewed Die Hard by Living Free, gave us a Rambo actually called Rambo, and then there was that Indiana Jones movie we shan’t speak of again.

Plus, movie producers are always looking for the latest untapped lode (uh heh heh) from which to pilfer. Within the larger post-millennial period which Transformers defines, they’ve gone to theme park rides (Pirates of the Caribbean), comic strips (Garfield), and soon enough we’ll get an influx of board game movies (Battleship, et al). (Comic book movies barely count, as they are genuinely respectable.) Of course, earlier periods produced occasional “odd source” movies, like Clue or Mars Attacks! (both of them awesome), but without the prominent ubiquity of the ‘00s.

And Transformers represents the “toy line” side of that thought process, though to say this ignores the Hasbro’s innumerable TV and comic manifestations – to say nothing of The Transformers: The Movie. Any promising source is worth doing repeatedly – hence Hasbro also created the live action G.I. Joe, initially switched out for Transformers thanks to goddamned Saddam Hussein. In a similar(ish) vein, there would’ve been the now-scrapped Thundercats flick, plus one only assumes “My Little Pony,” “Candyland,” and in ten years we’ll all be even the wiser.


Ah, but Transformers…Doing this property in live action is indeed a good idea – I say, willfully ignoring what’s been done. To begin with, the allure of specifically a live action film (as opposed to more animation, likely for TV or DTV or HDTV) is the sense that it is the official story – Obviously no pragmatic adaptation can be perfect, but more people will know it, give it more credence, and thus the Transformers characters enter the mainstream consciousness as never before. It’s a sort of pinnacle, or tent pole, to increase awareness of lesser “Transformers” entities – as a Hasbro business decision, with no question as to artistry, this is a sound choice.

Plus, live action demands discipline in a way animation doesn’t – even with a budget as permissive as Transformers’. With limited resources, and the need for relative realism, bombast becomes grounded. A strange thing to say, I know, about any Michael Bay movie – for now I point out what everyone knows going in, that Michael Bay directed Transformers. And while Bay’s approach is the furthest from disciplined, the medium does it for him. The Movie, for its hallowed position amongst nostalgists, is just as hyperkinetic and sugar-rushed, in its 1980s way, so Bay is actually a good choice to update and modify what seems to be the franchise’s main mode – for better or worse.


Helping out Transformers the most, conceptually, is its need to go mainstream. I know, hear me out! With an excessive budget, Transformers cannot just appeal to pre-initiates as The Movie does; it must balance that sort of hardcore fan with the absolute ignorantsia. Thus Transformers, under the guidance of executive producer Steven Spielberg (it’s perpetually odd to think he and Bay aligned), focuses upon humans – It’s Blockbuster 101: Devise an outrageous premise (in this case, space-faring giant robots that have evolved naturally to turn into 20th century Earth vehicles), and present it normally. Transformers then eliminates a lot of the zanier “Transformers” baggage, such as a space setting, or the Transformer sub-groups (Insecticons, Dinobots, most anything post-Generation 1). Instead Transformers takes place on Earth. In the present day. Humans are the main characters.

That last part is a major sticking point for many “Transformers” faithful, for whom Optimus Prime is Jesus Christ. But this is the sort of necessary trade off one makes in adapting “Transformers” to live action, since the title characters are expensive: CGI behemoths whose rendering process is known to blow up computers (because Michael Bay needs explosions everywhere).


Though this is…an avoidable problem…The Transformer redesigns are hideous, a fallout of Bay’s insistence (back when he was surprisingly reticent to shepherd a “stupid toy movie,” he being so mature and all) that the Transformers be believable. By “believable” he means technically so, thus an undue amount of effort was put into making robots which could actually transform – and then squelching that effort anyway, by making the transformations superfast and totally incomprehensible. The result is a bunch of visual diarrhea, a baroque spiky nightmare which (honestly) is a lot more coherent on my television than it was in the theater. Anyway, these complex, complex designs are harder to render, so the Transformers are given less screen time as a result – no time to make a dramatic impact (in keeping, frankly, with The Movie).

(Complexity-for-believability is Bay’s chief contribution, and it doesn’t work. It especially jibes poorly with how he shoots the frequent – but not frequent enough – robot fights, as though from a puny human’s point of view. It’s simply difficult to parse out. On the big screen, this technique gave me the single worst headache of my life. Yes, Transformers is literally the most painful movie I’ve ever seen – though my choice to drink a yard of Blue Moon and sit in the front row didn’t help.)

Oh wait, I’m nitpicking fundamentally flawed character design, when perhaps we ought to take a step back and consider the larger concept of Transformers. If we accept the need to stick with humans, a new narrative must be devised. While Transformers still tells of Autobots and Decepticons, we take a human perspective. How would humans perceive two warring robot factions?


There are two approaches. The Spielberg approach does like E.T., and tells of a boy’s first car – a universal (enough) story. Then the car turns out to be alive and, unlike in Christine, it’s good, leading the boy into an ever-expanding universe. It just happens to be “Transformers.” It also just happens to be a narrative which celebrates blind consumerism, which is in Hasbro’s interest.

The Bay approach highlights military hardware, because he has a nine-hour erection for the U.S.’s military industrial complex, and an unquestioning faithfulness to our recent the icky imperialistic politics. So he shows soldiers in Qatar (further subtitled as “the Middle East,” because we have the IQs of lobsters) fighting an alien invasion – of robots.

Neither of these approaches really meshes with the other, so naturally Transformers does both of them…at once. The military angle affords Bay an opening action sequence, but at the expense of further wonder or discovery (though the preview trailers have already sabotaged that emotion to begin with). His tale of warfare, entirely independent of the other plot threads until well over halfway through, also grants Bay the chance to cut away whenever Spielberg’s domestic suburban tale isn’t hypermacho enough (i.e., “not enough military”). Considering Bay’s exclusive marketing agreement with the armed forces (essentially), lotsa pointless military porn was probably inevitable. ‘Merica – FUCK YEAH! Of course it has nothing to do with “Transformers.”


Meanwhile, in Los Angeles of course, Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf , a stuttering young Jewish actor who reminds Spielberg of a falsely “manly” version of his younger self, and does nothing for anyone else) wants a car. He gets a car. Fascinating! Specifically, he gets Bumblebee, now a Camaro because of an unavoidable GM tie-in – this is consumerist hagiography, and “better” than The Movie simply by being a more sophisticated commercial, for more products. In the long run, Sam does learn that his car lives, and seeks a mystical space MacGuffin (the All Spark, available now at Pep Boys). Meanwhile, Sam romances Mikaela (Megan Fox – no comment), which doesn’t feel like the usual tacked-on blockbuster romance because A) Sam is clearly just filmmaker wish fulfillment, and B) Mikaela gets us as close to pornography as the PG-13 rating will allow.


There is the promise of…some sort of movie in Sam’s antics. One can see the Spielbergian heart buried deep under all the chrome, and wonders how J.J. Abrams might’ve handled this same basic movie. Bay, who is clearly embarrassed by the need to dwell upon a normal teenager, rather dudes up even Transformers’ baseline reality with all sorts of strangeness.

Every time some past event is referenced (an Arctic expedition, football tryouts, the Mars rover), it is shown, for upwards to 10 seconds each – which seems like a very frivolous use of budget. Some of Sam’s tale is told with an attempt at humor, a sort of American Beauty for mouth-breathers. That’s when the movie isn’t randomly attempting, for all of several seconds, to ape Kill Bill – mostly by “borrowing” musical cues.

And the whole movie boasts the same sort of whiggerism I’d identified in Scary Movie 3, the clear product of a white man accidentally misreading “urban” culture. Sam’s comic relief parents (who intermittently shatter whatever “reality” Bay goes for) refer to “bling” and whatnot with utter ignorance; the movie as a whole does similarly, slopping on the surface details of hipness everyplace – e.g. Sam’s love of faded faux-retro T-shirts, which is totally not in keeping with his ostensible “nerdy” persona. Also, his spray-on douche tan. Plus, Bay casts Anthony Anderson, which is automatically evil – especially since he gets a completely isolated “super kewl exxxtreme ballz” hacker subplot.


Actually, to limit myself to the human details, there are a lot of individually indefensible decisions in Transformers:

Bernie Mac (rest his soul) appears as a used car dealer, and forces laffs in, in a way which reflects Bays’ prison shower gang rape conception of komedy. He calls his mother a bitch, berates a Puerto Rican for being a Puerto Rican (or some sort of non-black ethnic). It’s all very ugly.

Anthony Anderson gets largely the same routine with his grandmother, minus the racism. This is the modern equivalent of sambo dancing, a tone-deaf parody of hood rats that somehow is meant to appeal directly to said hood rats.

A U.S. soldier is ridiculed for speaking Spanish, because that’s not a language that is spoken by American citizens. Another soldier is lambasted for having slightly irregular culinary tastes. This is in the film’s first Earth-bound scene, setting the stage for our species as a whole!

Sam has an extended-wannabe-Jeff-Goldblum-stutter-off with a drug-obsessed cop, who likewise exists in some skewed comic reality unrelated to any other scene.

White people, for the most part, are frat boys, a lifestyle which is celebrated. Sam is weaker because he hasn’t fully embraced douchiness yet. His conquest of Mikaela is just one crucial step in his arc towards embracing assholism, Bay-style.

Also, Bumblebee “upgrades’’ from a 1976 Camaro to a 2007 (probably) Camaro, which seems equally distasteful – but maybe that’s just me.


It’s a complete tonal mess! This is what Transformers does. Nothing which happens has any emotional relevance to anything else. Nor plot relevance. For instance, it appears Bay wanted to film a scene of a gremlin-sized Decepticon (that’s Gremlins gremlins, not car Gremlins) – it transforms into a boom box, because that’s “gangsta.” This beast, whose name I dunno, raids Air Force One, simple because. Because Bay wanted to film an Air Force One scene, why not, and toss in an utterly spineless “caricature” of George W. Bush too – The man wants ding-dongs, oh the political commentary!

Then the Transformer robots get sorta halfway almost kinda involved in their own story, and come across badly. Bay doesn’t seem to “get” robots (at least when they’re not military hardware). Despite their transformation camouflage, the Autobots physically hide behind puny hedges. A Transformer is mistaken for the tooth fairy, something which makes zero sense. A Transformer urinates on John Turturro’s head – you don’t fuck with the Jesus! A dog (a Chihuahua, which affords a Taco Bell reference and $) urinates on a Transformer. Assorted childhoods are raped.


This isn’t necessarily what a live action Transformers should’ve been like. Surely, there’s a lot of stupid, stupid stuff in the older series, but that isn’t what’s perpetuated the brand. Nostalgia-wise, memory upgrades the Transformers into something more effective than they really were, and it’s that notion which Transformers should’ve aimed for. For all the “detail as realism” misdirection, Transformers needn’t be this reductive. Raiders of the Lost Ark still stands as what should be done with properties like this – realize the potential of silly old genres, elevate them.

That all being said, revisiting Transformers has been far less painful than I’d anticipated. In light of The Transformers: The Movie, Bay’s magnum Optimus really does feel a little calmer. For newbies it’s approachable, which is surely something can’t be said for other “Transformers” products. As for a lot of the genuine miscalculation, well, that is “Transformers,” only here in its 2007 guise – hip hop and Bush worship and bad comedy, in place of cock rock and Reagan worship and bad comedy.

Transformers, No. 1 - The Transformers: The Movie (1986)

It is every film blogger’s occasional joy to run across a complete blind spot. Given my age, interests, and the never-ending rants of the ever-expanding nerds I went to college with, I am somehow a deeply lesser human being for having never seen The Transformers: The Movie – to go by the nerds’ wizened jabberings, the single greatest animated film conceivable.

Actually, I had next to nothing to do with the Transformers brand growing up, except for a few toys I think I must’ve burgled from somebody. But do not weep for a childhood that never happened, because every young boy has two possible career options: be a giant truck, or a dinosaur. I was a dinosaur. My hosannas then and now go out to the almighty Turtles – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to the layman. That’s when I wasn’t intentionally wrecking my childhood with R-rated junk instead (e.g. RoboCop), so a single cartoon utterance of “Oh shit!” probably wouldn’t have even phased me.


Time to do my penance for pop cultural ignorance, and probe this Transformers trend…

It all began as a toy! In an eternal tale of inspiration, in 1984 Hasbro proved Orwell right and acquired preexisting molds from Japan (MicroChange, which spun-off from Diaclone, which spun-off from Microman, which spun-off from G.I. Joe). The toys: robots which could transform. Hasbro’s witty contribution was to call said transformers “Transmorphers” – er, no, “Transformers.”

Largish robots that can turn into cars, and vice versa – it’s a truck enthusiast’s automotive wet dream. To fuel and overwrite children’s playtime fantasies, Hasbro commissioned a story for their semi-Japanese-ish car-bot-itrons. These guys were involved: Jim Shooter, Dennis O’Neil, Bob Budiansky. (Through advance research, it seems I am a worthless scrap of meat for not knowing that a priori.) Thus there are two robot factions, the Autobots and the Decepticons, who battle each other…over energy resources. Despite seemingly interchangeable tactics, one side is good and angelic, and the other side as evil as Pazuzu. The Decepticons, because their innate ancestral name sounds like the English Earth word “deceive,” are the “bad” ones. And…let the hyperactive schoolboys choose their allegiances!


The toy line lead swiftly to a TV show, “The Transformers” (“Fight! Super Robot Life Form Transformer” in Japan, which is an infinitely cooler name). Plus, such publicity leads to more toys purchased, which a cynic without a childhood to rape (i.e. me) would point to as the ultimate goal. For this great mid-‘80s renaissance of product promotional programming, we can thank regulators for lifting a previous ban on such glorious capitalism. (Thanks to “G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero,” because you cannot oppose crass marketing in light of such patriotism!)

The show, by all evidence, explores the war twixt Autobots and Decepticons over the planet Cybertron. It is contemporarily set, with scant Earth humans from the Witwicky family in there not to be further toys (though who really knows), but to entice those weirdos not auto(bot)matically interested in robots. Robo-wise, the cast is massive, to reflect each and every toy available for purchase at your local participating toy emporium: Optimus Prime, Brawn, Bluestreak, Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, Gears, Hound, Huffer, Ironhide, Jazz, Mirage, Prowl, Ratchet, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, Trailbreaker, Wheeljack, Windcharger, Hauler, and those are only the good guys, and only from the pilot.


Imagine now, as we artlessly jump ahead to 1986’s big damn theatrical The Transformers: The Movie, an uninformed viewer suddenly plunged into a universe more overloaded than the one outlined above. This is the effect of attempting to watch The Movie now without proper grounding. As animated by Japan’s Toei (though an English-language American release), the Transformers characters are…difficult to tell apart. The movie makes no appeals to newbies, no effort at introductions or explanations. It is mostly by color that I can pick out at least the most important characters (Optimus, Megatron, Hot Rod, Starscream)…though one could complain similarly about the Turtles, I suppose.

The voice cast is really show-offy – among others, Peter Cullen, Judd Nelson, Leonard Nimoy, Robert Stack, Frank Welker, Eric Idle – in perhaps an effort to create some personality distinction. For whatever reason, the DVD’s vocal synch doesn’t work, so this one is screwed up – with hilarious results! Plus, stiff robot faces aren’t the most expressive, so it’s hard sometimes to know which head is yakking anyway.

I feel rather like Stan in “South Park’s” recent “You’re Getting Old” – exposed to entertainment so clearly not meant for me, as it’s both juvenile and instantly time-stamped. Everything throughout feels like the same bombastic visual and aural noise (no, I’m not yet reviewing the Michael Bay efforts). The Movie is no doubt designed for those consumers already initiated in the “Transformers” world – the “Generation 1” world specifically, though they didn’t know that at the time.


The animation is the perfect representative of “Super Robot Seizure Happy Time Hour” – flashing lights and visual dissonance, done with admittedly some budget for a mid-level Japanese 1986 production, but wholly cluttered to behold.

The soundtrack is inundated with period power ballads, and assorted sub-New Wave synth what-have-you. “The Touch,” Stan Bush’s central tune (originally meant, amusingly, for Stallone’s Cobra), is the sort of inspirational pap Daniel La Russo wouldn’t be caught dead training to. Plus, it’s sorta awesome. The entirety of every scene is pumped to full volume with it and similar noise, forever overpowering the hard efforts of the voice cast. (To say nothing of including “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Dare to be Stupid,” which I like – because it’s “Weird Al” – but is wholly out-of-place near the climax of a self-serious American mecha monstrosity.)

Individually, the story works just like the songs or the visuals – that is, at 11, independently trying to overwhelm the senses with so much spectacle and event and detail that one is never able to get a grasp of what exactly is happening. Or at any rate, my laid back adult mind cannot do this – The whole of The Movie plays like the fever sugar rush babbling of an explosion-happy six-year-old, which no doubt explains its appeal to those who were that age in that year…a limited, niche audience, to be sure.


Here’s what I could figure out: The always-hungry, planet-devouring Unicron (voiced by the similarly omnivorous Orson Welles, who then died) threatens to destroy the peaceful tranquility of the Autobot-Decepticon war. It is also the distant future year of 2005 now, allowing for a heady combination of robots and hoverboards and prophetic Bush satire (okay, only the first two).

Meanwhile…okay, I think it’s all action sequences from here on out. Anyway, assorted cartoon robots launch special effects towards each other, eventually Unicron is turned into something else all explodey, and…a whole shitload of main characters die!


Okay, The Movie is famous for decimating the “Transformers” lineup, in a cruel act of attrition which utterly devastated many ‘80s boys – Imagine if you first learned about death through the passing of Optimus Prime. Seen in isolation, and with recourse to other period anime features with more decidedly mature tones, one (myself) barely grasps the gravity of all this. Part of it is…I sometimes cannot tell if someone is dying. Honestly, I think there’s something wrong with my brain, that the boundless, uncontrolled energy of The Movie is more confusing than the zanier efforts of a Lynch or a Cronenberg.

Besides, going in I already understood the true motive behind animated mass murder: TOYS! The Transformers: The Movie was put out in the summer between the second and third seasons of the TV show, which is a familiar pattern for – yes – the era’s anime films. (See, e.g., “InuYasha.”) The Movie is subservient to the show, which is subservient to the toy line – and toy lines must renew themselves with time, lest the eternal capitalist impulse dry up without new products. So while artistically the show might’ve wished to continue developing its established cast, each new toy means a new character, and it demands the removal of an old character.


So The Movie is really a filmed product announcement, one you have to pay to see. Only no child heading into theaters knew this – they simply knew they’d be seeing their favorite soulless robot heroes in a glorified adventure. Who’da thunk the freedoms of cinema (over kid-vid Saturday morning TV) meant mecha mortality.

And here are the new toys (er, characters) The Movie establishes: Hot Rod, Kup, Bluur, Arcee, Springer, Ultra Magnus, Wreck-Gar, Wheely, Steeljaw, Ramhorn, Eject, Rewind, the Sharkticons. (God, these names!) I get all this info from outside research, because there’s nothing in the film which makes it remotely that clear. Plus, certain former characters aren’t quite killed, but rather “promoted” into “new” consumer-dictated figurines: Megatron becomes Galvatron, and some other misspellings change as well.

And there’s something called the Matrix of Leadership, and I’m sure it makes sense if I could parse out its exposition over the cock rock. As it is, that just sounds like some phraseology from a business retreat.


“More than meets the eye.” “Robots in disguise.” The central concept of “Transformers” isn’t anathema to something a little less batshit nutsazoid. Robots hidden among us…this opens up a rich fantasy reverie, and is obviously the engine behind the ongoing franchise. Too bad the facts of toy production dictate continuous elaboration, which turns – in no time flat! – into lunacy. To capture a new market share, Hasbro invented new sub-lines of Transformers such as the Insecticons or the…er, the Dinosauriconobotics. (Sorry, “Dinobots.”) Also the Constructicons, and probably something called the Comiconitrons.

So…giant robots morphing into giant dinosaurs. It’s cool, in that reductive, maniac sort of way, but these ideas do rather undercut believability. Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this overstuffed world was/is the appeal. Maybe it’s more fun to see gigantic robots on alien planets, where their scale is equivalent to the local architecture, as opposed to on Earth where they look massive. All these things which alienate me, which make me hear farting noises, could be what’s fun about the brand.

And moving on briefly beyond The Movie…“The Transformers” continued on TV for two more seasons. Assorted spinoffs then emerged in Japan, but we expect the Japanese to do silly things to begin with. The line bifurcated within the U.S. as well, creating numerous new animated shows and toy lines and comic book continuities, all distinct from each other, except when they’re not. To wit, there’s “Beast Wars,” “Robots in Disguise,” “Armada,” “Energon,” “Cyberton,” and something simply called “Transformers: Animated,” even though all of those are animated. And those are just – I think – the shows. All hail Hasbro, which develops ideas like tumors! Each new line is a chance for new customers – renewing a fan base is one approach, unlike most series which try to maintain a single audience long term.

And then there’s the live action franchise, which is a separate bag of bolts…

X-Men, No. 4 - X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

Following a Part Three that was then the most expensive film ever made, overstuffed with characters and complications and grotesquely dangling plot threads, Part Four was conceived as a pared down simplification, ditching ongoing escalation for a contained story focusing more wholly on the breakout character, in hope of recapturing part of the original’s charm.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides thus makes Wolverine front and center, ditching the rest of the mutant cast that – My mistake, this movie is actually called X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

To Fox’s credit, they realized that what X-Men: The Last Stand did couldn’t be sustained further. To their fault, they insisted upon continuing this cinematic X-Men tradition nonetheless – not that the “X-Men” cannot yield assorted worthwhile adventures borrowed from their storied comic run, but the motion picture universe is more specifically Bryan Singer’s. Asking a newbie director to continue on in that style, minus legitimate passion for the endeavor (or possibly even the larger genre), hinders much of what could otherwise be done. No longer, by 2009, was the X-Men franchise predicting the path of future superhero movies. Now, with Batman Begins having legitimized the idea of multiple filmic incarnations of one hero, maintaining fidelity to the trumped-up continuity Brett Ratner largely queefed out seems a self-defeating act.


In concept (cooked up by producers, then tossed over to creative types to make something – anything – of it), X-Men Origins was to be a new pseudo-series spun-off from the “central” X-Men backbone. Thus X4 might still come to be, if executives meet Halle Berry’s latest unrealistic requests for a satin-lined castle of gold filled with acolytes. Rather than weather that storm, the Origins label would cut through the chaff of inflating X-Men rosters by focusing solely upon individual mutants, whomever deserves a solo outing as a proper, name-recognition superhero.

Really, this is a roundabout way of admitting that Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine was undoubtedly the fan favorite, so why limit him to a single scene of animalistic slashing? Plus, with reputable storylines like Wolverine in Japan – No, wait, they’re just making it a prequel. How…redundant. It’s all there in the Origins label – The one thing that the X-Men movies didn’t do, among the clichés of the 21st century superhero movie, was tell an origin story. And all the better for those movies! As the nominal lead of three movies, Wolverine’s past is sufficiently filled in – his creation as Weapon X under William Stryker, and subsequent amnesia. That amnesia really seals the deal, since this new Wolverine – directed as if at gunpoint by Gavin Hood – is contractually fated to lead in to 2000’s X-Men. Prequels are challenging enough, when filmmakers fail to advantage of prior knowledge about inevitabilities. Making an entire movie of introductory character development, only to reset it at the very end – this is contemptible, the clearest sign that there was no point in making this beyond the financial.

Still, a prequel has the potential (one I’ve rarely seen acted upon) to use inevitability in the form of a Greek tragedy, maybe highlighting the pointlessness of Wolverine’s pre-Weapon X-istence to fashion an X-istentialist X-amination. Nolan could do it! If Hood could, Fox doesn’t want to know, because they’d rather willingly antagonize their new director – Wolverine has so many willfully perverse X-amples of X-ecutive meddling (when it works in other movies, we don’t even notice it), one truly gets a sense that the old ‘90s fashion of comics contempt has returned. Treading lightly for now, there’s no reason to introduce brand new beloved mutants, then completely misrepresent them all simultaneously.

With so many handicaps against Wolverine from the get go, it can only manage to entertain on the most superficial of levels, as an actioner. With a whole film to bask in, it’s a shame Wolverine isn’t allowed to rampage anywhere near X2’s glorious army assault, still the character’s grandest moment in film. The PG-13 rating is partly to blame, as is Wolverine’s inclination to be as generic an action movie as possible, serving up CGI-assisted throw downs with little sense of character. It even has Wolverine walk casually away from an explosion, done with a sense of obligation, not playfulness. Sorry, but though I do love that action cliché, it isn’t an end in itself.


So for the second time, there is an X-Men movie with many glaring fundamental issues, yet made (by certain team members, at least) as if at least trying to be good. Hood is a big question mark, who perhaps meant well enough, though his utter apathy towards superhero stories prior cannot be to Wolverine’s benefit. The MVP is, with a complete lack of surprise, Hugh Jackman himself, even if – with completely no justification – Wolverine is less ferocious than ever in this, his creation myth, where ferocity is to be most expected. Even so, Jackman knows the character almost too well, and brings in just the slightest hint of a young Clint Eastwood in his performance. Honestly, if someone were to pointlessly remake Dirty Harry, or any early Clint, Jackman would be perfect for it.

Jackman is equaled by Liev Schreiber, bulking up to play Victor Creed, aka Sabretooth (the mutant names are, fittingly, not the focus in this prequel). This character is needed; Sabretooth is another of the supersoldiers turned out by the Weapon X program, and Wolverine’s longtime comics nemesis. He represents what Wolverine could be: his purely animal side…conceptually, at least. It’s a little lost in film, as though they were afraid to commit to these concepts. And for as well as Schreiber counters Jackman, the fact remains that he’s being asked to play the earlier version of pro-wrestler Tyler Mane. Asking De Niro to channel Brando in The Godfather: Part II was a meaty challenge; asking a studied thespian to mimic the future Michael Myers is not.


The half-brother duo hales from the 1840s, with mutation so assumed now in Part Four that their incredibly early emergence isn’t even commented upon. It barely matters anyway, because it takes X-Men Origins: Wolverine all of eight minutes to gloss over more than a century of storyline. So desperate to get right to Weapon X, are we? The credits chronicle this passage of time, rushing Wolverine and Sabretooth (or, I should say, Logan and Creed) though every major war. This is the best part of the movie, taking advantage of the canvas it’s given, even if it accidentally recalls something Zack Snyder had already done better with Watchmen (d’oh!).

The movie is indeed impatient to get to Weapon X, so we can all act surprised when Wolverine (er, Logan) volunteers for Stryker’s (Danny Huston, no Brian Cox) adamantium skeletal graft. This creates a weird structural dilemma, because logic dictates that Wolverine’s present story ends when he becomes Weapon X, simultaneously gets amnesia, then runs off only to eventually discover Rogue, and we’re back at Part One. There’s one problem: No one cares about that Wolverine.


I don’t mean just that this story is thankless (it is), but that fans want berserker Wolverine, gifted with his iconic adamantium claws, and otherwise exuding all those powers of omnipotence and immortality which make for such compelling drama (sarcasm). There isn’t enough material in a pre-clawed Wolverine to sustain an entire movie.

The movie “resolves” this problem in a couple of ways. First of all, Logan, on top of being a super-healer (recall, his only original God-given strength), already possesses retractable bone claws. This is asinine on the surface of it, and embarrassing to boot. No such thing happens in the comics, to my knowledge, and altering a character’s biology is a pretty fundamental change. I suspect Spider-Man’s switch to organic web-slingers goes a way towards legitimizing this move, in Fox’s collective hive mind; it’s hard to argue for what’s wrong with claw-bones, though there is something wrong with it. Forced decisions like this should be the first sign that this isn’t a story worth telling.

But claw-bones must’ve seemed pretty stupid even to those who invented them, because they’re traded out with all due haste for the classic adamantium deal. Actually, the movie’s barely half over by the time Wolverine as we know him emerges indestructibly from Stryker’s sci-fi glass coffin – and escapes. No amnesia, though, not yet, though Stryker already promises such things in Logan’s (er, Wolverine’s, now) future.


The rest of the movie is living on borrowed time, squeezing in a few mediocre fight scenes until inevitable amnesia – courtesy, incongruously, of an adamantium bullet. (In a deleted scene, Stryker wipes away C3P0’s memory.) And the movie takes on a strange metamorphosis. Previously, Logan sought Stryker’s experiment on the promise it would help him overcome Creed – because Logan seeks revenge (how novel!) over the murder of a loved one (Lynn Collins). (The quarter hour devoted to this chintzily lovey-dovey romance is time wasted, because it highlights most egregiously the tragedy that might have been made of Wolverine’s past, here rendered generic instead.)

So, Wolverine wants to kill Sabretooth…until Stryker gives him the means to do so, then promptly (and with an utter lack of foresight) betrays Wolverine. Now Stryker is the designated bad guy, and Wolverine’s new target. Even when half-brothers meet up again in the interim for more fights (where one grows truly tired of their unvaried scrapping tactics), it feels desultory, as though Wolverine has forgotten all about his revenge ahead of schedule. Could be brotherly love – that could be another promising emotional avenue, so naturally it’s addressed in the broadest possible terms. And regardless of whatever conflict the movie is concerned with now, it’s inevitable (by continuity) that Wolverine, Sabretooth and Stryker all must survive. Because Wolverine’s functional immortality doesn’t already put the stakes precipitously low, there’s that narrative immortality to go with it.


The climax attempts to reconcile these disparate threads – Logans’ dead love, Sabretooth, Weapon X, assorted things I haven’t mentioned – into a satisfying whole. It does nothing for the bipolar film so far, and I feel bad for those tasked with trying to make something of this. Stryker thus becomes a standard supervillain, with a Weapon XI and an evil lair and whatnot. That lair is Three Mile Island, meaning…

Oh right, as a prequel this is a period piece, isn’t it?! Yeah, the 1979 core meltdown was actually caused by dueling mutants, didn’t ya know. That’s cheeky enough, no more than an udating on the old time travel joke where someone knocks off the Sphinx’s nose. Too bad period is never otherwise addressed. It’s as though, with all the claw-bones and odd characterizations and plot holes, the filmmakers were embarrassed of the past itself! Stryker’s computer technology, for instance, is made to look roughly modern, and a complete disregard for the greater historical context doesn’t help matters. That’s because X-Men Origins: Wolverine has zero, zilch, nada, bupkis to do with the “mutants-as-minorities” metaphor which Singer made his own. Boy, what could’ve been done with historical civil rights movements explored alongside mutant parallels. What says “we didn’t really care about this project” more than that? Wolverine is only a delivery system for juvenile action (and distractingly CGI metal claws, a problem even the 2000 version didn’t contend with – why?!).

Oh man, the things they focus their hard work on. Computer-rendered metal, when prosthetics worked just fine. And all these cutesy little prequel hints, not even remotely to do with Wolverine himself, just to remind everyone that, yes, this is a part of those movies you loved so much (also The Last Stand). A young Cyclops appears to get smacked around (his only movie function, seemingly), and the Three Mile Island nonsense concludes with Professor X recruiting a motley crew of anonymous mutants filling out space. This being days of 1970s yore, X possesses the undeniably creepy hovering de-aged face of Patrick Stewart – that they actually considered this technique for an entire movie is laughable. It looks worse than the CGI Arnold in Terminator Salvation!


As for that paring down which seems to be the Origins modus operandi? The piles of sideline mutants here say otherwise. Gambit, The Blob, Silverfox, John Wraith…Deadpool. At times the movie becomes a travelogue, sending Wolverine to fight/chat each new mutant, tossed in just in case someone, anyone without interest in Wolverine might spend money to see Gambit instead. After a while, this X-Men compulsion to wedge in as many extra cameos as possible just becomes tiring, and it no doubt hinders potential future continuity to some extent.

The truth is that they’re sowing the seeds for future Origins past, spinoffs of this spinoff. In that interest, any X-man or otherwise unaffiliated mutant from throughout the series is eligible for a one-off. Quick, who wants a Blob movie? Okay, more pertinently, who wants a Deadpool movie? Ah hah! And that one wouldn’t even need to be under the X-Men label! Surely, back in the enlightened days of 2003, when X2 was doing the series proud, it was Ryan Reynolds’ proud honor to headline this would-be movie (good casting). Then…nothing came of it, and I dunno why, leaving a dangling Deadpool retooled by uncool fools. Yup, Deadpool is in Wolverine, even serving as the “last boss,” in perhaps the juiciest example of producer perversity. The Merc With the Mouth, far from a motor-mouthed destroyer of fourth walls, is made wordless, and otherwise nothing like his inspiration. (Makes ya wonder why they did it at all.) It doesn’t help that Deadpool, mouth sewn shut, lumpy and bald, perfectly resembles the big bad in Uwe Boll’s House of the Dead.


They knew this one was a mistake immediately after fans proved surprisingly hostile towards the wholesale misappropriation of a beloved icon. Therefore, Reynolds is still onboard for a proper Deadpool movie (Dead Pool, that’s another Dirty Harry movie!) – it won’t be for a while, though, because against all odds DC got its shit together and put Reynolds in Green Lantern first!

As for other Origins? Merely two years later, it’s hard to pronounce this intended label dead, though the release of X-Men: First Class (being neither an X4 nor a proper Origins, but something indefinably other) suggests the idea has been abandoned. There had been talk of an X-Men Origins: Magneto, a notion with some potential, because of Magneto’s pertinent history (no amnesia for that magnetic personality). This project is now inarguably forsaken, reportedly with much of its material going towards First Class.

Boy, there are a lot of so-far nonexistent movies somehow tied in with X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The brand is schisming without clear guidance. Though with multiple projects in the works, splitting apart like an inverse of the Avengers situation, there are nuggets of hope. Such as the eventual Deadpool simply ignoring this movie’s missteps altogether. Or like The Wolverine, the movie the original Origins ought to have been – Logan in Japan! Development seems pretty well along by now, with Darren Aronofsky directing. All involved, including Jackman, seem politely inclined to move as far from Origins as possible. So perhaps this seemingly purposeless movie did what it needed to – kept the franchise active. Enough that decent things may come yet – and I’m moments away from discovering what is largely reputed: That First Class is indeed the salve this franchise so desperately needs.

X-Men, No. 5 - X-Men: First Class (2011)

Director Matthew Vaughn was at one point to be Bryan Singer’s replacement for X-Men: The Last Stand. Then he became absolutely fed up with the asinine producers behind it, and abandoned the project to the demented grasp of…uh, whatsisface (Brett Ratner). We know how that turned out: a mediocre movie at best by its own terms, and a complete travesty to the X-Men series. Vaughn has gone on record to say, in no uncertain terms, that he (Vaughn) could have injected ten times the emotional gravity in what ought to have been the definitive X-Men.

Now Vaughn has his second chance, with X-Men: First Class, and that’s ceased to be hot air! He’s inherited the increasingly dire prospects of the cinematic “X-Men,” and created something which doesn’t’ simply meet Singer’s initial high plateau – Vaughn’s entry arguably exceeds it, nearing Iron Man and The Dark Knight in the superhero pantheon, while splitting their tonal difference.


Conceptually, First Class isn’t necessarily such a promising prospect. It is another godforsaken X-Men prequel, after X-Men Origins: Wolverine demonstrated the complete uselessness of that notion. In fact, First Class shares many of the same likely difficulties of Wolverine: as a prequel, events and arcs are preordained. Furthermore, there’s a notoriously complex cinematic continuity to pay lip service to, for as much as First Class has every right to do like the eventual Amazing Spider-Man and reboot, it’s still of a piece with X-Men, X2, and all the rest…mostly. Amongst nerd arguments, there are certainly timeline discrepancies, though mostly with the latter, Singerless X-Men – and First Class gets the benefit of the doubt for disregarding The Last Stand, frankly.

Again, conceptually, First Class potentially shares some of The Last Stand’s problems too. Basically, it is as overstuffed as an “X-Men” movie could wish to be, not merely trumpeting a ridiculous panoply of supporting mutant characters, but featuring mostly new mutants on top of that, with an unwieldy mess of subplots and motivations to keep straight and make clear. In fact, First Class is by a significant degree the most out-of-control X-Men, featuring not just a new location, but a new continent for damn well every scene of its first half.


Against all these odds, these hindrances barely register – I only pick up on them for having recently re-endured the lesser entries. It is to Vaughn’s inestimable credit, a youthful vigor and energy, that First Class’s hyperactivity is exciting and not tiring. I cannot fully identify just what Vaughn does differently to accomplish this, though no doubt he has a greater genuine enthusiasm for the “X-Man” brand than Ratner or Gavin Hood ever did. It helps to take advantage of the preordained facts of First Class as schemed up by Fox: a period piece detailing how Magneto and Professor X begin the X-Men, in light of mankind’s upcoming struggles against mutanthood. For one thing, First Class isn’t merely set in the 1960s, it embraces this era in precisely the way Wolverine totally refused to. It helps that the ‘60s are infinitely cooler than the ‘70s, especially when filtered through the James Bond, “Mad Men” vibe.

Combine with that the freedom to play up the outdated Stan Lee, Jack Kirby feel of actual period “X-Men” comics – not that I have even a remote knowledge of them, but First Class feels as one pictures Silver Age comics. This is kind of a turning point with superhero movies, I’d wager! Singer’s X-Men is notable for seriously engaging the potentially sillier aspects of the comic medium. For all that, it still pragmatically redesigned the X-Men’s costumes from bright blue-and-yellow to black leather – as was the style at the time – alongside other such half-measures. First Class uses the ‘60s milieu to its advantage, giving us the original costumes in all their cheesy, two-tone glory – unashamedly too! What is silly in initial concept remains so, without apologies, but also without that toxic Batman & Robin above-it-all parody. In fact, Vaughn embraces the very comic-ness of his film so much, he actually gives us the first successful use of in-film panels, as seen in Ang Lee’s Hulk. We’re one step not only from a return to on-screen visual KAPOWS, ala “Batman,” but to the point where they’d actually work.


This is sort of the Iron Man half of First Class’s blood-soaked Nazi coin. As for The Dark Knight, well, First Class isn’t even remotely that dark (far from it – it’s maybe even frothier than Iron Man), but there’s the same degree of wonderful subtext. This is true to the Singer line, and the comics too (naturally). Mutants remain forever a metaphor for “otherness,” a neato sci-fi tool to examine ideas of ethics, segregation, discrimination, and (more usefully) philosophies regarding those issues. The ‘60s offer up a heady deal of loaded topics – civil rights, gender inequality (leading to the film’s one truly awkward moment), the Cold War. Elements like the Cold War are exploited openly to fuel the action plot, while others are mostly just alluded to – but it is the strength of a period piece that filmmakers gain efficient visual shorthand, for subtle hints to old cultural touchstones carry a great deal of weight. Plus, ‘60s fashion is just groovy.


X-Men: First Class is an origin story…kind of. Most origin movies are saddled with the handicap of delaying genuine superheroics – though, flipside, there’s that emotional elation when a hero discovers newfound powers. The X-Men, as a team, carry a different dynamic, letting some powers coming into play right off the bat (for all your Nazi-murdering goodness), while other characters can simultaneously occupy different points of the origin continuum – we get all the advantages at once.

Central to First Class are Magneto and Professor X – though for now we must think of them as Eric (Michael Fassbender, of Inglourious Basterds) and Charles (James McAvoy, of Wanted). Much of Eric’s magnetic emergence is even lifted from the never-to-be X-Men Origins: Magneto, pragmatically reworking Eric’s Holocaust childhood in a new light. But the focus isn’t upon him alone, but on Eric’s new alliance with Charles Xavier, a friendship destined to turn antagonistic. There are a lot of checklist points, prequel Stations of the Cross, to run through – we know Eric and Charles will have a falling out, and not to belabor that inevitability, First Class takes us all the way there. In the meantime, distinguishing icons shall arise – Magneto’s helmet, X’s wheelchair (and throwaway jokes about baldness), their mutual accumulation of mutant recruits. Because again we know a particular clunky helmet has future importance, its introduction in the villain’s possession carries a weight beyond immediate text – and Vaughn doesn’t belabor the point, letting his audience connect the dots as they wish.


It helps First Class that it is not bogged down with casting strictures, as was The Last Stand. No need to lose sight of the fundamental emotional story (which is moved along by a more surface-level tale of villainous Bond-style megalomania). No need to wedge in studio-demanded Wolverine antics, or time-hungry scenes of Storm doing nothing of any value whatsoever. None of that! Vaughn avoids the multitudinous issues with bringing back former actors in known roles – Magneto, X, Mystique, Beast, Emma Frost – especially sparing us the creepy CGI youthenizing of Patrick Stewart yet again. Subtly, this turns old characters into new discoveries, especially with Eric – Fassbender merges his own approach with Ian McKellan’s, doing what MacGregor ought to have accomplished with his Obi Wan. This, as much as anything, gives First Class its bounce, though direct sequels won’t have this advantage.

Charles Xavier is as much of a revelation as Eric Lehnsherr. Eric isn’t a “bad guy,” and his eventual embrace of mutant militantism is intellectually defensible, even if we know it leads to potential omnicide. Charles is likewise not a “good guy,” and far less ascetic then Stewart’s bald monk. With McAvoy, the young Charles is brash – not simply sexually opportunistic, but selfish in his apparent mutant cohabitation idealism. Most damningly, Charles is privileged as mutants go, invisible, wealthy, and dangerously quick to “out” fellow mutants. Neither Charles nor Eric is faultless in the mutant “issue,” which muddies the film’s moral waters considerably – to its benefit. The mutant scenario proposes at best an end result of peaceful human extinction, and asks the ethical question of how this is best handled. It allows for greater conversations post screening, the sign of a thoughtfully constructed popcorn flick – that, or you can just gush over how awesome the climactic naval battle is, which is equally valid.


Acting as lynchpin to the central duo is Raven (Jennifer Lawrence), someday to become Mystique. She grew up with Charles, but is destined to side with Eric. This, along with Raven’s shape-shifting lack of identity, ground the emotional trauma as successfully as Singer’s Rogue. With inevitability, her scenes of soul-searching carry the air of prequel tragedy, accomplishing the emotion Vaughn so desired of The Last Stand.

Emotion goes double for the quieter scenes between Charles and Eric, where First Stand truly earns its keep. There is a moment where Charles, attempting to mentor Eric’s magnetism, leads him to embrace the place between – if I can remember this correctly – rage and serenity. In other words, to temper Eric’s vengeful myopia. Huge kudos to Fassbender in particular! This is the most profound moment in the franchise, for how it underscores Magneto’s humanity, etc. – it’s also simultaneously corny as hell, a part of that wonderful comic booky line First Class treads.

Let me pause to run through some more characters – especially since an X-Men X-cells (er, excels) by its mutants, and so it is here…

Eric, Charles, Raven, we know. They’re all fine. Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult) carries whatever tragedy Raven cannot, as the man doomed to become Beast – in a surprisingly efficient homage to Robert Lewis Stevenson, which never gets bogged down in what could well be its own movie. As the genocidal Sebastian Shaw, Kevin Bacon is present and functional – because a villain is needed, to fuel immediate (lesser) plot, and to suggest what Eric might become. Though Shaw has little value on his own. Emma Frost (January Jones) is perhaps the weak link, though it’s hard to fault Frost for appearing an ice queen.

Others include Havok (power: fires off energy whatnots), Banshee (he screams), Angel (has bug wings – I suspect there’s some comic discrepancy here), Darwin (evolves, naturally), Azazel (teleporting demon, nicely recalls Russian propaganda with his red skin and Soviet uniform), and Riptide (Storm the Lesser). Plus a generous helping of actual, honest-to-Lee humans, giving the other side a face, best represented by mutant sympathizer Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne).


I am surprised by how much X-Men: First Class does right, given a franchise predicament where one might expect nothing at all. Surely with the latter X-Men atrocities a recent memory, it’s all the more substantial for its effectiveness. Whatever could have been a hindrance becomes a benefit – First Class fulfills the oft-ignored dramatic function of a prequel, such a rarity that many even doubt it possible. It build upon the work of its formers, understanding this universe’s mutation enough to couch the needed X-position (er, exposition) in Charles’ professing, and not directly to the audience. It respects its comic origins, compounding the goodwill of a decade’s superhero movies to combine heroes, themes, a cool setting, and further details one wouldn’t have even once thought necessary for this genre. Now more than ever I yearn to know what a Vaughn-helmed Last Stand might’ve looked like, though I’m also quite satisfied with First Class as its first class (ahem!) substitute.


The only concern is talk that First Class might lead to a potential Third Class (or whatever), lunatic Fox X-ecutives famished for a goddamn trilogy. This in addition to Aronofsky’s proposed The Wolverine, which looks to more fully embrace discontinuity – i.e. rebooting, or flat out ignoring. Eh, plus a likely X-Men Origins: Deadpool (look, just drop the “X-Men” title thing already!), and even (shudder!) X4, Berry be blessed. Yeesh, are cinematic Marvel movies becoming so like the comics that innumerable spin-offs are that acceptable?! Is a ridiculous DC/Marvel intercompany crossover an inevitability in our distant future now?!

The issue is, for First Class as another X-Men sub-franchise, the ever-diminishing dramatic gap between First Class and X-Men. I don’t mean chronologically (X-Men is in “the near future,” leaving things nicely wide open), but…well, the tale of Charles’ and Eric’s friendship is mostly a done deal now. Stretching this out in sequels, with continued reverence for Singer’s original continuity, can only diminish artistic returns on Vaughn’s unlikely success. This suggests a future of dramatic trivialities to rival Origins: Wolverine, and while I presently trust Vaughn and crew, it seems a road fraught with peril. But First Class proves it can be done.