Saturday, June 11, 2016

9 X-Men Movie Characters Who Don't Live Up to the Comics

Despite the poor reviews of X-Men: Apocalypse director Bryan Singer should rest easy because his batting average is still remarkable.  This is his fourth movie with the merry band of mutants and his first that wasn't an unparalleled success.  He directed the first X-Men in 2000, effectively opening the floodgates for the torrent of superhero movies continuing to this day.  Then he made X2: X-Men United, a near perfect sequel that builds on the themes introduced in its predecessor and surpasses it in every way.  After that he dropped the reins and they were taken up by Brett Ratner for The Last Stand, one of the most reviled superhero movies ever.  Five years later the franchise was revived by director Matthew Vaughn for the smart, stylish, flawlessly cast, 1960's set First Class.  Vaughn's success opened the door for Singer's triumphant return at the helm of the time travel epic Days of Future Past, bringing together the original cast from 2000 and the new guys in the 1970's.  Also, in that time Hugh Jackman starred in two spin-off movies, one of which was pretty solid, as his character Wolverine and the hilarious, self-aware, X-Men adjacent meta-comedy Deadpool was released a few months before Apocalypse.  The point of this little history lesson is that Bryan Singer and the X-Men have both gained some leeway to make mistakes.  A followup to Apocalypse is not only inevitable because superheroes are currently a good investment but it is well deserved because Singer and the mutants have earned the audience's trust.  That said, the cinematic X-Men are still far from perfect.  I have a few suggestions on how to improve the characters by making them more like their comic book counterparts.

Nightcrawler



Kurt Wagner is one of the most complex characters in fiction, with more contradictions than a debate tournament.  He looks like a demon but is devoutly Catholic, he’s seen enough cruelty to last several lifetimes but he is endlessly optimistic and whimsical, he’s been betrayed by nearly everyone he’s ever loved but is tenaciously compassionate and forgiving.  He’s kind of like if Errol Flynn had a baby with Father Mulcahy from M*A*S*H then that baby grew up and had a baby with Hellboy.  If Nightcrawler had enough fingers to play guitar he could start playing guitar at a party and still be the coolest guy in the room.  Until Apocalypse Nightcrawler’s only film appearance was X2: X-Men United.  The centerpiece of the first X-trilogy found a fantastically cast Nightcrawler in Alan Cumming but still the character was lacking.  This was a pious man, gentle and righteous but he was shy, almost meek, and rarely humorous.  Kodi Smit-McPhee's younger version is funnier and more colorful but still timid.  Fortunately, Apocalypse is just setting the stage for its young cast, including Nightcrawler.  There should be plenty of time for Smit-McPhee's Nightcrawler to grow into the brash, sword wielding adventurer fans have come to know and love

Rogue


Fittingly, Nightcrawler’s foster sister (adopted daughter of his biological mother Mystique, actually) faced the same problem he did in the adaptation process.  In the panels Rogue is a force to be reckoned with.  Not only is she the skyward bound muscle of the team, but she’s also bold, high spirited and fearless.  She’s the epitome of a contemporary zealous Southern fireball.  She fights hard and plays harder and sometimes they’re the same thing.  As arguably the secondary protagonist in the first three X-Men films, Rogue is shy and reserved; the most sullen teenager at a school full of teenagers with all rights to be sullen.  To be fair, in either iteration Rogue is entirely justified in her timidity, as is Nightcrawler.  Fate dealt her a bad hand.  In a world that hates and fears mutants she has the potential to be among the most hated and feared for no reason other than attributes given to her at birth.  Her “super power” is to absorb the life force of anyone she touches without volition, leaving them dangerously injured, perhaps fatally so, while she takes on their super powers along with a giftbox of their personality and memories.  As far as superpowers go, it’s one of the worst to be sure, almost tragic, but Rogue’s ability to be so vibrant in the face of her grim circumstances is a key to what made her a fan favorite to begin with.  Currently there are no plans for Rogue to appear in future X-Men movies, even the one starring her main love interest Gambit if it ever makes it to theaters.

Cyclops


It’s tough to be the boss sometimes.  Head honcho’s like Charles Xavier get all the glory while a midlevel bureaucrat like Cyclops (Scott Summers) gets the shaft from both sides.  Traditionally Cyclops fills the position of the X-Men’s field leader, the one who makes all the tough and boring decisions, which makes him unpopular with fans and fictional characters alike.  He’s seen as a white-bread preppy square.  A narc.  Zeppo Marx.  An L7 weenie.  That’s why a handsome eggshell named James Marsden was given the film role and he reciprocated with the least charismatic performance of his career.  In defense of both James and Scott, Cyclops’ façade is so densely milky white that it’s hard to see under the surface, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything there.  Scott’s had a tough, strange life.  First his parents died (kind of) in an aviation accident that left the young Scott with PTSD severe enough to rob him of control over his eye beams.  Once they manifested he had to live with the knowledge that he could maim or kill most anyone by literally looking at them the wrong way.  Then he was put in charge of a small army of child soldiers while still a teenager himself because apparently Professor X couldn't find any adults to take the job.  He’s spent the rest of life as a lieutenant and public face of a well-intentioned but technically militant civil rights group.  In the past decade or so of comics the pressure has finally started to get to him.  He’s become something of a controversial figure in the Marvel Universe.  All the Malcom X comparisons Magneto has always been saddled with are now more appropriate for Cyclops than they have ever been for the iconic villain.  Tye Sheridan's performance in Apocalypse has a charmingly dorky quality mixed with a difficult situation and new found loss that puts him closer to the comic book version but, like Nightcrawler, this is just the beginning for the new Cyclops.  Only time will tell what he will grow into.


Storm


If it were 2000 and you had the opportunity to cast one of the biggest black superstars of all time as an iconic black character of course you would jump at the opportunity.  That’s probably what Bryan Singer thought when he cast Halle Berry as Storm but apparently it’s the kind of thing that works better on paper than in practice.  Excuse the pun but in the comics Storm (Ororo Munroe) is a force of nature.  The very elements follow her command like a pious man obeys the word of his god.  In fact, when she was a young woman in an African desert she was worshipped as a deity after she developed the ability to bring rain at her whim.  Before that she roamed the streets of Cairo as a pickpocket, where she first met Professor Xavier who later recruited her into the X-Men.  Storm quickly became a tent pole of the team and eventually became the leader even though she didn’t have powers at the time.  This is a woman who commands respect by her mere existence and is a major player of whatever game she takes part in.  In the movies she is barely present.  She’s little more than the electric muscle while a romantic triangle and teen angst take center stage.  Her role in the films amounts to about as much as beautiful wallpaper that throws lightning at people sometimes.  Regal posture and a noncommittal accent does not make a queen.  The Storm in Apocalypse seems to be on the right track but, again, it's  hard to tell based on such little screen time.  As long as she keeps the Mohawk I think it will turn out alright.

Multiple Man




We tend to treat “unique” and “interesting” like synonyms but one of Marvel’s most understatedly interesting characters is just a face in the crowd.  Actually, he is the crowd.  He’s the Multiple Man and his mutant power is to create duplicates of himself.  They’re mostly exact copies, perhaps with a slightly exaggerated personality quirk or sometimes a wildly different disposition all together.  For most of his existence Jamie Madrox was hardly at the forefront of the mutant universe, notable for an interesting power but not much else, but in 2005 he opened up a private investigation firm as the lead of the X-Factor series and quickly became much more nuanced.  X-Factor delved deep into the psyche of the entire team of gumshoes but especially the identity confusion of a man who is literally many men at once.  So many that he’s lost track of some of them.  By the time he’s found them and reabsorbed them they’ve lived entire lives with years’ worth of experience and growth.  When they recombine the original Madrox takes in it all.  He’s got so many voices rattling around in his head he’s like if the United States of Tara actually made up the population of a small country.  In defense of X-Men: The Last Stand (hear me out) X-Factor had only started a year before the movie premiered.  The new and improved Jamie Madrox was still in the early stages when he made his one and only live action appearance as a thug who’s most interesting attribute was having robbed multiple banks at once.  That doesn’t nearly do justice to the quirky psychological noir that Madrox was at the center of in the years since.  It isn’t likely that Madrox will be showing up in any movies again in the near future which may be for the best because it would be very difficult for the medium to give him the representation he deserves.  However, he might be better served on a TV show like the upcoming Legion on FX.

Kitty Pryde


Part of the problem with Rogue’s cinematic depiction was that she was changed from an adult to the young audience’s proxy, a position much better suited to one Katherine Pryde.  The original X-Men were all teenagers when they were created but they grew up pretty quickly.  That’s a shame because no demographic is more drawn to the idea of outcasts than young people.  Enter Kitty Pryde in 1980; just an ordinary teen girl with a taste for pop music and the ability to walk through walls.  She was smart but not in an alienating way, levelheaded but creative and spirited, strong but far from indestructible, just intangible sometimes.  Over time Kitty grew up too, but it worked really well.  In the past few decades Kitty Pryde has matured from a relatable teenager to a relatable adult.  She’s taken on more responsibility and become as much a leader to the X-Men as Cylcops, Storm or Wolverine.  Her portrayal in the movies Last Stand and Days of Future Past might be considered relatable but only in the sense that she’s a blank slate capable of showing whatever piece of yourself you want to project onto her.  She’s missing the creativity and individuality that made Kitty Pryde jump off the page.  Another instance of an underused actor, she was played by Ellen Page who came to be seen as the epitome of a cool, clever teenager thanks to her role in Juno a year after Last Stand was released.  Eight years later Days of Future Past hit theaters with a noticeable difference from the comic book storyline it was based on.  In the iconic two-issue story a much older Kitty Pryde is sent from the future to prevent a world changing assassination but in the movie she sends Wolverine in her stead.  Many fans were disappointed to see Kitty’s big moment handed over to the already omnipresent Wolverine.  So far there don’t seem to be any plans for Kitty to appear on screen again.


Emma Frost



On the surface, Emma Frost and January Jones have a lot in common.  They’re both blonde, pretty, and they have names that suggest a coldness that can be found in their personalities, or in Jones’ case in the personality of her Mad Men character Betty Draper.  However, when Jones played Emma Frost in 2011’s First Class she exhibited an entirely different kind of coldness than the Frost fans have come to know and love to hate.  First Class Frost is cool, distant, and unshakable but comic book Frost is more of a frozen hearted witch and she would take that as a compliment.  First Class Frost is Sebastian Shaw’s doting lackey but comic book Frost would sooner call his sideburns stupid and threaten him with psychic and/or physical violence before she would put ice in his glass if she were between him and a freezer in the middle of the desert.  Emma Frost is famous for her sharp tongue but she hardly says a word in the movie.  She’s little more than Shaw’s diamond skinned, telepathic muscle but any decent version of Emma Frost wouldn’t be caught dead doing anything other than running the show or acting like it.  Unfortunately, it seems Jones won’t get the chance to redeem her version of Emma Frost since the character was declared dead before the events of Days of Future Past.

William Stryker



2003’s X2: X-Men United remains one of the most acclaimed superhero movies ever and for good reason.  It’s well made and perfectly captures all of the themes that make the X-Men interesting like oppression, prejudice, and teenage alienation.  That’s partly in thanks to the decision of loosely basing it on a fantastic comic book story, the 1982 graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills written by Chris Claremont with art by Brent Anderson.  The loosest part of the adaptation process is the villain, William Stryker.  In the graphic novel he’s a veteran turned fanatic televangelist but in the movie he’s a high-powered military scientist with little-to-no religious affiliation.  Feel free to assume there weren’t any Christians protesting against “taking the ‘God’ out of God Loves, Man Kills” but maybe there should have been.  A devout Stryker would be a perfect foil for the pious Nightcrawler, emphasizing the spectrum of influence religion can have on people.  It can be as healing as it is corrupting but no good can come from ignoring the harmful aspects.  Regardless, Brian Cox did a fantastic job portraying Stryker in X2 but the character most recently appeared in Days of Future Past as a young man played by Josh Helman who returned for Apocalypse, both times largely lacking in religion.

Beast


This is more a matter of personal preference than anything but I have a very specific idea of how Hank “Beast” McCoy should act and recently I haven’t seen much of it.  Beast is largely defined by being very smart, knowing it, and flaunting it.  Ever since First Class he has been portrayed by Nicholas Hoult who plays him as quite mild mannered.  He also displays a different kind of intelligence than I like to see from Beast.  Hank McCoy is usually shown as a brilliant scientist and inventor, which is fine but I prefer to see a Beast who is also a great lover of the arts.  He should be verbose, his speech as eloquent as his mind is sharp.  He should quote Shakespeare at the drop of a hat and reference Rimbaud upon picking it up.  Beast should be the smartest guy in any room he’s in and he should know it, but that room could just as easily be in a sports bar or a think tank.  In other words, he should be a lot like Frasier Crane.  Casting Kelsey Grammer in the role was easily the most inspired part of Last Stand save, perhaps, a brutally affecting scene in the first few minutes.  Not that Nicholas Hoult is poorly cast.  He does a wonderful job as this version of Beast.  He also seems perfect for my preferred version of Hank based on his breakthrough role in the British series Skins.  He displayed a Beastly amount of confidence as the cocky little shit Tony Stonem, and he’s British, so I assume he can recite The Merchant of Venice from heart.  Just once  I’d like to see him decked out in blue fur asking “if you prick us, do we not bleed?”

No comments:

Post a Comment