X2: X-MEN UNITED: Have You Tried Not Being a Mutant?

X2: X-Men United (2003) – Directed by Bryan Singer – Starring Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Brian Cox, Alan Cumming, Kelly Hu, Anna Paquin, Shawn Ashmore, Daniel Cudmore, and Bruce Davison.

X2: X-MEN UNITED is a bit of a weird film for me.

For starters, there’s the title, which is both dumb and wrong. What the hell is X2? In other parts of the world they called it X-MEN 2, but not here in the States. The stupidity of trying to build and capitalize on a franchise by not using it’s name in the title is … strange. (The X-MEN UNITED part isn’t part of the official title, it’s just how the film has increasingly been marketed.) Luckily, this naming trend started and ended with X2 because it’d be really silly if we were all gearing up for IM3, T2, and CA2. And would we refer to The Dark Knight Rises as TDK2 or B3?

That’s the dumb half. The wrong part comes after the colon: X-MEN UNITED. The X-Men did not suffer from a lack of being united in the previous film, so really, this title is saying X2: STILL UNITED. Or X2: BABYSITTER WOLVERINE. The film would have been more properly entitled MUTANTS UNITED, because that’s what the film delves into, the uneasy and temporary unification of Xavier and Magneto’s forces in the face of a shared threat. But they didn’t want to use “Mutants” because … because they wanted to reinforce “X-Men” in the title? So … I don’t know … why not just call it … X-MEN 2, maybe?

In my review of X-MEN, I noted how much I enjoyed James Marsden’s performance as Cyclops. I would liked to have see more of him in X2, but he’s practically shelved, existing only to push Xavier’s wheelchair and then to try to blast Jean into atoms when he’s a mind-controlled puppet. (Which some would argue he already is for Xavier.) Similarly, the only member of Magneto’s Brotherhood that would have wanted to see return was Ray Park’s Toad because he’s the only one who had any kind of actual spark to his personality. He’s completely missing from the film. Instead, we get more Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) and more Mystique (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos), two characters I did not want to see with expanded roles.

And here’s where it gets weird for me.

Despite my reservations about the character choices (a movie title isn’t going to affect my enjoyment of a film – that was just me having a go), it works. It works beautifully. X2 is a fantastic movie from start to finish. Director Bryan Singer delivers a confident, fast-paced film that’s full of great character moments. Janssen’s Jean Grey still doesn’t work for me – it’s like her superpower is to rob herself of any discernible personality – and the Jean Grey/Logan subplot feels incredibly forced and emotionless, but everything else about this movie works very well.

Once again, this is primarily Wolverine’s movie, and once again Hugh Jackman delivers an outstanding performance. Logan is much more centered this time around, as Xavier’s school has become a welcome port in the storm for his personal troubles. Going into the film, I would have thought that building a story around Logan at Xavier’s as opposed to Logan out looking for his past was a mistake, but again, X2 serves to prove how wrong I can be. When Logan comes back to Xavier’s everyone (except maybe Scott) is glad to see him and, just as importantly, he’s content to be back. The narrative instantly jettisons all of the other adults at the school – Jean and Storm (Halle Berry) head to Boston to track down Nightcrawler (Alan Cmumming), while Scott (James Marsden) and Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) are off to visit Magneto (Ian McKellan) in his plastic prison – leaving Wolverine as Head Babysitter in Charge.

In my review of X-MEN, I noted that Jackman’s Wolverine was about as menacing as a bar of Ivory Soap. Here, however, Jackman does a much better job letting out a little feral anger and it comes during his time as babysitter. It’s a very strong move on Singer’s part, as it both humanizes Wolverine (not that we needed much more of that) and gives him a meaningful avenue to cut loose.

The cutting loose happens during a military raid on Xavier’s. Colonel William Stryker (Brian Cox) is an anti-mutant military scientist with grand designs on using Xavier, Cerebro, and his own son Jason to commit mutant genocide. It’s Stryker who arranges Nightcrawler’s assassination attempt on the President, Stryker who’s practically lobotomized his son (who happens to be a former student of Xavier’s), Stryker who was involved in turning Logan into Wolverine, and Stryker who just generally prowls through the movie as a picture of total confidence and badassery.

Stryker leads a full on assault on Xavier’s School, and it demonstrates how far Singer has come in directing action scenes. Despite the fact that the assault takes place over three separate floors of the mansion, plus outside, plus a hidden passageway, I’m never lost during the raid. Logan and Bobby Drake (a very good Shawn Ashmore) are having an engaging surrogate-parent-to-new-boyfriend chat in the kitchen when the raid starts, and when Logan realizes what’s going on … well, the claws come out and he finally unleashes something close to Wolverine’s primal rage. While X2 doesn’t offer much in the way of blood, there’s no doubt that Wolverine is going hardcore with these soldiers. His claws flash and slash and his face snarls and growls as Logan barks orders at the elder students and puts himself at the focal point of the soldier’s attack.

Brian Cox proves himself the perfect foil for not only Wolverine, but Xavier and Magneto, too. He’s the best part of the movie, and his character gives the film a real, solid villain around which Xavier and Magneto’s philosophical debates are forced to take a backseat to an imminent threat. It’s a really impressive turn from Cox. While there’s not as much depth to Stryker as there is to some of the other great villains in superhero cinema, Cox’s performance is no less impressive. I just keep coming back to his ability to manipulate the President, to make Magneto show real fear, to horrify Xavier with what he’s done to his son, and constantly stick the needle in Wolverine’s side. How many other villains have played off so many other characters so effectively?

After Stryker’s assault is only marginally successful – thanks to not only Logan, but Colossus (Daniel Cudmore), who helps shepherd the bulk of the students out of the mansion via secret passageways. While Colossus gets the kids out, Logan, Bobby, Rogue (Anna Paquin), and John/Pyro (Aaron Stanford) jump into Cyke’s Mazda and head to Boston.

Okay, as much as I like the film, here’s where the story burps a few times. Logan is so focused on getting to Boston to hook up with Jean and Storm that not enough thought is given to the rest of the kids from school. And this film was released in 2003 and takes place in the near future – why doesn’t anyone have an actual cell phone to call ahead? All they’ve got is some super advanced communication device that you can’t dial.

When they get to Boston, they immediately stop in at Bobby Drake’s house. Bobby gets new clothes for him and Rogue, then they play a bit of kissy face before she starts to suck out his essence. The Rogue/Bobby relationship is handled nicely; it doesn’t get a lot of screen time but Paquin and Ashmore do a good job selling it. I wish, too, the film had devoted more time to the Logan and Bobby relationship, but again, Jackman and Ashmore get everything out of their limited interaction that’s possible to get out of it.

At the Drake house, Bobby’s parents and brother come back and Bobby comes out of the mutant closet to his parents. “Have you tried … not being a mutant?” his mother asks, which is a nice line but a stupid one, too. There has to be a strong enough understanding of mutants that people know you can’t just turn the switch off and stop being one, but Bobby’s parents honestly do a pretty good job immediately absorbing what their son has just told them. They’re not enlightened, but they don’t turn their back on him.

That job falls to his brother, who calls the cops and tells them they’re being held hostage in their house. The cops arrive and we get a showdown between them and the four mutants. Logan gets shot in the head, which allows the scenario to play out with Rogue and Pyro standing in for Xavier and Magneto. He wants to elevate tensions and she wants to dampen them. It’s a good scene and it sets up John’s eventual turn away from Xavier and towards Magneto.

The Blackbird shows up but the military shoots it down and lucky for the X-Men, Magneto just happens to be standing there to catch the jet in his magnetic field. We get a really nice scene where both sides of the mutant political spectrum are forced to work together to head to Alkali Lake to rescue Xavier, Scott, and the few students who were captured. The last half hour of the film does lose some momentum as we get lots of fighting in tunnels, but Cox is always around to make life difficult for everyone. There’s a really good, really violent fight between Wolverine and Stryker’s pet mutant Lady Deathstrike (Kelly Hu), and the film ends with Jean saving everyone and sort of becoming the Phoenix, minus all of that Phoenix Force space stuff.

It’s a heroic ending, but I wasn’t disappointed that Jean ends up at the bottom of the lake. Her character was all sorts of suck in these two movies and I’m glad she won’t be back for the third-

Oh. That’s right.

Jean aside, X2 is a darn good movie. It really feels like Singer has figured out how to make superheroes work for him, even if it doesn’t feel like he’s completely comfortable working with superheroes. He still treats the X-Men mythos like a giant buffet from which he can pick and choose at random, but it really works to X2′s benefit. Singer gets better performances from nearly everyone this time around, with Halle Berry and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos making the most of their bulked-up screen time. Alan Cumming is great as Nightcrawler, too. Singer doesn’t oversell his political discourse this time around, and the result is a really solid superhero action film with a good amount of subtext. I wish he hadn’t sidelined Cyclops because James Marsden was excellent in the first film, but most of my complaints with X2 are just me being a jerk because what is here results in a top-notch movie.

THE SMURFS: How Crazy is This? There Are Little Blue People Singing in Our Kitchen!

The Smurfs (2011) – Directed by Raja Gosnell – Starring Neil Patrick Harris, Hank Azaria, Jayma Mays, Sofía Vergara, Tim Gunn, Jonathan Winters, Katy Perry, Fred Armisen, Alan Cumming, Anton Yelchin, George Lopez, Jeff Foxworthy, Paul Reubens, Gary Basaraba, John Oliver, Kenan Thompson, B.J. Novak, Joel McCrary, Wolfgang Puck, John Kassir, Tom Kane, and Frank Welker.

THE SMURFS is a calculated, mega budget, Hollywood product. It doesn’t have enough faith in the source material to tell a Smurfs story on its own, and instead of staying home, the film drags a small band of the little blue folk to New York City (of course) to act wacky in the big, modern world. It’s all so predictable and consumable.

And I kinda love it.

I know, right? I’m still sort of stunned. I always want to like the movies I watch (why would you want to hate something you’re about to sit through?), but I certainly wasn’t expecting to like THE SMURFS. But I did. Right from the start, too.

SMURFS open with bright, beautiful images and swooping camera shots as some Smurfs are flying on the backs of birds to get ready for the Blue Moon Festival. (Score one for the Smurfs having good taste in beer.) As we come into the Smurf village, there’s plenty of singing and activity and just a really positive vibe to everything. Papa Smurf is in his mushroom doing magic to let him see the future (thus serving as the gateway to decades of drug use by millions of children worldwide), Clumsy is ruining things, and – I swear to Valhalla I think this is when I first kinda fell in love with this movie – the Narrator of the film turns out to be …

Narrator Smurf.

Narrator Smurf!

There’s a Smurf who narrates everyday events like actual life is a movie. Brilliant. Just brilliant. It’s such a nod to adults while being great for kids that it indicated right from the start that SMURFS was going to be a rather smart, self-aware production, and the film continues this appeal right through to the end.

Papa (Jonathan Winters) sees a vision that Clumsy is going to screw up and all the Smurfs are gonna be captured by Gargamel (Hank Azaria) so he orders Clumsy (Anton Yelchin) not to do anything. Clumsy, of course, doesn’t do this and ends up leading Gargamel and his cat Azrael (the legendary Frank Welker) right to the village. The Smurfs scatter as Gargamel starts destroying the village as he tries to capture the Smurfs. (Gargamel wants to capture Smurfs so he can steal their “Smurf Essence” in order to do more powerful magic.

Through this point in the movie, I was really enjoying SMURFS, but I knew the trip to New York was coming and that still had me a bit nervous. The Smurfs all scatter but Clumsy ends up going the wrong way, so Papa, Smurfette (Katy Perry), Brainy (Fred Armisen), Gutsy (Alan Cumming), and Grouchy (George Lopez) go after him and they end up getting sucked through a blue moon-fueled vortex that deposits them in New York. Gargamel and Azrael dive into the vortex after them, and when everyone gets to New York the chase is on.

Now, a couple things here. SMURFS is paced exceedingly well. This is a movie that hums along and uses it’s slow moments to great effect. You start to realize that when things slow down and people start talking there’s a reason for it, and I really respect that the slow moments here have a real impact in the film. You really do learn about Clumsy and Smurfette and Papa in these moments as they become real characters and not just their descriptors. Patrick (Neil Patrick Harris) even comments on this at one point during a sourpuss moment: “Do you guys get your names and then develop the matching personalities or do you not get a name until after you develop a personality?”

The Smurfs response? “Yes.”

Love it.

NPH is his usual awesome self (his image changing turn in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle is the male equivalent of Drew Barrymore’s Playboy appearance), but the real human star of SMURFS is Jayma Mays’ Grace, Patrick’s pregnant wife. Mays sets some new record for adorableness here. While her husband is a bit freaked out by the sudden appearance of these little blue people in his house (he accidentally brought Clumsy home in a box and the others followed them), Grace recovers from her shock pretty quickly, as she goes from trying to hurt Clumsy out of fear and shock to being totally concerned for his well being.

It’s such a great moment. Clumsy is trying to escape from the Winslow’s dog and he ends up in the toilet, covered in toiler paper. Grace comes in and picks this mass of wet paper out of the toilet, and from this wet mass Clumsy appears. She freaks and tosses him against the window. She’s screaming, he’s screaming, they’re both freaked and shocked … and then Grace realizes that Clumsy is afraid and she instantly melts, going from spooked to concerned. She comes out of the bathroom, cradling him in her hands, and sees that Patrick has been fighting with the others. He tells her not to be fooled, but the look on her face tells him that he’s not winning that fight.

The next morning Patrick is still a little unsure of things, but Grace is totally loving this strange turn of events. “How crazy is this?” she enthuses. “There are little blue people singing in our kitchen!”

“So you’re going with the idea that this is actually happening?” Patrick asks.

I can’t say enough about how good Mays is in this film. I’ve always been sort of lukewarm on her as an actress, but she’s absolutely fantastic in SMURFS. In that one moment where she becomes concerned for Clumsy, as she becomes ashamed at herself for causing this little blue guy to be so afraid of her … I mean, without even knowing anything of their back story you can see why Patrick fell in love with this woman. She’s a good person. She’s nice. And it’s not a front. Grace is just this incredibly positive, happy, nice, intelligent, good person.

The rest of the move sees the Smurfs trying to get back home as they try to avoid Gargamel and Patrick tries to build a successful marketing campaign for his boss (Sofía Vergara). The film gives service to the plot but the real enjoyment is just watching the interaction between the Smurfs and the Winslows. There’s some really nice scenes between Patrick and Papa Smurf about the responsibilities of being a father, and some equally great scenes between Grace and Smurfette and Grace and Clumsy. It’s these scenes that continually win me over because Papa’s advice to Patrick, Grace’s advice to Clumsy that he doesn’t have to just be clumsy, and Grace’s female bonding with Smurfette (who’s still the only female Smurf) are real, emotional moments.

I enjoyed SMURFS so much that the presence of Hank Azaria didn’t make me want to punch the television or vomit or go clean the bathroom. He’s completely over the top (because he’s seemingly always completely over the top) but it works here, both because this is a kids’ movie and because of Azrael.

Yeah, the cat. Azrael is part real cat, part CGI, and he’s really funny. He’s also the perfect sidekick-slash-foil for Azaria and Gargamel. When Azaria goes too far, the cat’s there to tell us that he knows Gargamel has gone too far and that self of self-awareness on the part of the filmmakers helps make these eye-rolling moments work. When Gargamel pees in what he thinks is a chamber pot in the middle of a fancy restaurant, it’s not that funny. Azrael’s reactions, however, are funny, which makes Azaria’s exaggerated performance come off as the straight man.

THE SMURFS isn’t a wholly perfect movie, but it is heartwarming, amusing, fast-paced, and full of real characters. The interaction between the Smurfs and the Winslows, combined with the self-awareness of what’s going on, combine to make this a really enjoyable kids’ movie. SMURFS isn’t as good as The Muppets, but it has the same kind of vibe, and even though it’s clearly written for a younger audience, it dawned on me about halfway through the film that not only was THE SMURFS a movie I was kind of falling in love with, it’s a movie I actually want in my collection, and will spawn a sequel that I actually want to see. THE SMURFS is one of the real genuine cinematic surprises of the year.

JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS: Hudson Hawk Flavored Bubblegum

Josie and the Pussycats (2001) – Directed by Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan – Starring Rachel Leigh Cook, Rosario Dawson, Tara Reid, Alan Cumming, Gabriel Mann, Parker Posey, and the singing voice of Kay Hanley.

Like the beloved Hudson Hawk, JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS is both not a very good movie and a completely awesome movie.

If you want the movie to make some kind of realistic, narrative sense, you’re going to be disappointed. JOSIE isn’t interested in the steps it walks to get its characters from situation to situation – it’s just interested in their reactions once they get there. Here’s the best example of this: Josie and the Pussycats are a struggling power bubblegum pop group in the middle of nowhere, who play a gig at the bowling alley that sees them completely ignored by all of the bowling patrons. They only get the gig because they pay to rent bowling shoes, so the $20 they earn for the gig turns out to net them only $5. This is not a bad that’s got a big buzz behind them, and yet by a stroke of fate, a music exec (Alan Cumming) almost runs them over, decides they look the part, and within a week they’re the #1 band in the country.

It’s completely illogical, of course, but the film is completely self-aware that it’s illogical, even going so far as to have the girls address the ridiculousness of their sudden fame in the movie. That kind of knowing wink to the audience goes a long way to making JOSIE a completely enjoyable movie. You know it’s ridiculous, they know it’s ridiculous, but it’s also besides the point. If you want a realistic rock and roll girl band movie, this isn’t the film for you.

At its core, JOSIE is about fame – who produces it, who gets it, and who consumes it. The Pussycats can go from unknown to superknown in a week because the record company simply decrees it. They plant subliminal messages in the girls’ songs that continuously tell people that they love Josie and the Pussycats and that they want to buy or believe whatever Mega Records and their Government allies want them to buy or believe. Importantly, the message of the film seems to be that who gets the fame (the Pussycats) is the least important part of the process because their music is just the feeder system to get consumers to buy more stuff. When girls from home who hate them show up at their hotel shrieking their love of them, the girls’ reaction is like, “Something is wrong,” but Cumming tells them, “What’s the point of fame if people who hated you in high school don’t kiss your ass now?”

Lest you think this is a message film, however, JOSIE successfully pulls off the “eat their cake and have it, too” move, as it critiques consumer culture at the same time it’s constantly putting consumer culture in front of your eyeballs. It seems like every scene has some kind of product placement, and according to the Never Wrong, none of these companies paid for their product placement.

I’ll leave it up to you to decide how McDonald’s feels about being plastered all over the Tara Reid shower scene.

The movie succeeds on its bubbly approach – the girls might question how they could possibly get this famous, this fast, but they don’t exactly want to go home and play in the bowling alley, so they roll with it.

The movie is rather perfectly cast. Rachel Leigh Cook plays Josie and makes an official bid to be the Cutest Woman Ever; her mix of self-doubt and artistic talent makes her a very grounded character to center all of the nonsense that’s going on. Rosario Dawson is the partner that’s discovering she’s now a sidekick. The label renames the band by putting Josie’s name out front, and there’s a running gag with Alan Cumming’s character completely forgetting about Valerie even being there. Tara Reid plays Melody as completely naive and childlike and it’s actually a pretty effective character conception. Throw in Parker Posey at her over-the-top best and Alan Cumming as the band’s particularly upbeat but oily manager and there’s just the right mix of likability and irritability.

The girls eventually discover what Mega Records is doing with their music and they rebel, not knowing that rebellion means the record company will kill them to keep them quiet. (The film opens with a pre-credits sequence that sees the band the Pussycats replace as their label’s favorite getting offed.) Josie chooses her friends over fame, there’s a big fight, and they play their music without subliminal messages for the first time and everyone still loves them.

JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS isn’t a great movie at all, but it is a good, shut-your-brain-off time, and the songs – sung by the great Kay Hanley – are plenty catchy enough. There’s a message in the movie, but it’s submerged behind the idea of having a good time, which is what I had watching it.