The Cold War as Fashion Statement: LFM Reviews X-Men: First Class

She wears it well: January Jones as Emma Frost.

By Jason Apuzzo. I tend to approach comic book movies like someone working on a bomb-disposal squad: I dutifully suit up, say a fond farewell to my wife, head to the theater and pray nothing explodes in my face.

So for several months I’ve been eyeing X-Men: First Class, the latest entry in a franchise I’ve not generally liked, in hopes that this stylish-looking film – which mixes 60s spy chic, Cold War nostalgia and January Jones in a gravity-defying bustier – in hopes that the film would revive or at least agitate my interest in comic book fare.

Alas, it didn’t.

That’s not to say that X-Men: First Class doesn’t have its moments, or that the film isn’t entertaining.  A film that riffs so freely and enthusiastically off James Bond films (of the Connery vintage), 60s go-go/mod culture, The Avengers, Cold War military thrillers like Ice Station Zebra, and even Dean Martin’s cheeky Matt Helm movies can’t be all bad, right? No, it certainly can’t – and X-Men: First Class is a diverting, two-hour plus voyage back into the Kennedy era, a period in which the West seemed a bit more self-confident, stylish and cohesive than it does today.

But First Class is a voyage that carries so much baggage with it – so much 2-cent teen psychology, so many embarrassingly campy characters (Beast, Banshee, and some chick who flies around like Tinkerbell with exploding saliva), and so much equivocating about the relative moral weight of America and the Soviet Union, that I’m unable to say I really enjoyed it.

And that’s a shame. You really have to work to make me not like a film of this kind. You have to do things like: suggest that America’s military establishment (along with the Soviets’) during the Kennedy era was being manipulated by a sadistic ex-Nazi … who likes to quote lines (of the “for us or against us” variety) from George W. Bush. You have to depict the CIA and America’s military high command as bumbling and incompetent at best, corrupt and ruthlessly exploitative of innocent peoples’ lives at worst.

You also have to give Kevin Bacon a major starring role. Do we still need that in 2011? I thought the 1980s had taught us better.

Everybody wears great jackets ... but what's Jennifer Lawrence staring at?

X-Men: First Class is the fifth film to mine the seemingly inexhaustible lore of the original X-Men comic book series, and it’s a film that has taken the unusual step of going all the way back to the series’ origins in the early 1960s – bravely eschewing Hollywood’s fear of losing teen audiences in period detail. It’s so easy to imagine the Fox executives to whom this film was pitched nervously asking, “Will teenagers know who the hell Kennedy was? Will we have to explain to them who the Soviets were, and why they were the bad guys? Does anybody still remember that Nazis fled to Argentina?” We tend to forget that the younger generation nowadays isn’t taught any of this stuff, and so can’t be counted on to have the same emotional response to the sight of, say, a May Day military parade in Moscow. For this reason, I applaud the makers of this film – and Brit director Matthew Vaughn, in particular – for having the ‘courage,’ if that’s the right term, to ignore conventional wisdom and trust that the glamour and romance of early 60s Cold War culture would shine through. It did. Continue reading The Cold War as Fashion Statement: LFM Reviews X-Men: First Class

LFM Mini-Review: Kung Fu Panda 2

By David Ross. THE PITCH: The Kung Fu Panda is back and bulkier than ever: a blubbery accident in progress, though with some genuine kung fu mojo beginning to control the belly-led momentum that is his comic signature. Po’s antagonist is a Napoleonic peacock who plans to conquer China with the help of a fiendish new invention: canon. So it’s bear vs. bird, with the Middle Kingdom hanging in the balance.

THE SKINNY: The first KFP grossed $630,000,000 worldwide, and DreamWorks naturally declined to fiddle with a lucrative formula. The formula is entertaining enough, and nobody is likely to grumble.

WHAT WORKS:

• Pilferings from Jackie Chan. KFP II is basically a non-stop action sequence that makes hay with props and spaces in the classic Chan mode, and of course Po is a version of Chan in his semi-comic, semi-bumbling guise. Chan himself plays Master Monkey and presumably broke no bones in the process. Kids will love this mid-air mayhem, though parents may worry that the sequel is going to be called Visit to the Emergency Room.

• Pilferings from Zhang Yimou. Even more than the first film, KFP II richly imagines the look of ancient China. For kids, this orgy of Orientalism – gold-fretted pagodas, dragon-carved junks, mist-shrouded mountain pavilions – is bound to be a wonderment.

• Dustin Hoffman’s Master Shifu is a funny little addition to the Yoda lineage, a version of Chief Inspector Dreyfus driven crazy by an ursine Clouseau. Perhaps Shifu will develop a nervous tic in KFP III. Incidentally, my Taiwanese wife says that “Shifu” means “master,” so to call the character “Master Shifu” – “Master Master” – is pretty dumb.

• Angelina Jolie transcends her Tony-the-Tiger suit and ekes out a genuinely sexy performance, her throaty growl picking up where her curves leave off. Her sex appeal is inextinguishable, a constantly conserved force that shifts and inevitably manifests itself.

• The film naturally assumes that ordnance is evil, but it keeps the distracting and irrelevant sermonizing in check. The film is not the tiresome referendum on guns that it might have become. Continue reading LFM Mini-Review: Kung Fu Panda 2

Crouching Banker: LFM Reviews Empire of Silver

By Joe Bendel. Initially, the late Qing Dynasty’s new paper money is an economic boon, especially helpful facilitating transactions for the lower classes. Unfortunately, when the people come to suspect it is not fully backed by silver, it leads to bank runs. This is an ominous development for Lord Kang’s financial dynasty. Yet he will face even greater tribulations within his own family in Christina Yao’s Empire of Silver, which opens tomorrow in New York.

In 1899, the “piaohao” bankers of Shanxi were like Tom Wolfe’s “Masters of the Universe.” Lord Kang, or “Old Master” as he is often called, assumed four sons would be sufficient to ensure a safe line of succession for his venerable banking company. Of course, as a pious Buddhist deaf-mute, “First Master” never really counted. Unfortunately, when the Second and Fourth Masters are undone by calamity partly of his own making, old Kang is left with the dissolute playboy Third Master. Still, he is probably the most talented of the lot, but he has heretofore squandered his life out of resentment for his father’s Machiavellian management of family affairs. This is Third’s time to chart his ascendance, but it remains unclear whether he wishes to assume the mantle of leadership.

Needless to say, Old and Third Masters have very different management philosophies. However, his relationship to his young stepmother is even more strained. Quickly we come to understand Third and his former teacher had quite a bit of history before she became Madame Kang, which obviously explains much.

Silver is a big historical melodrama, but there is only a spot of actual fighting here and there. Still, the costumes, sets, and sweeping vistas are worthy of epics like Hero and Red Cliff. Jeremy Thomas, the producer of ambitious films like The Last Emperor, Little Buddha, and Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, served as executive producer, lending Silver further prestige.

While Silver is indeed a finely crafted period production, Aaron Kwok is surprisingly flat as Third Master. Yes, his character is emotionally damaged, but at some point we should see some signs of life percolating. Still, Hao Lei largely compensates as Madame Kang with her exquisite expressiveness. Frankly it is just nice to see her working, considering she appeared in Lou Ye’s bold Tiananmen Square drama Summer Palace, which was duly banned by the Communist authorities. Silver also boasts a number of rich supporting performances, particularly Ding Zhi Cheng and Lei Zhen Yu as two rival branch managers – one talented but dangerously independent, while the other is deemed controllable by virtue of his mediocrity.

Yao revels in the classical tragedy of her story, but she periodically offers up shrewd nuggets of insight as well. It is intriguing to look at a proud family and their celebrated house of finance – increasingly destabilized by China’s mounting anarchy – but it might well be too restrained and respectable for fanboys. An engaging feature directorial debut for Yao (if not a perfect star vehicle for Kwok), Silver opens today (6/3) in New York at the AMC Empire and AMC Village 7.

Posted on June 3rd, 2011 at 1:37pm.