antipopper

Back from the preview screening of X-Men 2. {smug smirk} No cinematic intensity here (and I don’t mean furrowed brows), but damn pleasing all the same. It makes no bones about its calculated franchiseness — witness the comfortable referentiality that this first of probably many sequels can indulge in, and the flush of joyous, slice’n'dice setpieces in the first half to compensate for the misjudged whimper of a finale in the last film… and then there’s director Bryan Singer’s very deliberate characterisation of X2 as his Empire Strikes Back. But I think that comparison is partly misdirection, masking the film’s ballsy homage to another second chapter of an sf film series: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Hell, it didn’t ring emotionally true, but I found myself with a wide smile, thinking, this guy’s such a fanboy, and for once in sf movies, that’s a good thing.

Grant Morrison took much of his lead from the first movie on his current New X-Men run, and while neither of the films sings the outrageous operatics that only Morrison can, fans (and Morrison) can rely on them for the basic stuff that blockbuster franchises seem so unable to deliver these days: a stylishly packaged setup (of characters, of milieu, of whatever), with multiple explosions, that’s modular enough to return to for repeated pleasure. Go, children of the atom!

Niggles: nobody seems to be able to write, direct or act in a cockpit scene these days. (During the lamely desperate flicking of dip-switches, I wanted to yell out, “would it help if I got out and pushed?”. Whaddaya mean, “Magneto disabled the hyperdrive”?) And Halle Berry, go away.

Oh, everybody cheered at Hank McCoy’s “cameo”. Yay!