I saw X-Men: First Class yesterday. It was one of those movies that I wouldn’t have seen unless the reviews were real good. I didn’t see Wolverine, like other super hero franchises, X-Men universe began at science fiction and has been slowly moving toward straight-up magic.
Genetic mutation, space radiation, and green serum will go a long way with me. They’ll get me to an eight-armed, nuclear powered octopus cyborg. They’ll get me to a man who can control fish with his brain.
But a woman made of solid diamond? I mean…how does she move?
I can give it a good injection of suspended disbelief as long as they have a reason for making her out of diamond. But there wasn’t one.
Say no more, I understand. The writers had no choice but to have her be pure carbon.
Sure, Mystique is cool, but why go to the trouble to bring her back 40 years if her only function is to be a walking identity crisis? Couldn’t another mutant have taken care of that? How about the red devil dude? Now he’s creepay!
But whatever, she’s blue and its neat. Defending the science of these things takes more rhetorical gymnastics than defending the quality of the Star Wars prequels.
(I’ve heard people do it. It fills me with pity.)
It’s the themes that matter, and my real trouble comes when I try to sympathize with tortured characters whose main source of agony is that they have friking superpowers.
And movies set in the Cold War are always an educational experience.
151 thoughts on “The Power of Evolution”