In the first movie it was explained that most mutants start to manifest their abilities around the time they reach puberty. I figured that blonde girl is what Mistique looked like before she started to turn blue.
As far as guessing what she was going to look like; I think she was just taking on the form of someone older (since Magneto told her she was a bit young for his taste) and the director saw a good opportunity to get Rebecca Stamos(?) back for a cameo.
On a different note, does anyone else think it was weak sauce that they just threw in an extra ability for Mistique just so they could include her in the movie and not break continuity? I’m talking about her slow aging process here. That’s not in the comics is it?
I remember Pattie Boyd modeling a shockingly short miniskirt in 1965 or so, (well short for 1965), but before that skirts were still around knee length. If you look at back issues of Vogue or Seventeen i think the skirts weren’t minis in 1962. Also, I don’t know if federal agents are wearing skirts that short yet, and it’s been 40 years. Of course I am not a fashion expert and I was a Catholic grammar school girl in 1962, so I definitely could be mistaken.
I agree with all the raves here. We saw a great double feature of X-Men: First Class and Super 8 last night and the only thing that could have made it more perfect would have been a triple feature that included Thor.
Matthew Vaughn is the man. He’s only directed four movies, but he’s 4 for 4 now, for me. He directed the excellent Layer Cake, the movie that put Daniel Craig on everyone’s radar. Then he directed the low-key but highly enjoyable fantasy Stardust. Then he directed the amazing Kick-Ass. And now this. What a career he’s had so far, and what an exciting career his will be to watch in the future.
Okay, some nitpicks:
-There are two black X-men in the movie. One turns evil first chance she gets. The other dies right away. Don’t they read TVTropes? C’mon, really?
-There are a lot of nods to civil rights issues: don’t ask don’t tell, Never Again, mutant and proud, etc. Other than the holocaust, though, there’s no reference to actual civil rights issues. Ta-nehasi Coats in the NYTimes talked about this, and I really noticed it in the movie: for all the references to civil rights in the screenplay, the characters never once made a comparison. Nobody said anything like, “If they find out we’re different from them, we’ll have separate drinking fountains,” or something similar but better-written. This seems unrealistic.
-My wife, much more of a history buff than me, noticed the clothing issue and was bothered through the whole movie. I figure there’s probably a mutant somewhere called Trendsetter who can see what fashion trends will be in five years and gets a jump on them early, pushing the entire fashion timeline forward.
It was good. Not sure if I’m raving about it yet, but I’ll see it again and decide on it. I did like it quite a bit, though. Way better than Wolverine or X3.
I like the usages of powers in this movie. I loved Magneto crushing the helmets of the soldiers and using the barbed wire to get the guards.
I’m surprised Charles is put in the chair at the end. I thought they’d save that for another movie.
Who were those two guys Magneto killed in Argentina? The ones at the bar. Who were they?
I won’t rave about the story and the actors as many here are doing, but it was good summer fare. I didn’t feel cheated, the story moved quickly enough though I would have preferred another super powered smackdown somewhere in the middle. I think McKellen and Stewart set too high a bar for actors portraying Magneto and X. Charles seemed a little smarmy before hooking up with the CIA, though I stopped following X-Men before they got deep into Xavier’s backstory. I also stopped before Frost gained her secondary mutation. I also thought X was the more powerful telepath, but wiki said that has fluctuated over the years.
Whomever upthread mistook Ironside for Nicholson wasn’t the only person. People were quoting A Few Good Men in the theatre.
I saw it in the cinema and everyone laughed at the scenes that are supposed to take place in Argentina. You see, they are supposed to take place in Villa Gesell but the location used was somewhere similar to Bariloche. Bariloche is in Patagonia, in the Andes and its similar to Switzerland or northern Italy. Villa Gesell is a sea resort that happens to be hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest mountain. It is a nitpick, but for us, a funny one.
Personally, I felt that the movie seemed rushed. And for being long, it was a long period of sitting watching scenes rush by one after another.
The CIA girl kicks off the whole story, then disappears for the better part of two hours, and then suddenly we’re presented with her again as significant to the ending?
Some random mass murderer walks into the room and says, “Hey, I won’t hurt you little girl. Want to come with me?” Regardless that we haven’t had time to get to know Angel, who actually goes, “Oh yeah, sign me up!”?
You beat up the man who killed your mother, and your first inclination is to go out and give a speech and try to recruit a bunch of people who signed on to stop WWIII to be villains? Eh? And again, who then replies, “Oh yeah, sign me up!”?
A strange girl appears as a thief in your house, you adopt her as your sister…wait where’s your parents and why haven’t they noticed that they have a new daughter?
They really seemed to be cutting far far too many corners to fit everything in. I’d like to see the four hour version, but the two hour one just annoys me with how much it seems like I’m watching a trailer for the real movie.
I thought it was pretty obvious that he convinced his parents (telepathically or not) to take her in, and I was grateful the movie didn’t waste our time by spelling this out for us or even worse, by showing it. It’s perfectly legitimate storytelling shorthand - orphan child appears in rich family’s kitchen to steal food, and several years later, she’s been adopted as their child. We’ve seen it before, so why show it to us again, especially as it has no bearing on the film’s plot?