22:08 - 29:53 (7:45)
We switch back to Wolverine's POV...Wait! A random POV switch? I'm not a huge fan, as I think Rogue is a more relatable character and I'm not a huge fan of this type of bait and switch. It's natural to want to position Wolverine as the archetypal hero of the narrative while relegating Rogue to the damsel in distress, but a better movie would have committed to Rogue as the protagonist.
Wolverine escapes his medical examination and Xavier leads him to his office via some bad-ass telepathy and the rest of this sequence is given over to exposition. In nice character beats, Wolverine refuses to shake Cyclops hand and calls Xavier Wheels. Xavier lets us know that he runs a school for mutants and also a super hero team. The filmmakers manage to keep this as visually exciting as possible and again I appreciate the details but this is clumsy writing. We do get a bunch of the coolest visual effects shots in the entire movie in this sequence so there's that:
1.)Kitty Pride Runs through a wall.
2.)A kid cheats at sports by teleporting in basketball game.
3.)Cyclops shoots clay pigeons with his lasers
4.)Iceman extinguishes Pyro's fireball which then shatters on the ground.
Iceman's and Rogues flirtation is also set up in this scene so even amongst the clumsiness we do get some actual storytelling. In some more clumsiness Xavier sets up some selfish reasons for Wolverine to stick around in an obvious way to get him to give them up. I like this movie, but it's no masterpiece. This segment is also where we break into Act II for all that's worth. The hero is in his new world.
No comments:
Post a Comment