21:13

I watched two movies last week, partly because we had free passes, and partly because Tompall was home and really wanted to watch a particluar movie, and since I wanted to hang out with him while he was here I watched it with him. 

First, Minnie and I watched Terminator: Salvation.  I have to say that I enjoyed watching it.  In fact, I’d probably go so far as to say that it was good, at least on the basis of a Sci-fi-slash-action movie.  (And yeah, I just typed out "slash" instead of using a "/" because it looked less confusing.) I will also say, however, that while the film did pretty effectively carry the series into the horrible future predicted since the first movie, I’m not sure I would be very sad if I had simply not seen it.  It didn’t really bring anything new to the table.  In the 80’s, The Terminator was a big deal because it was a new thing, and in the 90’s Terminator 2: Judgement Day was a big deal because of all the awesome special effects and, you know, because it was a damn good movie.  The third movie may as well have killed the franchise, because it was ridiculous.  The special effects and action were great, but it was cheesy beyond belief.  The new movie avoids any amount of cheese, and there’s a fuckton of terminators stomping around as compared to the others, but the special effects are not, well, special.  Every action and sci-fi movie has HUGE effects– the explosions get bigger and bigger, more and more stuff gets wrecked up, and hell, stunt doubles are even being replaced by computer-rendered images of the characters.  I don’t want to give much away since it’s a new movie, and people may still be planning to watch it, but I will encourage anybody who is to go ahead.  It’s worth the ticket price.

The second movie, however… X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  I don’t honestly feel up to going into much detail, because the details depress me, but I feel like I’m doomed to, so here it goes anyway, and there will be some spoilers, so prepare for that.  The action was cool, the effects were neat, and Hugh Jackman pulls out yet another kick-ass performance… but it seems the writers and director did little more than read the names and perhaps brief descriptions of the other characters being introduced into the story.  Fan favorite Gambit isn’t a member of any clandestine theives’ guild, but a guy who uses his telekinetic abilites to… cheat at card games.  He also isn’t Cajun, but just a generic sort of Southern.  His explosive cards are intact, but he seems to have way more control over their direction than I remember, not to mention the curious ability to propel himself through the air and cause massive shockwaves upon landing, especially when armed with his trademark staff. 

Sabertooth isn’t much like he was in the first movie, and it seems unlikely that the guy in this prequel could wind up being the character portrayed by Tyler Mane in the first movie.  For one thing, he and Logan (real name: James Howlett. That’s canon, so no complaints from me) are half brothers.  The first minutes of the movie reveal this by retelling the equivalent of about two pages of the graphic novel Origin, in which the man young James believes to be his father is killed by an inebriated Logan, the groundskeeper of the Howlett family estate.  Enraged, the previously sickly James manifests his bone claws and slays Logan while his son and James’s playmate Victor (actually just called "Dog" in the comic) watches.  Before dying, the impaled Logan explains that he is actually James’s father, and James and Logan flee from the authorities arriving on the scene.  I’m honestly not sure if the comic implies that "Dog" is actually Victor Creed or not, mostly because Dog is wounded in the melee following James’s "father’s" death, and an adult Dog is shown to still carry the scars across his face.  Victor Creed, with his healing factor that rivals that of Wolverine himself, would not have retained the scars.  I suppose it does make sense that he’d have those abilites though, being from the same father as a man who has them…  The film makes no effort to reveal the exact reason that James Howlett takes the name of his biological father when he and Victor (who, for some reason, does not change his name)

Then there’s Deadpool… Oh boy.  For the uninitiated, the comic-book version of Deadpool is a wise-cracking assassin who, despite having a healing factor (once again) similar to, or perhaps much greater than, Wolverine’s, has a face scarred beyond recognition.  Think Two-face from Batman, or Spawn.  I’m not familiar enough with the character to explain why this is, but I do know that he has a great wish to find a way to heal it.  Then there’s the movie version of the character.  First off, I have to say that the choice of Ryan Reynolds to play the character seems terrific, which is to say he’s a natural smartass, and is also, for some reason, in really good shape.  So the first few times we see the character, he’s pretty spot on– dual wields katana swords, shoots his mouth off constantly– but apparently before whatever event caused the scars.  Oh, and he also doesn’t go by the codename of Deadpool, but usally answers to his real name… which I suddenly can’t remember.  Wade something.  Logan is lead to believe that Wade is killed, but it is later revealed that he has actually been given extraordinary powers as "Weapon XI."  Yeah, in this screwed-up world, "Weapon X" isn’t a program or group of people who experiment on mutants with a goal of creating mindless, ultra-powerful soldiers, but simply the number that happens to pertain to the tenth mutant to come out of said program, that being Wolverine.  It’s revealed that the first ten "Weapons" (and if you’re wondering, it’s never revealed exactly who the other 9 are) are not actually then intended result of this program, but merely the means to and end: Their powers were somehow duplicated and put into the body of "Weapon XI," to the result that he can use the powers of pretty much every other mutant in the movie.  He’s a "Dead Pool."  Oh and also, based on the numerical codename, you might assume that he’d only have the powers of the preceeding ten, but I’m pretty sure there were more than 9 mutants that got freed from their imprisonment by Logan.  I dunno, it’s lame and confusing, so if the way I wrote it was confusing it’s because it was. 

There were other recognizable X-Men-related characters in the movie, mostly imprisoned on Striker’s island compound (which turned out to be fucking Three Mile Island, by the way).  Scott Summers (aka Cyclops) played a pretty big part, but never saw anybody else because he was blindfolded so his dangerous powers would destroy everything.  Emma Frost (aka the White Queen) was also identified by other characters, though her powers were as they are these days: a full-body, diamond-like armor instead of telapathic powers.  In the books they evolved from the latter to the former for some reason.  I also saw Quicksilver, somebody who may have been Toad, and maybe

even Banshee, but their involvement was minimal.  Hardcore fans will not like this movie, as it takes far too many liberties, but anybody who doesn’t know the comics but enjoys the movie series will probaby like it just fine. 

I just worry that some of the more drastic changes will be somehow retconned into the books.  Heck, the characters’ costumes were changed to reflect the first movie, as well as the location of Wolverine’s claws– they always just sort of came out of the backs of his hands, but ever since the movies, they always protrude from between his knuckles.  I know these are minor details, but a flood has to start with a little trickle.