X-Men: First Class (2011)
My Recommendation: Great movie with a few glaring flaws
Yesterday, I registered my first complaint with a summary of the questionable racial politics.
Today we turn to the weakest link in the cast...
"Emma Frost's THREE mutant powers: Telepathy, Transformation to Solid Diamond and last but not least, Sucking at Acting.Full disclosure, though... For the first several episodes of Mad Men, I was convinced that January Jones was a brilliant actress. I thought she nailed the part of the picture-perfect-but-quietly-unhappy Betty Draper. Halfway through the first season, though, I realized it was the only expression her face can make.
Yes, multiple Zach posts, I'm so excited!!
ReplyDelete"...the only expression her face can make." Love it, might be the funniest January Jones slam I've heard yet.
I feel slightly bad for actors and actresses in these movies. Think about what it means to be a great "popcorn movie" actor or actress. This can't be the type of acting they imagined themselves doing. I think that it may actually be harder to do this type of acting (by which I mean to act in a scenario so patently unreal as a comic book movie environment) than to do the type of acting that actually wins Oscars.
For example, imagine the mental condition you need to get in to play the title character in "Monster". You need to feel alone, desperate and at a loss for empathy (which is just another way of saying very emotionally tired). You do that in an environment where the scene is set in something like a kitchen or a motel room and you are asked to emote. This seems like an amplification of emotions most people already have, in scenarios fairly similar to situations that they may have actually found themselves in.
In comic book movies, they get into patent leather clothes and 3 hours of make-up. They are put on wires in front of a green screen and given direction like "remember, you're evil", then after having the back of their pants hauled up by 1/4-inch steel cable they follow stage direction something like
[Character directs energy from eyes to helpless victim while telekinetically holding hero helpless in the air 25 feet away.]
I'm not sure how I would do that. None of this is support for January Jones, but I am rethinking all the bad stuff I've thought about Vin Diesel these past 10 years...
...does Netflix stream Pitch Black?...
I'm sure it's challenging, but some of the actors gave great performances.
ReplyDeleteMichael Fassbender was a fantastic Magneto, Kevin Bacon was clearly enjoying himself as villian Sebastian Shaw, and even (SPOILER) Rebecca Romijn had more presence in her 5-second cameo than JJ in the rest of the film.
BTW, Josh would not be happy to see you criticizing Mr. Diesel.