X-Men: Days
of Future and Die cast (erm...b'cos the casts die so many times it makes dying
look really cool).
I went to watch it last night and it was thoroughly
entertaining. In my book, the stars of the movie are the perpetually pissed Wolf-man (Hugh Jackman), the eternally blue Smurfette with jaundiced eyes
(Jennifer Lawrence), and the I-am-not-a-crook Richard Nixon. No joke...he was
in fact the savior of the movie. He makes Watergate look like a mere parking
ticket violation.
The young and
chiseled face Magneto could have been in my book if he had not been so
environmentally insensitive when he ripped apart the entire old Yankee stadium
and elevated it as a protective high wall surrounding himself. It's an overkill
and a waste of his powers. If he had done that to our new Kallang Stadium with
its retractable roof, I am sure our government would not only lock him up for
multiple life-sentences and whoop-ass him in an a-la Michael-Fay fashion with no clemency. Our government would also
have sued and bankrupted him for every joules of energy left in him (I guess
this is one client our indefatigable M Ravi would decline any legal
representation).
But then,
back to the story. It is really an old rehashing. There is nothing new here. I
would not tell you the ending because it is so predictable. Ultimately, when
they all grow old, they die...regardless of whether they are XY-Men or XX-Women
(save for Hugh Jackman of course...that chappie could have his brain grounded
into mince meat or curry powder and he would still wake up the next morning
fully exposed and looking impeccable in the mirror...sorry insider's joke).
If you want to
have a feel of the plot, think of Back to
the Future where Marty McFly went back to the past to match-make his
parents so as to ensure his future existence and then replace
"parents" with the younger (no less predictable) version of Professor
X and Magneto. It's really a marriage made in mind-bending hell. And combine
that with the plot of Inception where
layers after layers of your consciousness is torn apart in time-stopping
wonderland and maybe mix it up with The
Terminator Part II where the Arnie-like Wolverine return to the 70s to
carry out a Chinese-New-Year-ish reunion of all the young X-men characters, in
particular, Mystique, Beast and Toad.
All in all, I
guess the plot-line differs little from the movie Austin Powers: The Spy who shagged me where Dr Evil invented a time
machine and returned to the 60s to steal Austin Powers' mojo. Of course, the
mojo here is really mystique whose amazing shape-shifting skills would
downrightly put to shame most of our young brides clumsily performing under
sweat and curses wardrobe changes between wedding dinner dishes.
But the
really cool bit is one particular segment where quicksilver (think of a young
flash with a planet-full of redundant testosterone to spare) broke into
Pentagon to free Magneto. This is no spoiler because you’d just have to see for
yourself the hilarious motion effects and how he realigned the objects in the room
to his impish advantage. Imagine a young
steve jobs, an old tom jones and an underfed gremlin and you roughly get what I
mean.
Jokes aside
now, let’s dial into something more serious. It’s about the younger Charles (or
Professor X). There was a part where he entered into a god-like sphere called
Cerebro. It’s kind of like his own mini-Cineplex with a cool helmet and many
fun buttons to press. The point about this part is not the searching and locating of humans
and mutants. It is about how the young Charles overcame his own fears and pain caused
by the screams and sufferings that tormented his mind when he surveyed and
connected with the consciousness of the world. As their consciousness crossed,
the old Charles advised the young Charles how he could draw strength and hope from
the screams and sufferings of the world. He advised him to focus on the hope of
humanity and not the dread.
To be honest,
this part reminds me about God. I can
see him seated in a cerebro-like throne connecting to each and everyone of us. He hears our pain and our screams. He knows
intimately how we feel and how we are crying out for love, hope and peace. He
occasionally makes his holographic appearances here and there to plant
anonymous but serendipitous tips to nudge us in the right direction. He whispers
into our ears words of encouragement and emboldens our hearts with little
reminders of the hope he has planned for us.
In the end, no matter how we feel,
he knows our pain and is watching over us. So, in a sense, if the X in X’mas represents the first letter
of the Greek word for Christ, then I
guess the X in X-Men reminds us that
we all belong to Christ in one suffering, one atonement, and one ultimate resurrection.
Okay, I have
said enough. I will end here with a cliffhanger, sort of. If you’re observant
enough, you will notice a segment of the movie where the young Magneto told
the young Charles that he was locked up in the Pentagon not because he tried
to kill President Kennedy. On the
contrary, he was trying to bend the bullet away from the President to save him.
But he was arrested before he could do so. His
reason? Because he was one of us. Yes…apparently the beloved President
Kennedy was a mutant (That actually explains a lot). I wonder what was his
powers…mind-controlling rhetoric and charisma? If that’s the case, what does it
make President Obama? A mutant? (That
actually explains even more). Cheerz.
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