I went in to see X3 last night with an open mind and fairly free of spoilers and believe me when I say that both were very difficult tasks. The internet is full of opportunities to see to it that all innocence surrounding any particular movie is lost. I did read reports of troubled production and saw more than a few uuuugly publicity stills, but that didn’t hamper my enjoyment in the least. I will take a moment to say that I miss the days of my youth where all I knew about any upcoming movie came solely from the occasional trailer. There were no message boards, easily accessed leaked scripts, or bootlegged copies that could be downloaded in no time. If you were a real fan you could get glimpses in movie magazines, but as far as I know that was it. But I digress and begin to sound a bit curmudgeonly. Let me get back to the movie at hand.

In the spirit of my first paragraph I will endeavor to avoid anything spoilerish, but that may prove difficult. Read on as always with caution. After a brief flashback that establishes how Jean Grey came to Xavier’s school and more importantly how powerful a mutant she is, we’re shown a country that has undergone some changes since the second movie. Hank McCoy aka Beast (my personal favorite mutant) is Secretary of Mutant Affairs and things seem to be going well for mutant-kind. Well that is until a company come forward with a treatment that suppresses mutant powers permanently, marketed as a cure. In the background we see the two lead dogs of the X-men, Cyclops and Wolverine, dealing with the death of Jean Grey. We soon learn that the grieving may be premature. What follows are some fantastic action scenes, opportunities missed and taken, X-men death, and an overall good flick.

The Good: Kelsey Grammer blew my socks off as Beast. I had no doubt that he could pull of the mental gymnastics that the fur ball is capable of, but I was concerned about how he would look/act in motion. He did it all and then some. Acting under all that makeup had to be hard, but as pros often do he made it look effortless. He even managed to pull off one of blue boy’s signature lines without sounding stupid.

Bobby Drake/Iceman was used to excellent effect. In the first two movies we see the teenager hiding a secret from his family. Here he gets to be a good friend to Kitty, showing a romantic side. He also gets to kick butt as a member of the X-men’s main team. His showdown with Pyro is perfection. In short, he grows up and we get to experience it and that leads me to one of the bigger goods, character arcs.

Two of the more interesting examples are the arcs that Mystique and Rogue get. Mystique is played perfectly in the first two films and here she gets what some think is an out of character closure to her story. I think it’s an opportunity to show Magneto’s character and what he has sacrificed in his quest and Mystique’s strength and ultimately her redemption (fueled by a desire for revenge no doubt). Rogue’s time in the movie is brief, but is a major part of the cure storyline. Whether you agree or not with her decision I think it’s touching. More moments like these would have made this a smarter movie, but like it or not this is a summer blockbuster and things are sacrificed in the name of explosions. I'll take what I can get.

I said that this movie could have been could have been smarter, but it does deal at least tangentially with a couple of issues that are on the forefront of our lives. The cure and looking at the X-factor (heh) as a disease was intriguing. The cry of “We don’t need a cure because there’s nothing wrong with us!” (Storm) balanced against mutants who hate their lives (Rogue) echoes back to Bobby “coming out” to his parents in X2. Much was said then about comparing mutants to homosexuals and this extends the metaphor nicely. That and the government’s reaction to the mutant threat (using the cure as a weapon) say much about how our society looks on anyone that’s too different and how willing we are to ignore our own sins in an effort to "cure" others.

And I don’t want to ignore all of the little touches that were the “love note” to fans that has become de rigueur in comic book films. I like it when writers/directors remember the people who are the core audience. A line here, a robotic head flying through the air there, a piece of costuming all has the power to induce a smile (and I’m sure they’re hoping the power to make us forget when they really muck something up).

The Bad: One of the unfortunate things about the decision to cram so much into this film was the fact that some of the core X-men got the shaft in terms of screen time. Cyclops was never treated as well as he probably deserved. As the team leader in the comic book and in at least the first two movies he never showed any of the qualities that a leader should possess. In all three movies that position was ultimately relegated to someone else. If you’re going to do that why have him around at all? Angel, though he does have two important scenes and perhaps because of those scenes needed to be better developed. He’s the whole reason for the cure. Finally, there’s Colossus. He has a couple of scenes where he’s just a plot device, but as a main member of the combat team he deserves more.

As much as I liked it as a social commentary, the cure was a plot device that could have been handled better. X2 had a mind control drug synthesized from a mutant. Pulling a similar trick in this one seemed to be a bit of a cheat. It also served to give us one more character that, while seemingly important in the scheme of things was nothing more than a plot device. Just make the cure an invention of science and you get the same thing without an actor to get in the way.

The biggest bad though had to be the handling of Jean. It shouldn’t be a surprise that she came back. It was hinted at near the end of X2 and there would be no reason for the flashback at the beginning if she didn’t. My objection is that they set her up as this force of nature that required Xavier to do something extremely out of character and then they don’t use it. I liked seeing Professor X's more human side, but we aren't really shown the reason why it was necessary. Told, yes but that's not enough. She should have been at the center of this movie, no question.

Put on a scale I’d say that the goods outweigh the bads and it comes out looking far better than I thought it would. It’s by no means the best of the three, X2 holds that crown (as second movies so often do), but it’s as comic book movie adaptations go, pretty darn good. They say it will be the last X film, though some things that happen near the end say otherwise (stay past the credits, I didn’t and wish I had). For the action sequences and big dumb fun alone you should see this on the big screen, oh that and if you want to see X4: This Time We Really Mean It.

—1. Overview
—2. Cast and Crew
—3. Photo Pages
—4. Trailers, Clips, DVDs, Books, Soundtrack
—5. Posters (Natalie Portman)
—6. Production Notes (pdf)
—7. Spiritual Connections
—8. Presentation Downloads

Ground breaking. Insightful. Innovative. Dangerous. Brave. Do these words describe the Wachowski brothers’ newest movie? While I don’t necessarily agree that it is any of those things, I will say that it is a hard movie to sum up in a handful of syllables. And I will resist the temptation to come up with some cute play on the title in any attempt to do the same.

I’ll get the usual stuff out of the way. What we have here is a movie about V (Hugo Weaving), a terrorist who wants to open the eyes of his fellow Brits to the atrocities that their government has committed. I don’t use that word in any politically weighted sense. He uses violence to attempt to change his government. V wears a Guy Fawkes mask for a number of reasons and thankfully for the history challenged the significance of that is explained in the opening sequence. Evey (Natalie Portman) gets caught in the middle and swept along in his “gunpowder plots”. And the titular vengeance is wreaked on a number of excellent British actors while Detective Finch (Stephen Rea) tries to sort it all out. Yes I say vengeance, because politics isn’t the only thing on V’s mind. He has a large bone to pick with everyone from the Chancellor (John Hurt) to Britain’s chief talking head (Roger Allam).

All of the performances are excellent. Weaving’s face is never seen, I understand that’s the way it is in the graphic novel this is based on. Yet he manages to act well through it, emoting with voice and posture. That had to be a tough call, but it’s one I wish Stallone had emulated in Judge Dred. It was as true to the character as to the original story. Perhaps my favorite character was Finch, who watches all of this transpire. He is sworn to uphold the law in a country where politics and party are more important than truth and duty. His weariness at this and his desire to do that duty at any cost is clear and he’s very much an everyman.

I heard much talk before the movie came out that this was going to be an indictment of our current government and citizenry. That is certainly there and plain enough to see. V accuses the populace of being scared into immobility, giving their freedoms up for security. The government in V uses any means at their disposal, the media, religion, science to maintain that fear. Homosexuals are villainized by them as is anyone that is different. There are references to the current conflict in the Middle East and numerous references to terrorism. I’ll leave that discussion to folks more well versed than I in politics, but there is definitely fodder there. It’s my opinion though that this is all window dressing for some other more interesting ideas.

Underneath the wordiness, and yes the brother’s W love them some words, and the action which is used sparingly as any good spice should be, there is a love story, two actually. V loves his country passionately, enough to kill and die for it. Then along comes Evey, a kindred spirit. Their new love is a doomed one, that much is clear from the beginning. V is too much a slave to his desire for retribution and so he must see it through. I was reminded of The Phantom of the Opera and King Kong. Those leading “men” were just as unable to break the chains of their nature in spite of the love’s strength. So the question for me here is twofold. First, does vengeance have its place? I think the answer to this is also yes, but we must do our best to leave this vengeance in the hands that can take care of it appropriately. To do otherwise will destroy us and those we hold dear. ( Psalms 94:1; Romans 12:19) Second, are there limitations to what love is able to accomplish? The answer of course is yes. Human love is limited. You can’t change the person you are with by strength of love alone. The only love capable of that level of change is God’s love ( Galatians 5:22 ).

V also has much to say about the nature of the masks we all wear. He says that beneath his mask he is an idea. He also says that the flesh beneath his mask is no more his face than the muscles or bones beneath that. All of the characters wear “masks” and ultimately they all get stripped away. What that process reveals is almost never pretty, but the truth rarely is. Beneath the mask that we all wear lies a desperate creature in need of salvation. Trying to hide that with false piety ( Luke 6:42 ; 18:11 ) will only lead to destruction.

The nature of grace is also touched on in two scenes. I won’t spoil the surrounding plot points but the transgressions are very similar. One character asks if it’s ever too late to ask for forgiveness. The answer given is no, though in one sense it was. The forgiveness doesn’t erase the repercussions in either case, and the nature of the “mercy” shown by each differs radically. The picture of God’s grace is much closer to what we see in the second instance. Love puts the sin behind them and truly forgives (Ps. 103:12).

The main criticism I have with V is its heavy-handedness. It feels like they focused too much on homosexuality. A soliloquy by one of Evey’s friends, plus a flashback/letter drove the point too deep. It also went on and on about “there’s no such thing as coincidence” including dozens of non-coincidences so we’d be sure to understand. Finally, the veritable verbal avalanche (I tried, I had to) could certainly get on one’s nerves. The Wachowski’s and McTeigue have more than a few things to learn about subtlety, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise. If you go in with this expectation and a willingness to go beneath the surface I think you’ll enjoy this as much as I did.

— Overview

—1. Overview
—2. Cast and Crew
—3. Photo Pages
—4. Trailers, Clips, DVDs, Books, Soundtrack
—5. Posters (Harrison Ford)
—6. Production Notes (pdf)
—7. Spiritual Connections
—8. Presentation Downloads

A firewall is “a computer or computer software that prevents unauthorized access to private data (as on a company's local area network or intranet) by outside computer users (as of the Internet)” and it also happens to be a pretty good movie that came out recently starring Harrison Ford. Why only pretty good? Well the first half of it does a good job of setting up the basic formula we’ve all seen before, but the back half gets dumb on us.

Jack (Ford) is established as a pretty good dad, caring husband, and grizzled veteran of e-warfare. He heads the network security department of a regional bank that is currently going through a merger. Someone has been following him (nicely set up in the opening credits) and preparing quite a dossier. They use that to invade his home, kidnap his family, and hold them. Jack keeps asking why and what they want. One can almost forgive him for not being able to figure that one out on his own. Well, Bill Cox (Bettany) clues him in as the head of this gang of thieves. They want him (in a move reminiscent of Superman III) to steal a little bit of money from each of his ten thousand biggest customers. In exchange he will get his family back. It turns out that Bill’s plan goes awry and he forces Jack to come up with a different solution.

The second half, where our hero should come up with a plan and beat the bad guys, has Jack going all action star on us. This is where it hits a snag, but not because of Ford, mind you. Old though he may be my man still has the ability to pull off what is required here. My objection is to turning a sixty-something computer geek into Kiefer Sutherland. Instead of having Jack use what we must presume to be his phenomenal brains, he instead relies on a water pitcher, a GPS collar and a pick axe to bring the bad guys low. There’s only one real instance of technical wiz-bangery that happens and it’s something that would make MacGyver blush or cheer or both. More of that is called for in a movie like this. As it is this movie could just as easily have been called “Dad Kicks Butt”.

Having said all that, this is a fun movie. Ford can still take a punch and chew the scenery. I really liked Bettany as the smart, greedy bad guy. He wasn’t over the top evil, but he delivered nasty in good quantities and had fun doing it. The kids weren’t annoying, which is refreshing. The mom, played by Virginia Madsen, was strong and resolute, but cried in the right places. I also enjoyed the supporting cast. Robert Patrick played Jack’s counterpart in the other bank and more of him would have been nice. Mary Lynn Rajskub stood out as Jack’s secretary and partner in saving the day. She is the essence of unflappable admin. The tension as the family tries to escape or when Jack has to come up with some way to circumvent the baddies is well used. I felt really entertained and it was money well spent.

Is there anything of lasting import here? Not much. Most of it is just dumb fun. A bit more of the family dynamic would have been nice to see. Daughter Sarah (Carly Schroeder) calls Jack by his first name early on. Mom works from home as an architect. Andy (Jimmy Bennett) and his sister seem to have a pretty typical antagonistic relationship. Generic, generic, generic. Maybe going through this experience would bond them as a family, but they seem awfully tight knit already, for reasons that aren’t clear. I know what sort of hours the respective parents’ jobs call for and it typically doesn’t allow for “pizza night” or the ability to execute an escape with military precision given two minutes whispered planning. Maybe LCD TVs in every room helps a family stick together in a crisis. That’s the message I seem to be receiving. Replace that with love and support and you’d have a family firewall worth its salt, a structure that can protect you from the ravages of the world.

— Overview