A. Lee Martinez's Blog, page 38

Variables (short fiction)

The machine said he was going to die today, and the machine was never wrong.

Some scientist somewhere had created a computer powerful enough to compute probabilities to the smallest decimal point. With it, a nation could become invincible. With it, any outcome was a foregone conclusion.

The only problem was that someone had built another one at the same time, and the two machines were waging a battle of quantum uncertainty on a macro level. As long as there were two machines, there could be no certainty. There could only be probability.

The machine said he would die today.

The machine was only wrong so much as its rival dared interfere in the outcome of any battle, and neither machine cared for the lives of soldiers. Soldiers were merely resources to be acquired and spent for maximum efficiency. The machine might intentionally lose a fight in order to win another five years from now. The plan was long term. Except it wasn’t because as long as there were two machines, the future was always uncertain, aside from a small detail here or there.

Jude was given his death notice before storming the battlefield. They did that just before so that a soldier didn’t chicken out. Why did they do it? They did it because it didn’t matter. It didn’t make a damn bit of difference. If he was going to die today, there was nothing he could do about it. Meanwhile, some committee had decided to let soldiers know how much their service was appreciated by handing them a medal in a red envelope before their last hurrah.

“You’re an honor to your nation,” said the sergeant, sounding bored with the affair.
Jude stuffed the envelope in his pocket. He didn’t bother to open it. The hatch popped open, and he charged into the battlefield. In the heat of battle, he forgot about dying.

He fought and he killed. When the dust settled, he stood exhausted among the carnage. Everybody was dead.
Everybody but him.

An enemy soldier stepped out of the smoke. This was it. Rather than fight his destiny, Jude lowered his rifle and let death take him. The other soldier held his rifle at his side. They stared at each other, waiting for the other to make a move.

“What are you waiting for?” asked the soldier.

“I was about to ask you the same thing.” The soldier tossed a red envelope at Jude’s feet. “Get it over with already.”

Jude held up his own envelope. He dropped his rifle and limped toward his enemy. Not his enemy. Just a soldier. Like him.

The soldier threw away his rifle and steadied Jude. “But the machine . . . ”

“Fuck the machine,” said Jude.

“So what now?” asked the soldier.

“Hell if I know.”

Jude crumpled his death notice and threw it away. The two soldiers, inconsequential variables in an equation that no longer concerned them, dragged themselves from the battlefield one last time.

Time Enough (short fiction)

People thought it was easy for Clara, and they were right.

“Can you get those reports back to me by three?” Barry asked.

“Sure. No problem.”

Her schedule was already swamped, but she’d find the time. She always did.

Three blocks away, a gunshot rang out. She considered if she should do anything about that. Five blocks away, sirens blared. Two sets of them. She usually didn’t get involved unless it was four or five.

“Clara, are you okay today? You seem distracted.”

“Sorry Just have a lot on my mind.”

“Anything you want to talk about?”

“No, thanks.”

“It’s not . . . personal . . . stuff?”

She rolled her eyes. “You mean lady business, Barry? Is that what you mean?”

He backed away a step. “No. I mean, we understand when you have . . . personal issues.”

The ultrasonic pitch of a Martian spaceship penetrating the upper atmosphere vibrated at the back of her skull. They were coming down somewhere in South America. Damned Martians. How many failed invasion attempts did it take to convince them they were wasting their time?

“No, Barry. It’s not that. It’s never that.” She pushed up from her chair. “I have to use the bathroom.”

“You do that a lot,” he said.

Clara shouldn’t have said anything, but she had a spare moment. “Damn it, Barry. What does that mean? Yes, I go to the bathroom a lot. I still get my job done. I still meet all my responsibilities. Responsibilities, I might add, you know nothing about. So why don’t you let me go to the bathroom as many times as I want so long as everything gets done?”

“I didn’t mean anything by it.”

He looked genuinely hurt. “Ah, damn it. I’m sorry. I just have a lot on my mind. I’m taking an early lunch.”

“That’s a good idea. Take your time. You’re the most reliable member of my team. Sorry if I take you for granted sometimes.”

“Thanks, Barry. I know you appreciate what I do, but it’s nice to hear sometimes.”

Somewhere, people were screaming. People were always screaming. Shouting with glee. Terrified of harmless things. She couldn’t check them all. She didn’t need to. But when she’d read in the newspaper about a guy stabbed in an alley just down the street, she was reminded of how many people she didn’t help.
When no one was looking, she ducked into an empty office and flew off to fight yet another giant Martian robot somewhere in Argentina. Along the way, she saved a dog from being hit by a car.

People were right. It was easy for her.

But it was never easy.

Happy Accident (short fiction)

On their third date, Lester told Emma the truth.

“You’re God?” asked Emma.

Lester laughed. “No. Not God. Not like you would define it. Not some guy who sits in the clouds with a great white beard and passes judgment on how often you touch yourself.”

Lester was handsome (though not too handsome), successful (though not too successful), and funny (though not too funny). He wasn’t the image of a supreme being Emma would have conjured in her imagination. Maybe God’s younger, less ambitious cousin. She believed him without question. When God or god or whatever Lester was declared Who or who or whatever he was, you couldn’t deny it. She took that as a sign.

“Why are you telling me this?” she asked.

“Because I like you. A lot.”

“I’m flattered.” She would’ve been flattered even if he wasn’t a god. She liked him quite a bit too. “But don’t you have more important things to do than go on dates?”

“I’m a omnidimensional being,” he replied. “I have plenty of times for dates along with my other duties. Like right now, I’m enjoying this steak while pushing an asteroid two feet to the right so that, in a thousand years, it will sail harmlessly by the Earth.”

“Very considerate of you,” she said.

“Can we not talk shop?”

“Hey, you brought it up. You can’t expect me to not have some questions.”

He smiled at her. It always felt like the universe itself was smiling at her when he did. Now she knew why. “All right. Ask away.”

“Why? Why any of this?” She gestured at the people seated around them. “What’s the point?”

“I’m still trying to figure that out,” he replied.

“You’re a god. You don’t know?”

Lester shrugged. “I could lie to you, but it kind of took me by surprise.”

“You can be surprised?”

“I’m surprised all the time. I didn’t intend any of this. It just sort of . . . happened. Not that it’s unique. It happens all the time. It’s surprisingly easy to create a universe. Like growing mold in a refrigerator.”

“The universe is the mold in your refrigerator?”

“That came out wrong. I didn’t intend to create anything. I was minding my own business when things fell into place. I didn’t even notice it for the first billion years. Good thing I didn’t either. I would’ve probably cleaned up the mess and never thought about it again. But by the time I found it, it was intriguing enough that I decided to leave it along, and see what happened. The next thing you know, here I am.”

“Did you just skip over billions of years with a single sentence?”

He chuckled. “Omnidimensional being. I tend to do that.”

“Okay. So you’re a god, and you have chosen to spend some of your time, infinite as it might be, dating thirty year old, single mothers?”

“Is it so unbelievable?”

“It’s pretty goddamn unbelievable.” She covered her mouth. “Sorry.”

“I told you. I’m not that kind of god. I don’t get offended by a few naughty words. I’ve got bigger things to manage than anyone’s potty mouth.”

“So it’s all a mistake then?” she asked. “All of this?”

“I prefer the term happy accident. If this universe didn’t exist, I’d have never met you.”

“Wow. That’s pretty corny, but coming from the creator of the universe, it’s a pretty solid line. You might just get lucky tonight.”

“Might?”

Emma reached across the table and took his hand. “I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise.”

Maleficent (movie review)

Maleficent is an adequate film.  It doesn’t do anything terribly wrong, but it doesn’t really bring anything new to the table.  It’s inoffensive, and I suppose, taken as a chance to give depth to a villain, it works okay.  But it only does so by transferring her villainy to another character and then imposing on her all the standard elements that define a sympathetic hero.  It isn’t anything new.  That’s my chief complaint.  If you’re going to tell a story that brings sympathy for a villain and the best you can imagine is to simply make them the misunderstood hero then you aren’t really telling a villain’s story.  You’re just taking the very typical good guy / bad guy formula and applying it in reverse.

The reason that stinks is that what so often defines villains is agency, and what so often defines heroes is a response to that agency.  Villains usually get the story going.  They are the source of the conflict.  Without the Riddler, Batman is just a rich guy who dresses funny.  Without Maleficent (in the original tale), there is only a kingdom of happy, uninteresting people.  Without the Wicked Witch, Dorothy simply has a pleasant walk across the countryside to The Emerald City.  What makes villains appealing (or what should make them appealing) is that they are in control.  They are powerful forces who command respect and shape the story in a way heroes rarely do.  And the first thing most writers do to make a villain sympathetic is remove that agency.  It works, sure, but once you do that, we’re no longer talking about a villain.  We’re talking about any number of generic heroes.

I don’t want to get into feminist debates about what Maleficent the character and Maleficent the movie might represent.  Though I will say that, once again, a female character is physically violated in order to justify her actions.  There is something unpleasant about that.  Maleficent, the ultimate dread power, is merely a wounded woman, violated by a man she was foolish to love.  It smacks of the worst and laziest Lifetime original movie motivations.  For all the genuine attempt to bring depths to her characterization, she ends up simply being another victim.

I’m also not a huge fan of characters being restored physically once they are redeemed.  I get why it happens, and within the context of a fantasy story, it’s certainly plausible.  But it also feels as if equating imperfection of any type as a sign of poor character.  It’s nothing new, but I’ve lost a taste for it.  Metaphorically, it could be taken as a sign of Maleficent’s triumph over her previous violation, but it seems to me as a lazy way of getting her out of trouble at the last minute and undoing the damage because it’s no longer significant to the plot.

But where the film is weakest is in its climactic battle.  The film goes the expected route of putting Maleficent in mortal danger.  Surrounded by foes, battered and bruised, she is suddenly the underdog.  The villain should never be the underdog.  And, yes, I get that Maleficent isn’t strictly speaking a villain in this film, but damn it, shouldn’t she retain some of the agency and power she had in the original story.  I don’t mind that she doesn’t transform into a dragon.  That would’ve been cool, but the reality of moviemaking is that the film isn’t going to replace Angelina Jolie with a CGI monster in its climax.  But Maleficent blunders into an obvious trap and then finds herself fighting for her life.  She’s transformed from a powerful force to merely another protagonist, and that’s a real shame.

At this point, I’ll go ahead and plug Emperor Mollusk versus the Sinister Brain because it’s a story about a villain that I wrote.  I’m not unbiased, but one of the most important elements of Emperor Mollusk was his near absolute mastery over every situation.  It made the story more difficult to write, but it also establishes him as a dangerous evil genius who is mostly in control.

In Maleficent, she can’t even remove her own curse.

The fantasy writer in me also gets annoyed when the rules of fantasy are so inconsistent.  Maleficent is able to easily defeat fully armored soldiers in many scenes, but as soon as the plot requires her to not be able to do so, she suddenly can’t.  And when she gains back her ability to fly, the bad guy dies in the most generic Disney death, which robs her again of agency and allows us to watch the bad guy die without having to feel as if Maleficent has any malice in her.

It’s easy to read too much into this film, which is really just another fairy tale with some role reversals, but if you’re going to make a film about an iconic villain, you should try something unique with it.  I’m not even particularly well enamored of Maleficent as a character, but this film doesn’t add anything to her character while diluting what little interesting there was about her.

None of the above critique will matter.  Like most blockbusters at this point, Maleficent isn’t interested in complexity or originality.  It exists for the recognizable name and because every attractive actress in Hollywood must play an evil queen (or something like her) at some point in their career.  It’s an inoffensive story that dares little, but has name recognition and marketing and perhaps an unearned “Girl Power” aura.  As a film, it’s fine.  It’s safe and easy with the illusion of depths.

But it is an inadequate study of sympathetic villainy and has nothing original or interesting to say.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

LEE

Say It with a Smile (short fiction)

One day, Jack discovered he could say and do anything so long as he did it with a smile.

“I hate you, Tony. I’ve always hated you.”

“That’s nice of you to say, Jack.”

“I hate you so much that I slept with your wife, who I don’t even find very attractive. That’s how much I hate you and guys like you. Good lookin’ asses who think they’re so cool just because they have strong chins and good hair. You always think you’re better than me, but you’re not.”
Jack dropped his smile, and the barest hint of realization crossed Tony’s face. Jack forced his grin into place, and Tony smiled back blankly.

“I know it’s petty,” said Jack, “and I don’t care. You’ve never done anything to me, and you seem like a genuinely nice guy. But what the hell does that count for? You’ve had everything handed to you. You didn’t earn any of it. The day you were born, everything was already yours. You’re nothing but a shell of a human.”

“A fair criticism,” said Tony.

“It felt good, knowing that I’d screwed your wife. Every time you’ve been with her since, I’ve been there. I’d like to believe you could smell me on her. I know it’s not true, but it’s something I like to tell myself.”

“Perfectly reasonable.”

“One of these days, I’m going to kill you. I’m going to walk right up to you with this smile on my face and a gun in my hand. And when the cops come and ask me why I shot you, I’ll tell them everything I’m telling you now, but I’ll be smiling so no one will care. It’ll be so perfect, so simple. You’ll be dead. I’ll be free. Who knows? Maybe I’ll sleep with your wife again. Just for the hell of it.

“But not today. I’m still having too much fun messing with you. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the day after that.” Jack slapped Tony on the shoulder. “All I can promise is that you’ll see it coming, and there won’t be a damned thing anyone can do to stop me.”

“Sounds good. You have a great day now.”

Jack went into his house. Shirley sat in the kitchen. She had that angry look. All he had to do was smile at her to make everything better. He didn’t care. He didn’t like her. She didn’t like him. It felt good to have someone sincerely dislike him and for someone to know how much he disliked her.

“I know you’ve been screwing around,” she said.

“Yes, I have. I can do what I want now, and I want to have sex with other women. I’m not going to stop doing it, so don’t bother asking.” He turned away.

“That’s it? We’re not going to talk about it?”

“No, we’re not going to talk about it.” He almost smiled at her, just to get her to shut up. “I’m going out for a while.”

“When you get back, I won’t be here,” she said.

“Good. Take that damned cat with you when you go.”

“Drop dead, Tony.”

One day, Sarah discovered she could kill people with her frown.

The Needs of Gods (short fiction)

Gods didn’t faith. They needed mystery. When the first primitive human looked to the skies and pleaded powerlessly for the rains fall, not too little or too much but just enough to satisfy his needs without killing him, the gods of weather was born. 2,000 years later, one of those gods was informed he was no longer needed by the celestial bureaucrat in charge of such things.
“But I’m a lord of storms and drought,” he said.

“It turns out the human finally have a handle on that,” said the clerk without sympathy. It wasn’t that she didn’t feel for him, but she’d seen enough gods come through this office over the millennia that she’d grown dulled to their troubles.

“But hurricanes,” he stammered. “And cyclones.”

“I’m aware of what weather is,” she replied, “and aren’t those just two different names for the same thing?”

The weather god shrugged. “Tornadoes. C’mon, now. They still must be having troubles with tornadoes.”

“I don’t know why you’re bargaining with me. I don’t make the rules. I just handle the paperwork. And right now, there is a team of scientists in Rekjavik who are about to crack this whole weather machine problem. Once they do that, there’s really no need for you.”

“Can I at least see their names?” he asked.

“Oh no. You know that’s against the rules.”

“Nobody has to know. You can slip them to me under the table, and I’ll throw down some lightning strikes. Problem solved.”

“That’s not a solution. It’s a delaying tactic. It’ll buy you some time, but once the humans have figured something out, they don’t give up on it.”

“If you ask me, it’s time for another soft reset.”

The bureaucrat said, “We can’t keep sending them back to the stone age.”

“I’m not talking about anything big,” he said. “Just a little flood. A small asteroid. Some kind of semi-deadly plague.”

“I’ll see that my superiors get your suggestion.”

He knew she would do no such thing.

“What are my options?”

“Fortunately for you, there are still mysteries in this world. I can offer you a transfer to one of our new departments. Very overworked, long hours, little respect, and it’s not as dramatic as typhoons and tsunamis.”

“Tsunamis are an ocean god’s domain,” he said.

“Do you want the job or not?”

“What choice do I have?”

He took the reassignment, and the newest god of tech support reluctantly reported for work.

She-Hulk: Humble Origins, Awesome Character (opinion)

If you’ve been paying attention to certain corners of the internet, you’ve no doubt heard the rage directed at writer David Goyer while on the podcast Scriptnotes for certain comments he made about the comic book character She-Hulk.  The remarks were simple-minded, ill-conceived, and, for a guy who is famous for mostly writing superhero movies, surprisingly ignorant about She-Hulk.  In a mild defense of Goyer, comic book superheroes are such an expansive universe that it’s easy to see why he might not know much about the character.  There are thousands of superheroes, and while She-Hulk has a prominent place in the Marvel Comics Universe, she hasn’t ever been a mainstream character.

I’m not interested in debating Goyer’s non-observations.  You can go to plenty of places on the internet to hear those debates, and there’s no need for me to pile on.  Is it disappointing that a writer who, for better or worse, has come to define so much of superhero cinema reduced her to a sexual stereotype?  Yes, but given the rather bland version of maturity offered by The Dark Knight Rises and Man of Steel, it’s hardly surprising.

Buried among the chatter, some people have taken this opportunity to talk about She-Hulk herself.  An unlikely creation, She-Hulk was created by Marvel Comics in 1980.  The basic reasons were a pragmatic effort to secure the copyright to a female version of the Hulk.  It’s a completely commercial motivation, and on paper, it’s not much different than why we ended up with a hasty Spider-Man film reboot.  But the end result is very different indeed.  She-Hulk did start out as a relatively uninteresting “girl version” of the Hulk.  She changed she got mad.  Her costume was a torn dress.  There wasn’t a lot to distinguish her from her bigger green cousin aside from intelligence and anatomy.  But somewhere along the way, that changed.

And it changed big-time.

If you’ve read Helen and Troy’s Epic Road Quest (and I’m going to go ahead and say you should read it because it’s awesome), you know that Helen is a big fan of She-Hulk.  In real life, part of the reason I wanted to create Helen was because of my love of the She-Hulk, so it’s a mobius strip of a character who loves a character who reminds her of herself because she was, in fact, inspired by that character.  Both are physically powerful female characters with smarts and confidence.  Helen isn’t quite as confident as She-Hulk, but she’s younger.  She hasn’t grown into herself yet.

The difference between Helen and She-Hulk is that Helen is entirely my creation, controlled solely by me.  She-Hulk is part of a shared universe.  Such universes can be treacherous terrain for any characters.  The best characters in a shared universe have such a strong, distinct personality that even lousy writers have a hard time screwing them up.  The same rule applies toward superhero costumes, where the costumes that have endured are so distinct even a child can draw them.  For a superhero to have any chance of lasting popularity, they need to be cool enough that great creators can tell great stories with them and strong enough that terrible creators (who will inevitably come along) don’t make them stupid.  And if they are made stupid, course correction should be relatively easy and painless.

She-Hulk is one of those characters.

My love of the character started with John Byrne’s Sensational She-Hulk, a title with a deliberately more absurd bent.  Byrne’s policy was to use only “lame” villains and to have She-Hulk herself be aware of being a comic book character.  The result was a fourth wall breaking adventure comic featuring a badass Amazon lawyer superhero that didn’t take itself too seriously but still took time to care about its characters.  Fun, thoughtful, and distinctive.

Since then, She-hulk has appeared in countless titles, including several of her own series and as a regular in more successful titles.  She’s been an Avenger and a member of the Fantastic Four, and in every appearance, she usually has something interesting to contribute.  She-Hulk is often cited as a feminist character, but she isn’t saddled with the baggage that comes with that (ala Wonder Woman).  She’s definitely an empowered female character, but she also comes with the toolkit to create cool stories.  Like the best superheroes, she’s capable of participating in a vast array of sub genres.  And because she’s well-established as a liberated, fun-loving lady with a smile for her friends and an uppercut for her enemies, she’s the perfect antidote to the grimdark world many superheroes live in at this point.

Even with thousands upon thousands of comic book characters out there, there really is still only one She-Hulk.  That’s not to dismiss the many interesting characters (male and female) out there, but being unique is a pretty damn incredible thing for any comic book character, where knock-offs are a dime a dozen.  (Yes, there’s Red She-Hulk now, I suppose, although she’s the exaggerated, accidentally silly version of the original.)  Jennifer Walters might have had humble origins, but she’s become something more important than a character designed to secure a trademark.  Just like Batman became more than a ripoff of The Shadow.

It’s not unreasonable to call She-Hulk an icon (albeit an obscure one paradoxically) , and still, there’s no character waiting in the wings to take her place yet.  Given her singular status, it’s hardly surprising that a great many fans would take offense to labeling her as merely a giant, green pornstar.  But the thing that’s great about She-Hulk herself is that she really wouldn’t have time for any of this nonsense.  She’d be too busy being an superhero lawyer who saves the world and has a good time doing it.  She has no time for chumps.

And that’s just one of the things that make her awesome.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

LEE

 

Charlie’s Monsters (short fiction)

Two monsters crept into Charlie’s room every night.

The monster under the bed was long, like a snake, with a twisted rabbit’s head, and a shock of bright orange hair that ran down the length of its back.

The monster in the closet was fat and short with a face like a wolf, one giant eye, and horrible, slender fingers that ended in wicked claws.

When his parents had gone to bed and the house was quiet, Charlie could hear them as they slithered and waddled into his room and debated who would get to eat him.

“It’s only fair that I should,” said the monster under the bed. “I haven’t had a good meal in ages.”

“Yes, but I have a family to feed,” said the monster in the closet. “There’s barely enough of the boy to go around. I can’t spare any.”

“I saw him first.”

“But boy is my favorite food. And this one looks so delicious.”

“You can’t have him.”

“You can’t have him either.”

The monster would fight. They were very quiet as they tore and bit at one another. They whispered curses and murmured howls. Charlie would hide under his blanket and hope they would kill each other. But monsters couldn’t die. They could only wound each other so badly that they slinked off to wherever monsters went to lick their wounds, only to return the next night to continue the debate.

Charlie didn’t sleep very well.

One night, the monster under the bed and the monster in the closet were seconds away from another pointless fight when the monster under the bed said, “This is stupid. We’re never going to eat him if we keep doing this.”

The monster in the closet snorted. “We could always flip a coin.”

“Yes, it’s only sensible.”

Charlie threw off his blanket. “Stop.”

“One second, boy. One of us will be with you shortly,” said the monster from under the bed.

“Or you could listen to me,” said Charile. “I have a better idea.”
The monster from under the bed slithered its twisty, long body over to Charlie. The monster from the closet trundled to the foot of the bed.

“Before I tell you,” said Charlie. “You have to promise that you won’t eat me and that you’ll go away forever.”

“This is highly irregular,” said the monster from under the bed.

“But if we like what we hear, we promise not to eat you,” said the monster from the closet. “And a monster never breaks its word.”

Charlie wasn’t sure he believed that, but he was willing to take the chance.
“Just down the hall, there are two grownups, one for each of you.”

“I don’t like the taste of grownups,” said the closet monster.

“But you have a family to feed,” said Charlie.

“Highly irregular,” said the bed monster.

“But you’ll each get something instead of one of you getting nothing.”

The monsters whispered among themselves for a moment before going down the hall. There were screams, but they were brief. The monsters came back into his room, where they disappeared whence they came.

“Good night, Charlie,” said the monster under the bed.

“Yes, good night,” said the monster in the closet.

True to their word, he never saw them again.

It was a shame about Mom and Dad, Charlie thought as he drifted off to sleep. But he’d always liked staying at Granma and Granpa’s better.

Story on a Beach (short fiction)

“It’s a stupid story.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s no conflict. It’s just two people talking.”

“Not every story is about conflict. Some stories are just about two people learning more about each other.”

“That’s not very interesting.”

“Isn’t it? What’s more interesting than watching two people trying to figure each other out?”

“Anything. Everything.”

“You want explosions, screaming, opponents at cross purposes, last minute rescues.”

“It would help, yeah.”

“Conflict doesn’t create stories. Giving two characters machetes and forcing them to hack each other to death is dramatic, but it doesn’t mean I care.”

“Maybe, but having two characters walking hand-in-hand on the beach is just boring.”

“Usually. But when it’s all said and done, there is something nice about walking on the beach.”

She kicked the sand. A few grains swirled in the breeze. God, she was beautiful. Not a size zero or a stunning blonde, but she had a smile, crooked and sly, that he adored. Maybe she didn’t understand what made an interesting story, but he was damned grateful he was here with her, right now, in this place.

“I love you.”

It was the first time he’d said it.

Days of Future Past (movie review)

X-Men: Days of Future Past is a good movie.  Not a great movie.  Not an astounding movie.  Not even all that great as a superhero film, but it has its moments.  It hits its stride more often than not, and what few flaws it have are small and easy to ignore.  Strictly speaking, there’s no reason for this film to exist other than as an excuse to create a film featuring the old and new cast of X-Men and to erase (or retcon) some of the missteps of the X-Men films in the past.  It is an inoffensive, above average entry in the series.

I should take a moment to acknowledge my own biases here.

I don’t care for most time travel stories.  Time travel stories allow uninspired writers to create false drama by doing things they can easily reverse.  I don’t care if people die in the future if the entire crux of the story is that they WON’T die in the future once the story is resolved.  Days relies on this empty dramatic turn twice.  Yes, we are treated to the sentinels of the future killing the mutants of the future not just once, but two times.  Both times treat it as this supremely dramatic moment, but considering we already know this isn’t the future we’re going to end up with, it’s all marking time until the conclusion comes along and fixes everything.

Colossus is terrible in this movie.  Just terrible.  While nearly all the future X-Men are pretty bad at their job, Colossus is especially rotten.  He spends the whole movie getting his ass kicked the most on a team of characters that’s whole story purpose is to get their ass kicked.  Also, Bishop remains one of the dumbest heroes in the X-Men continuity, and this film does nothing to redeem him.  Just a stupid n0n-character with a silly non-power who serves absolutely no purpose.

The exception is Blink.  I don’t know anything about her, but damned if the movie doesn’t make her powers to create warps in space as just plain awesome.  She’s the only character who exhibits any creativity in the use of her powers, and she’s honestly the only one of these future characters I ended up caring about because of it.  Yes, I know the rest of these characters from previous films and from their original comics, but in the context of this film, they’re nothing more than fodder.

The future elements are definitely the most disappointing.  I don’t expect the X-Men to be able to fight off the sentinels because the entire premise of the film is that they’ve lost this war in the future, but it would’ve been cool to see the X-Men exhibit finely honed teamwork, to almost appear as if they might win, only to have the sentinels rally and claim victory.  None of the future stuff really matters, but if we’re going to spend time there, we could get some thrilling action.  Instead, we mostly watch X-Men get their butts handed to them by killer robots, and I never go the impression the robots were that tough so much as the X-Men hadn’t mastered the art of tactics.  How much cooler would the battle have been if Sunspot burns a sentinel, so the sentinel freezes itself as protection, and then Colossus shatters it with a mighty punch?  A few more minutes devoted to making the future fights more interesting would’ve been nice.

Then again, none of this future stuff really matters.  If exists mostly to give Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan something to do.  I might argue that this doesn’t add much to the film, but for a lot of the audience, it wouldn’t be an X-Men film without these two actors in it.  It serves its purpose, and it’s only when it acts as if there is any reason at all to be invested in what happens in the future that I zoned out in the movie.  But for a lot of people, it’ll probably be a highlight.

Once the movie is in the 70′s, things get more interesting.  Just like in First Class, the setting is the most interesting thing going on here, and it’s refreshing to see a film embrace a retro aesthetic.  Seeing Beast in a leisure suit is almost worth the price of admission alone.  Unlike First Class, Days didn’t make me feel like Magneto was completely right, but it didn’t convince me he was wrong either.  As I noted in my review of First Class, one of the reasons I dislike that movie so much is that it actually convinced me genocide is a reasonable solution to conflict resolution and that Professor X and the X-Men are naive at best and dangerously delusional at worst.  Days doesn’t convince me otherwise, but it does at least have some ambiguity.

The highlight of the film is, hands down, the character of Quicksilver.  I’m surprised at this as much as anyone, but it makes sense.  He’s the only character here having any fun, and his power of superspeed is definitely the best power to have.  Superspeed has always been a tricky power.  It works well in comic books because the medium of static art gives the writer some leeway.  Here, on film, it becomes the ultimate problem solver.  When Quicksilver single-handedly saves everyone’s lives while disabling a room full of guards, all without breaking a sweat, it looks amazing, but it does show how powerful a character like Quicksilver would be.

Because the film makes Quicksilver so effective, its only solution to keeping him from solving every difficulty the X-Men face is to simply have him NOT come along.  There’s no story or character justification for it.  The writers might as well appear on the screen, shrug, and say, “We made him too awesome, folks.  Sorry” and then sweep him backstage so that he won’t remove all conflict for the story.  It’s a quibble, but a reason would’ve been nice.

Another quibble I’ve had with the X-men films from the start is the idea that Mystique is some sort of super badass fighter.  Mystique works best as an infiltrator and assassin, who leaves the fighting to other characters.  She’s a spy, not a commando.  I’m also not a fan (ever) of killing off characters off screen between films.  I didn’t care much for any of the characters of First Class, but they deserved better than to be tossed aside so casually.

With all that said, you might think I didn’t like Days.  It’s true that I didn’t love it, but I enjoyed it enough.  There’s some good character work, though I definitely think Magneto is the weak link here.  He does whatever the film wants him to do, and his plans are vague.  I’m not sure I believe Magneto would be foolish enough to start a war between humans and mutants by assassinating the President on national TV.  It’s not impossible to convince me that this is entirely Magneto’s intent, to force the issue, but the movie doesn’t take the time to be clear about it.  Some might argue that it’s subtle storytelling to leave it up for debate, but I wouldn’t mind some clarity in character and motivation now and then.

I also admit that I’d like to see an X-Men film where the focus wasn’t entirely on the mutants as oppressed minority.  I get that this is what the X-Men films are mostly about, but I wouldn’t mind seeing a story where there were other sources of conflict.  It seems like these films are in a holding pattern, where, aside from some superficial differences in set design and supporting cast, we’re just running through the same ol’ tale.  Fortunately, with a decent script and director, the story still works.

A good film.  Not great.  But it works.

Now if only Colossus wasn’t always such a wimp.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

LEE