On Movies

I have caught quite a few movies during this summer break. Watched Fast Five, Kung Fu Panda 2, and X-Men: First Class. Fast Five was two hours of brainless action. Dragging a vault with two cars and swinging it around to smash other cars borders on absurdity. For cars and muscle lovers only.

Kung Fu Panda 2, on the other hand, was an hour and half of fun and laughter. It was a tad too preachy, however. The first movie was more subtle in its use of the dragon scroll and secret ingredient noodle soup to convey a lesson. This film, however, chose to use an old goat, the court soothsayer, for the same purpose. Seriously, who wants to hear an old goat preach? On the positive side, the music was awesome. Hans Zimmer is seriously talented. The film makers did a really cool job too. What appeared to be non-diegetic sound at first, was slowly weaved into being diegetic. That made me go, "COOL~"

X-Men: First Class was much better than the previous X-Men: The Last Stand. Love how the dyadic relationships between characters were played out in the context of more complicated ones. Charles and Eric. Charles and Raven. Raven and Eric. Nice. The movie set off a signal on my gaydar and led me to think about the anti-antisemitism, sexuality and race themes brought up by the movie. If one thinks about Jews, LGBTs and blacks as mutants, it's not so difficult to see how the film portray the struggles they face in society. I think Mystique's character more or less epitomizes such themes. Her final acceptance of who she was was really cool too. If I can choose a mutant ability for myself, I want to be her/him.