Olivia Munn – Movie Musings

Oscar Isaac destroys something else (again) in misfire X-Men Apocalypse

Director: Bryan Singer

Cast: James McAvoy (Charles Xavier/Professor X), Michael Fassbender (Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto), Jennifer Lawrence (Raven/Mystique), Oscar Isaac (Apocalypse), Nicholas Hoult (Hank McCoy/Beast), Rose Byrne (Moira MacTaggert), Evan Peters (Peter Maximoff/Quicksilver), Tye Sheridan (Scott Summers/Cyclops), Sophie Turner (Jean Grey), Olivia Munn (Psylocke), Kodi Smit-McPhee (Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler), Alexander Shipp (Ororo Monroe/Storm), Lucas Till (Alex Summers/Havoc), Josh Helman (Colonel William Stryker), Ben Hardy (Angel)

Where do you go with a franchise when you are on at least your second timeline (maybe more, who knows?) and earth-shattering destruction has been done so many times before? At one point in this movie, our young heroes head to the cinema to watch Return of the Jedi – with a genre savvy conversation following on whether the third film in a franchise is always the worst. You’d like to think if you were going to pop such a hostage to fortune in the third film of your franchise, then you’d be busting guts to make this film as stand-out as possible. Doesn’t happen.

It’s 1983. Charles (James McAvoy) is still running his school with Hank (Nicholas Hoult). Raven/Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence – looking for every single second as if she is only there by contractual obligation) is saving mutants left, right and centre on the underground. Magneto (Michael Fassbender) is living incognito in Germany with a wife and daughter. All that is about to be thrown into chaos when Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac, trying his very best to make an impression under piles of make-up), the very first mutant, rises from imprisonment after thousands of years. The most powerful mutant in history, he decides the world is ripe and ready for the taking.

In X-Men: Apocalypse, not only is more not more, but the film churns out emotional character and relationship beats, covered to exhaustion in other movies. One glance at Magneto’s family and anyone who has ever seen a movie is going to know they are not long for this world. Raven and Charles no sooner appear in the same frame than you know the two of them are going to struggle to reconcile their past with their different viewpoints. We’ve seen it all before – and you feel, in the slightly disengaged performances, that the cast have had enough as well. Even Apocalypse, for all his world-altering power, basically has the same agenda as every mutant villain this franchise has ever had before: Mutant Superiority.

Around these familiar plot beats, we get action that also feels culled from before. The film culminates in such earth-shattering destruction you really feel it should be more exciting, but instead it feels tediously familiar. How many times have we seen cities devastated like this? It’s such a cliché that the millions of people who must have died in the planet-wide obliteration that consumes the final third of the film don’t even merit a mention. It’s like the world treats this global destruction with the same meh that you feel a number of the film’s viewers do.

But then the whole film has a weary sense of inevitability about it, of going through the motions. The plot makes little or no sense. Apocalypse is awoken by a cult we never hear from again, the whole film takes place in a few days, barely enough time to build up any sense of peril – but also somehow too short a time for the vast number of comings-together of different characters to feel natural. Characters from past films are thrown in willy-nilly, often for no real reason. So from the first scene we have Moira MacTaggert and Havoc back from the first film, then Quicksilver is back to repeat his bullet-time action from Days of Future Past (saying that, this sequence, as Quicksilver rushes to save people from an exploding mansion to the tune of Sweet Dreams, is the most vibrantly enjoyable moment in the film). We even get Stryker back, a character who becomes more and more of a cartoony villainous idiot each time he appears.

In between these points, the film frequently misses its beats. Apocalypse’s assembled group of mutant followers are assembled with such casual indifference (Apocalypse basically seems to pick up the first four mutants he meets) that their characters and motivations barely register. Obviously we know Storm is destined to be a goodie, so we get a few seconds of establishment that she is basically a goodie. Magneto gets his painfully predictable backstory (Michael Fassbender is by the way totally wasted in this movie, forced to repeat the same notes over and over again from the last two films). The other two barely make an impression – other than perhaps Olivia Munn’s unbelievably fanservice costume.

But it also makes more serious errors. A hideously distasteful moment sees Magneto destroy the whole of Auschwitz in a rage. There is, quite frankly, something more than a little stomach turning about the site of a real atrocity – where millions died – being blown away on screen like any other major landmark. Even more disgusting to have it serve as a shallow, over-exploited “he feels pain because he was in the Holocaust” moment. Other times in this series this link has worked – here it manifestly doesn’t.

About the only thing that really works here is the darker interpretation of Charles – McAvoy making it clear that events have made Xavier far more willing to go to dangerous ends to protect his family – and there is a neat replay of the first conversation between Xavier and Magneto from the very first film in the franchise, with the stresses all changed to show that their positions have developed in a far different way in this new timeline. But that’s the only real moment that feels new.

But I’ve still got a certain affection for these X-Men movies, and this isn’t the worst one they’ve ever made (that’s always going to be X-Men Origins: Wolverine), but it’s up there. It somehow doesn’t feel special, more like a film that had to be made for legal and financial reasons, rather than because there seemed like a decent story to be told, or something unique to be said. The rushed plot and lack of engaging characters make more sense when you think about it like that. It’s nothing special at all, and seems to pass in front of your eyes and then just as quickly out of your memory.

Magic Mike: there are rare moments with most of the clothes on

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Cast: Channing Tatum (“Magic” Mike Lane), Alex Pettyfer (Adam “The Kid”), Cody Horn (Brooke), Matt Bomer (Ken), Olivia Munn (Joanna), Joe Manganiello (Big Dick Richie), Matthew McConaughey (Dallas), Adam Rodriguez (Tito), Kevin Nash (Tarzan), Gabriel Iglesias (Tobias)

The formula for Magic Mike is basically an all-boys Coyote Ugly mixed with a 1970s blue-collar social drama. But a blue-collar social drama where collars might be all the men are wearing. Based on Channing Tatum’s own experiences as a stripper back in the day (I’d be fascinated to find out how many of the things in this film Tatum got up to when he was a lad), Magic Mike follows the story of Mike Like (Tatum), a brilliant stripper who dreams of setting up his own bespoke furniture company (if that’s not an insight into the sort of eccentric film this is, you’ve got it there!). Meeting young Adam (Alex Pettyfer), he takes the kid under his wing and inducts him in the world of strip clubs. Adam gets a taste for the life, while Mike gets a taste for the company of Adam’s disapproving sister Brooke (Cody Horn). So mentor and mentee gradually find themselves drifting towards trouble.

Magic Mike is good fun mixed with some pretty standard low-rent crapsack world problems, as small-time crime and drugs intrude on the otherwise gentle world of professional male stripping. Magic Mike is essentially a sort of fairy tale, which wants to enjoy the dynamism of performing on stage while also casting a disapproving eye on its hedonism and emptiness. It’s the sort of film which wants to show what a great time you can have living that lifestyle in the short term, while also praising its hero for realising he wants more. You might think (and it has been sold and partially recut) into a hot stripping film, but deep down it wants to be a 1970s social issues drama. It just never quite gets there, because it doesn’t have the depth and can’t escape the cliches of coming-of-age dramas.

So it’s not exactly the most revelatory film in the world. What’s most interesting is that often in these films it’s the mentor who leads the mentee astray. Here, it’s the mentor who finds his life gradually being damaged by the mentee. Mike is basically a kind, decent guy who just hasn’t really grown up. Adam, whom he brings into the stripping world, is basically a shallow, lazy, increasingly selfish person who is only interested in himself. While deep down Mike knows that stripping and all its hedonistic temptations are only a means to an end, for Alex it is the end, and he wants to lead this sort of life forever.

Mike’s basic charm works so well because it’s rooted in Channing Tatum’s own charm as a performer. He has a sweet, puppydog quality as well as a fundamental little-boy-lost innocence, which should seem strange for a bloke who rips his clothes off and gyrates semi-naked on a stage in the laps of cheering women. But it makes sense. The show is a brilliant showcase for Tatum, not only showing his acting and performing strengths but also showcasing his dancing and movement skills. As well as, of course, his chiselled torso. The film front and centres a rather sweet will-they-won’t-they with Mike and Alex’s sister Brooke, played with a sweet firmness by Cory Horn. And there are a host of other excellent performances, not least Matthew McConaughey stealing scenes as club owner Dallas, hiding his greed under a domineering bonhomie.

The film stops frequently for elaborate stripping scenes in manager Dallas’ club. These are put together with real wit and engagement, and while the film never really explores the issues in stripping (no touching from the guests, performance enhancing drugs, the hedonistic openness etc. etc.) it does make a change to see the men of the film being treated entirely as sex objects and not the women (or at least not as much, this still being a film that opens with a semi-nude Olivia Munn). Soderbergh though has always been a proficient technician rather than the sort of intelligent artiste he would like us to think he is, so it’s a not real surprise that most of the film is more flash than depth.

So that’s perhaps why the film largely settles for being a standard “man needs to grow up and leave his old life behind” and “young buck goes out of control” story. The structure of this, and its air of kitchen sink drama as we see Mike struggle to get a loan to start his business, or deal with a stripping event gone wrong as Alex brings drugs to a private party, is something that contrasts nicely with the more dynamic stuff in the club. All this is pretty standard arc material – and Soderbergh’s film dodges really drilling down into some of the issues it touches on.

Magic Mike is a fun film with a touch of depth, that wants to combine a character study with a study of its stars’ characterful bodies. It only touches upon some of its themes, and tells a fairly traditional story under all that. But it’s got a sort of charm, and it delivers its cliches with aplomb. But then I’m not sure I’m quite the target market for it.