Crocodile Tears

Rating: 8/10 (3 June 2011)

I thought this was mostly a well written movie. It's a story about mutants and humans. Some mutants want to live with humans. Some want to kill them. It's also about the cold war and organizations like the CIA.
Oddly, the movie seems to agree with the villains, and shows humans in a very negative light. The only good humans in the movie are CIA agents. That's right. The only two "good" humans are spies. In the comics, Moira MacTaggert was a brilliant scientist, but in this movie she's a spy.
In addition, organizations like the CIA are painted with broad strokes as being close-minded organizations. It's hard to imagine why an organization who recruits the best and the brightest and is constantly adapting to situations around the world, like the CIA, is close minded. It's an ignorant view. It's a bigoted view.
The movie seems to justify the villains at the end. Mystique tells Beast to have "mutant pride" before she leaves. Charles Xavier even kisses her goodbye.
But it still was a well written movie. There weren't much special effects or eye candy though. It lacked feeling. The most exciting part of the movie was when Banshee was flying. The scenes with Azazel were no where near as interesting as Nightcrawler in the second movie. They also mispronounced Azazel's name dozens of times throughout the whole movie.
Maybe they should have split this into two movies, so they would have had more time to explore the characters feelings.
Before seeing this movie I was disappointed that they didn't have the original first class (Beast, Angel (male), Cyclops and Jean Gray). But the kids in this movie has so little screen time that I'm almost happy they didn't have the original characters.
It also didn't bother me that Kevin Bacon looked nothing like Sebastian Shaw. He had the attitude, and that's all that really matters I guess. I also didn't mind that they changed his powers, except for the part where he killed that guy by just touching him. That was just too easy.
I was glad they showed the White Queen (Emma Frost) as being a powerful telepath. I didn't think it was necessary to show her in diamond form. I think the whole diamond idea is stupid.