The latest installment of the X-Men movie franchise, of which I consider myself to be a long-standing fan, comes rolling in like a breath of fresh air. After the abysmal disappointment that was X-Men: The Last Stand, followed by the refreshingly exciting "reboot" that was X-Men: First Class, Brian Singer, director of the first two X-Men movies, returns to form by brilliantly combining the cast of the original X-Men movies with that of First Class, uniting them by way of one of the best-known story-lines from the comics. The result is a brilliant, bold, and truly original addition to the franchise, as well as to comic book movies in general.
The movie begins in a dystopian future in which mutants are almost extinct, due to a government-sponsored army of giant robots, (called Sentinels, familiar to fans of the comics) programmed to target and destroy all living mutants. Wolverine is sent back in time, by means of the mutant powers of Ellen Page's Kitty Pride, with the task of stopping Mystique from committing an atrocity which will set the events leading to the construction of the Sentinels in motion. To that end, Wolverine must first enlist the help of young Charles Xavier, as well as young Magneto.
What makes the movie so successful is precisely where "X3" failed so miserably: its characters.
Pivotal moments in the movie come down to the choices that the characters make, particularly moral choices. In the comic book version of this story, everything comes down to physically stopping Mystique. In the movie, it comes down to whether or not Mystique herself chooses to give in to hate.
Another character whose given new complexity is young Professor X himself. When Wolverine first finds him, he is hardly the fearless leader that Wolverine knows him to be. Instead, he is depressed and reclusive, routinely taking a drug that inhibits his mutant powers but allows him the use of his legs. We find that the reason he takes this drug is that his powers have become more than he can handle - the ability to read everyone's mind apparently carries with it the ability to feel everyone's pain. The situation provides a moving role reversal in the relationship between Professor X and Wolverine: Wolverine must offer hope and guidance to the very man who did the same for him.
Ultimately it's Professor X himself who convinces his younger self to rise to the occasion. (Yes, Professor X in the future has a conversation with Professor X in the past...it's complicated but it works.)
Young Xavier expresses to his older self how unbearable the weight of feeling everyone else's pain is, a moment that harkens back to Christ Himself bearing the weight of the whole world's sufferings. And of course, like Our Lord, young Xavier chooses to bear that pain for the sake of everyone else.
Young Professor X's situation plays as a vivid metaphor for real life. True, authentic love requires pain and sacrifice. Sometimes it seems easier to give up and indulge ourselves in whatever drug will numb the pain. But the world does not need despair and self-indulgence but hope and love that expresses itself in self-sacrifice. Like Professor X and Mystique, we are faced with choices that have consequences. Will we give in to anger, hate, and despair? Or do we dare to choose hope and Love? It all depends on the kind of world we want to live in.
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