Dania Ramirez – Through the Shattered Lens

Just as the world seems to be finally on the verge of accepting mutants, industrialist Warren Worthington II (Michael Murphy) announces that he has developed a shot that will suppress the X-gene, therefore “curing” mutants of their mutation. Magneto (Ian McKellen), Mystique (Rebecca Romijn), and a host of other mutants break out of prison to try to stop Worthington from offering up his cure. Meanwhile, at Charles Xavier’s school, Rogue (Anna Paquin) wonders if maybe she should take the shot and become a “normal” person.

Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Logan (Hugh Jackman) have an even bigger concern than Magneto and the cure. Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), thought to have died at the end of the previous movie, has returned but has given in to her dark side, the so-called Phoenix. She’s already destroyed Scott (James Marsden), and it doesn’t take her long to disintegrate Professor X. Can Logan and the Beast (Kelsey Grammer) rally what’s left of the X-Men to defeat both Magneto and the Dark Phoenix?

I can still remember seeing X-Men: The Last Stand on the day that it was first released. As an X-Men fan, I was excited to see how the Dark Phoenix storyline would be adapted for the big screen. It’s difficult to put into words how disappointed I was when Jean killed Scott. That one scene told me that X-Men: The Last Stand was not going to do the story justice. In the comic books, Jean and Scott’s relationship was the heart of the X-Men. When Jean became the Dark Phoenix, she proved herself capable of destroying an entire planet, but she couldn’t bring herself to kill Scott. She chose to destroy herself rather than him. (Marvel being Marvel, Jean was resurrected a few years later.) The X-Men films never really knew what to do with the characters of Scott and Jean. They weren’t as flamboyant as Logan or even Rogue, but fans of the comic knew who Scott and Jean were and understood their importance to the series, and having Jean destroy Scott showed that, unlike the previous two films, the third X-Men film was not being made for the fans.

A large part of the problem was that director Brett Ratner didn’t seem to be interested in the characters. X-Men: The Last Stand is a collection of action scenes with none of the small character moments that made the first two films memorable. Kelsey Grammer is a welcome addition to the cast as the Beast. (The Beast always was basically Frasier Crane with blue fur.) Otherwise, this is the most forgettable of all the X-Men films.

Even though the Dark Phoenix saga is one of the key X-Men storylines, it’s never really been given its due onscreen. A second attempt to tell the story, in Dark Phoenix, also failed to capture the drama and emotion of Jean’s transformation. The X-Men are now officially a part of the MCU, so I imagine the story will probably be told again. Maybe the third time will be the charm.

I have a love / hate relationship with David Koepp.

Loved The Shadow, Stir of Echoes, Angels & Demons, Panic Room, Jurassic Park and The Lost World (even to see him get eaten by a T-Rex while running down a busy street). I hated War of the Worlds (I’m sorry, but there’s no way Justin Chatwin’s character could have made it through that film), Mission: Impossible and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Sometimes he hits the mark, and other times he misses.

Premium Rush falls somewhere in between. I really don’t have a whole lot to say about it. It’s mostly very good, particularly the bike riding scenes, but overall, the story could have been a little stronger and Michael Shannon (to me, anyway) felt really out of place here. It’s one of those movies where you pluck your brain out of your head and place it in the seat next to you. As long as you don’t give the movie too much thought and just enjoy the ride that’s presented to you, you’ll do just fine. At only 90 minutes, it moves very quickly and you’ll find yourself at the end before you really know it. I’ve seen this type of film before with Thomas Michael Donnelly’s Quicksilver, starring Kevin Bacon and 1993’s Airborne, directed by Castle Producer and former X-Files alum, Rob Bowman.

Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is the best bike messenger around. He’s so good that he rides a ‘fixee’, a bike with no brakes, no sets of gears other than the basics and where the pedals always move (no cruising). Weaving in and out of traffic, he makes his way through each delivery with lots of style. There are these decision points that happily reminded me of both my bike riding times and motorcycle ones where Wilee has to find the next available angle to ride through. Scenes like that help to keep the action moving, when it happens. Premium Rush also showcases some great areas of Manhattan as they travel around. It’s a great looking film in that sense, with low cuts of bike wheels and jumps, but again, you’re either riding through the city and hoping they don’t hit, or you’re off the bike waiting to find out if they’ll jump onto another one again.

Basically, the story is that Wilee is given a special package that he needs to deliver, and a corrupt cop is on his tail, played over the top by Michael Shannon. That’s all there is to it. Get the package where it needs to go. Levitt does well in the film, as does Dania Ramirez and Aasif Mandvi. If there’s anyone in the movie who didn’t quite gel with me, it would be Michael Shannon. Shannon’s a good actor, and he’s not bad here, just really animated. It felt like a role that would have been better suited for Willem Dafoe or someone strange like that. I never felt any kind of fear or even worry when Shannon was around. He came off more like a bumbling crook in a film like Baby’s Day Out”, than someone who really needed what Wilee was carrying.

Koepp is getting better at directing, but some of the writing is a little off. The film suffers from the same problem that Green Lantern had with it’s climax or Tron: Legacy did with some of it’s parts. You have a few scenes where it could have been stronger had things moved in one direction, but then veers off. The impact just isn’t as great. I won’t go into detail on what they are, but for me, I saw a few things that could have been changed (or at least one in particular).

Overall, Premium Rush is a fun film that may get you wanting to ride after seeing it, but just don’t ask a lot of it. Just get your popcorn, sit back and enjoy where it all goes.