Project X

If Project X proves anything it's that there still is a place for a raunchy, coming of age, immature movie in the movies today. Albeit it also proves how films like Road Trip and Old School got it right the first time out and there didn't really need to be any other follow-ups to these frat-brat classics. Project X -no matter how badly written, directed and acted it might be- can sometimes be a real guilty pleasure to watch. There isn't a boob missed, a shot of rum not taken or a hell bent teenager not seen. Hell you can't call this high art but it is nevertheless a diverting experience for the most part - a teenage parent's true worst nightmare on full display. A film like Project X is rarely something that should be accepted in theatres. It's rude, profane, ridiculously conceived and doesn't have much in the way of plot of character. You might feel dirty for semi-liking it once the credits start rolling but what the hell, you only live once.

Lately the trend for movies involving coming of age teenagers has been the use of hand-held camera. I'm thinking of last month's underrated Chronicle or even the teenage film lovers from last year's excitable Super 8. It's almost like it's a cool thing now for a movie to have hand-held. The protagonists in Project X are being filmed by a friend we never see, he just loves his camera and to film his buddies as they try to up their street cred in High School by throwing the biggest party imaginable. This isn't a party like any other and -for a moment there- you feel like you're right in the heat of the action. The party, which was supposed to be of decent size, goes viral all the way to craig's list in fact, and there ends up being close to 1500 people by the end of the night. A real big recipe for disaster. There are midgets, nudity, next door neighbor complaints, cops, sex, drugs and -well duh- skinny dipping. It all doesn't add up to much and once the party starts shutting down the movie goes MIA and loses its grip but then again did we expect much from this movie in the first place?

X-MEN FIRST CLASS

Matthew Vaughn's followup to Kick Ass doesn't have the same inventive, original storytelling he infused in last year's surprise R rated hit. In that film Vaughn took Nicolas Cage and reinvented the Hollywood superhero movie for our modern era of graphic violence. Then again tackling the origins of X-MEN won't necessarily qualify as high art or a daring realization. Vaughn wants to seek the origins of these popular mutant heroes, where they come from and what shaped their destinies. It works -or at least most of the time- and is a sheer delight to watch. Sure there are flaws but why quibble when the fun comes in plenty of mutating forms. Predictability starts to creep in as the film reaches its final third but X-MEN FIRST CLASS is what a summer movie should be all about- brainless fun.

Of course some may be disturbed by the holocaust themed revenge story that is at the center of our main protagonist Erik's struggle for revenge -a solid Michael Fassbender. I dug it but others might not. Erik saw his mom shot to death by Nazi Sebastian Shaw in the Warsaw Ghetto of 1939. Sensitivities will most likely get touched but I found it wholeheartedly intriguing ditto Kevin Bacon as the bad ass Nazi lieutenant. Vaughn has taken the origins of the X-Men comic books and possibly made the best movie in the series. before this bad boy, 2002's flawed X-MEN United took the crown as best. I'm not an X-Men fan but I couldn't help but be taken by these freaks and their pursuit for acceptance, in fact I rather like them more as hipster young ins from the 60's rather than their current, perfected forms.

This doesn't have the landmark fingerprints Sam Raimi brought to his great Spider-Man 2 or Christopher Nolan brought to his masterful The Dark Knight. One might go as far as to say that those movies had an auteuristic feel to them, which is what gave them their finely tuned edge. Vaughn isn't an auteur, he's just a filmmaker that wants to entertain. His movie won't move mountains or change the way we watch movies like Nolan and Raimi's films did but instead it's just there, an entertainment that does justice to the comic books and is a welcome relief from the failed comic book adaptation that was Thor earlier this summer.

★★½ or ★★★