he also kisses it on the mouth a lot

[some_stars]

I've finished watching the Magneto-hugs-a-bear movie! If you're in the market for a movie where Magneto hugs a bear, and you're considering watching this film but you're just not sure if it's going to have enough of Magneto hugging a bear? Let me assure you that it does. It has SO MUCH. I would say TOO much, but of course such a thing would be impossible.

Here are my real-time reaction notes, because I can:


MAGNETO THE HORSE WHISPERER, oh my god. oh my GOD, my life is now complete.

My summation of the scene where he impulse-buys a bear cub, realizes this may lead to problems, and attempts to hand it off to a child by means of BLATANT LIES: Some days, you just can't get rid of a bear.

(I do kind of like that he's not a Tortured Damaged Soul, he's just a soldier who loves animals and impulse-bought a bear. Relatable!)

And now Magneto just got shit on by a bear. WHAT IS THIS MOVIE I DON'T EVEN

Crap, they just introduced him clearly, do I have to stop calling him Magneto now? That will make everything 20% less beautifully insane. Also: characterization! JFC if this movie turns out to be actually decent I will feel so eternally confused about the world. ALSO: TESLA HELLO TESLA.

Okay, I'm safe, it's totally not good. Just wonderful. And now Magneto and Tesla are walking leisurely through a field of flowers, side-by-side, as Tesla reads bear facts to the bear. "Their olfactory sense--that means you..."

So the other reason I want to keep calling him Magneto is so that when I do things like remark on how life-changingly fucking gorgeous his hands and forearms are, I don't feel like slime for being all into Michael Fassbender, who is horrible and the reason I refuse to read XMFC RPS and have been trying to avoid cute interviews and stuff. But oh my GOD, his fucking FOREARMS. I cannot be blamed for this.

MAGNETO IS BOTTLE-FEEDING A BEAR CUB, his new boyfriend Tesla thinks it's adorable.

And now he's wearing a deep V-neck shirt and his NECK and and and auuuuuuuuuuuuggggggggggggh

OH NO, the bear is being unjustly blamed!!! --and now they're making Magneto execute it himself! Also I love how half the time when this movie cuts to him, they actually cut to his boots. They're lovely boots! I'm not complaining! I just...goodness.

I just vowed to myself that I'd start referring to them by their actual character names, but I'm going to put that off for one more minute because: Tesla is psychoanalyzing Magneto's abandonment issues. BEST MOVIE EVER. Of course, since they're not actually Tesla and Magneto but Macray and Harry, Harry finds this kind of charming. (He's still not a Tortured Soul, neither of them are which is SO REFRESHING. They have issues, and Macray's will eventually get him killed--I'm NOT going to apologize for spoiling the plot of this movie, I know that's not why any of you were going to watch it and also it's so OBVIOUS--but they don't have manpain, and they're basically okay.)

So you're just going to...take a bear on a boat, then. Well, I'm sure that will work out well for all parties involved.

"Now you be a brave bear" oh my gooddddd you guys, I cannot take much more of this.

I have absolutely no idea what this movie is trying to do with these two commanding officers. They keep doing things, and there keep being musical cues, and it's WW1, and I don't even know you guys. Thirty more minutes for everything to make sense! --I think it's that both of them are 90% war movie cliche, but then 10% that doesn't match, and it's not like this is a good movie so I really don't know what to make of the disjunction. Is it complexity, or just total confusion?

Also nobody in this movie seems to act like they're in the military. Although, I mean, what would I know, but...it seems very strange and casual.

The movie seems to have just called a two-minute plot break for Harry and Macray to be IN LOVE. Break concluded; plot will now resume.

Discussing Winnie's domesticated nature with the zookeeper:
"We know her."
"Intimately."

Oh my god, that climactic death scene was the most ridiculously anticlimactic thing ever. And so out of nowhere! And SO unsatisfying and also, entirely devoid of logic. I suppose this is what I signed up for when I decided to watch a heartwarming bear movie.

I seriously think this director has a boot fetish. There is no other explanation for these choices. It's not just Harry either, the camera is constantly cutting to EVERYONE'S boots. Sometimes lingering on them. It's kind of adorable really.

THE END, man, that was the gentlest WW1 movie/TV episode I've ever seen. An almost total lack of vicious bitterness and disgust with the military and the entire government! It probably helped that there was all of one scene involving the actual war. But who cares about war when you could have scenes involving a BEAR? (That's not sarcastic, I mean it's the entire reason I watched this thing in the first place.)

In conclusion, the lesson I have learned from this film is that if only Charles had given Erik a bear cub, X-Men: First Class would have ended so much more happily for them both. And now I kind of want A Bear Named Winnie fanfic. And, come to think of it, some actual Tesla(from Sanctuary)/Erik, probably set between WW2 and the movie. Or post-movie with Magneto, that could work too. INTERNET, PROVIDE.

Comments

[giandujakiss]

I kind of want to see the cute bear, but I'm afraid there will be scenes of unhappy!bear and threatened!bear and sad!bear, and I don't think I could take it.

[kuwdora]

it's 98% HAPPY BEAR and 2% unhappy bear with a lot of bear kissies, snuggles, running through the forest, frolicking in the fields. Climbing trees! There is some angst but the bear hug makes it ALLLLLLLLLLLLL BETTER. UNBEARABLY CUTE I PROMISE.

[kuwdora]

[giandujakiss]

You make a very persuasive argument.

[kuwdora]

omggggggggg movie straight from my id.

[giandujakiss]

Well, I don't have the same affection for the sanctuary guy that you do, but these are awfully adorable. Also, how much fun did the actors have with this movie????

[kuwdora]

[some_stars]

There's a couple very short scenes that upset me and my super-sensitive animal harm squick a little bit--one where she gets left in the forest, tied loosely to a tree (so she can get out once they're gone) as her two owners walk away, and she's crying for them, and one where they're leaving her at the zoo in a fairly period-accurate enclosure, ie, small and isolated. Both are very short scenes, and being the kind of movie it is you know with 100% certainty that she's going to be happy again soon. (After the first of these scenes, she gets a montage of finding-her-way-back-to-camp and all is well until the second sad scene.)

There's also a sequence where she's depressed in the zoo and refusing to eat, which didn't actually bother me, probably because she wasn't crying but just lying there, and then she meets a small child and things become okay again. Other than that, it's just fluffy fluffy YAY BEAR CUDDLES all the way through.

[giandujakiss]

But do I have to believe she lived the rest of her life in a too-small zoo enclosure??? See I want to be spoiled, the idea upsets me that much.

[some_stars]

Peculiarly, although real-life modern zoos now upset me too much to visit them anymore, this movie did a really good job of selling me on the idea that she was so domesticated, she really was happy living in a zoo cage where children were always visiting her and touching her. Also the "true story" text post-script after the last shot mentions that she often got let out to roam the grounds. So, IDK, it may well not work for you, but I have major zoo squick and it was fine for me.

[giandujakiss]

She was let out? Okay, I'm sold now :-).

[some_stars]

Not in a scene we actually see, to be clear--but, you know, the movie ends and the white text rolls up the screen telling us about the Real Life Winnie, who was apparently let out to run around the zoo, zoo practices in the twenties being not quite what they are today.

[giandujakiss]

Yep, i understood. Thats enough to make me happy.

[kuwdora]

So the other reason I want to keep calling him Magneto is so that when I do things like remark on how life-changingly fucking gorgeous his hands and forearms are, I don't feel like slime for being all into Michael Fassbender, who is horrible and the reason I refuse to read XMFC RPS and have been trying to avoid cute interviews and stuff. But oh my GOD, his fucking FOREARMS. I cannot be blamed for this.

This is the SUMMATION OF MY LIFE RIGHT NOW.

[kuwdora]

[some_stars]

MOST ADORABLE BEAR CO-PARENTS EVER

[kuwdora]

WHOSE GRIN IS BIGGER?

[some_stars]

That is scientifically indeterminable!

GOD, why do I want fanfic, what would it even be ABOUT? And yet: I want it.

[kuwdora]

once I figure out how to write post WWII Erik/Nikola, you can be the first to know.

[some_stars]

It's not that I don't want that--I want that so much it makes me want to SING, omg, I will be its biggest cheerleader--but I mean, I actually want "A Bear Named Winnie" fanfic. I don't know what it could be about, really, but I want it a truly embarrassing amount.

Although, I mean, I think reading some Erik/Nicola would certainly improve my life IMMEASURABLY, that is definitely a discussion topic in which I am interested.

[kuwdora]

aww like how he travels back to London to visit her at the zoo and they sit in the middle of the grounds and eat ice cream together with the kids?

p.s. there's always Yuletide, too!

[some_stars]

YES. YES THAT. And little plotless moments that happen between the scenes, about him and Macray falling in loooove. OR EVEN GEN. But preferably the love. And, and stuff about their lives before the movie, and fic that makes things a little bit more realistic about the nature of the war--not too much more, I don't want misery, just, you know, war. (That sounds SO AWFUL.) And AUs where Harry dies instead and somehow Macray ends up reuniting with Winnie. And AUs where Harry takes Winnie home with him. AND EVERYTHING, I WANT EVERYTHING.