Maxxxine
We are officially at the end of Ti West’s X trilogy… and I didn’t love it as much as I thought I would. There are some things I did love, however there were a few instances in which I thought of ideas that were much better than the execution I was watching.
We have to start with a comparison of the past two films in the series, X and Pearl. Both are superior projects as a whole, and individually. MaXXXine is a direct sequel to X, following the main character, Maxine Minx, on her climb to movie stardom. Much like the titular Pearl aspired to becoming a movie star in her murderous rage, but Maxine was very unlike Pearl in terms of insanity.
Taking place in the 80’s, simultaneously with the paranoia of the Night Stalker and Satanic Panic in full swing, Maxine is living with trauma, lots of trauma, and she is resilient in how she eventually draws strength from it to become the heroine (which they also kind of ruin, but I’ll get to that). She suffers great loss throughout the story, and seems to have thick skin through most of it, until she eventually breaks and becomes a force to be reckoned with.
I absolutely love Mia Goth for these roles. She gave it her all in this film, and possibly saved it from the eventual mess it turned into at the end. Somewhere, the film goes from a nod to 80’s low budget slasher films and Hitchcock suspense to being a cheese-fest with a ridiculously rushed ending.
The detectives played by Michelle Monaghan and Bobby Cannavale, are weak in both performance and story. Halsey was fantastic in her limited role as Tabby Martin. I see her doing many more and bigger roles in the future. I also loved Moses Sumney as Leon and Kevin Bacon as John Labat.
I am not sure why they reduced a strong female lead, owning her pornographic career unapologetically as she climbs to fame, to the cliché of a porn star with daddy issues, or so it seemed to me. Maybe I’m missing something in how that eventually ends.
Ti West never ceases to amaze me in his complementary style of filmmaking. He can literally take any genre of film and mimic it while still maintaining his originality. He has done this in every single film he has done, and this is no exception. This film pays tribute to classic 80’s b-rated slashers, Hitchcock and Dario Argento. Bravo, sir!
So, what is the version I would have loved to see? I think a much better film idea would have been MaXXXine, a proud porn star looking to break into the big time spends her nights luring predators into dark places to castrate them while eventually running into the Night Stalker who is killing her friends. She eventually becomes a national hero for doing so. Much like how Inglorious Bastards killing Hitler was a fun fantasy to watch.
