X-MEN (SCI-FI/FANTASY, 2000)
2.5 out of 4 stars Directed by Bryan Singer
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Anna Paquin, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen, Halle Berry, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Bruce Davison, Tyler Mane, Ray Park
Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence.
X-MEN is often cited as one of the first modern superhero films, and the one that started the currently continuing dominance of comic book superheroes at the box office. While I don't believe that X-MEN alone can be given credit, it's definitely part of the one-two punch proving the commercial viability with SPIDER-MAN providing the real box office clout. On it's own, it's a pretty slight film, dated by visual effects (some very apparent wire work going on, especially in the first fight between Wolverine and Sabretooth) and a serviceable but unremarkable script. Unlike practically everything that followed, it's not an origin story, beginning with the X-Men already pretty well established, but as Wolverine and Rogue, acting as two drifters, are taken in by Professor X and his "School for Gifted Youngsters".
What X-MEN does, it generally does well, but it doesn't do a whole lot. In exchange for introducing about a dozen characters to keep track of, the rest of it is kept pretty simple with a formulaic heroes vs. villains conflict played out by a good cast (not a big fan of Tyler Mane as Sabretooth and Ray Park as Toad though, but that could have as much to do with other aspects than the performers themselves). Outside of Magneto, it's not terribly interesting, but it feels at times like more of an experiment than a self-standing and confident film.
4 out of 4 stars
Directed by Bryan Singer
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen, Anna Paquin, Halle Berry, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Alan Cumming, Brian Cox, James Marsden, Kelly Hu
Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action/violence, some sexuality and brief language.
Although I have a soft spot for FIRST CLASS, X2 is commonly cited as the peak of the series, and that's perfectly understandable. Bigger and more ambitious than its predecessor, and edging closer to the dark superhero film more than any other superhero film would until Nolan, X2 is a masterwork of blockbuster filmmaking.
Immediately following the events of X-MEN, X2 opens with one of the coolest action sequences in any superhero film; the teleporting mutant Nightcrawler attacking the president in the Oval Office, accompanied by a booming Dies Irae from Mozart's Requiem in D Minor, K.626 before fleeing wounded. While covert military operative William Stryker uses this opportunity to target the mutant community without restriction, Professor X sends Storm and Jean Grey to locate Nightcrawler and assess the situation, discovering that Stryker used a serum to control Nightcrawler and has been interrogating the imprisoned Magneto. Stryker and his forces attack the X-Mansion, sending Wolverine and others on the run, while Mystique assists Magneto in escaping his specially-built prison, and the mutants team up to stop Stryker's nefarious plan to wipe out mutants.
In addition to the spectacular opening, X2 features another of the series' best action set-pieces in Wolverine's climactic fight with Lady Deathstrike, both using their adamantium claws to get as close to an R-rating as possible. There's also the very memorable mutant "coming out" scene, in which Bobby Drake/Iceman's mother asks him "Have you tried not being a mutant?" These movies are teeming with LGBT social/political themes, but that moment takes those issues on the best. Released less than two months after the Bush Administration's U.S. invasion of Iraq, the film also astutely takes on similar issues, with Styker's misleading and manipulative tactics, although perhaps with the Patriot Act more in mind. It's very much a response to the W. Bush era. It also is the most polished and focused of the X-Men films.
X-MEN: THE LAST STAND (SCI-FI/ACTION, 2006) 1.5 out of 4
Directed by Brett Ratner
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen, Kelsey Grammer, James Marsden, Rebecca Romijn, Shawn Ashmore, Vinnie Jones, Aaron Stanford
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action violence, some sexual content and language.
Everything Bryan Singer was building up to in the previous two X-Men films is gone in this brain-dead would-be trilogy-capper. X-MEN: THE LAST STAND is the Axe body spray-soaked, UFC Tapout t-shirt-wearing, energy drink-guzzling douchebag of the X-Men series, with journeyman director Brett Ratner taking the reins from Singer, who left the sequel in limbo to make Warner Brothers' SUPERMAN RETURNS. Although the franchise was obviously not yet dead (with four continuing chapters and counting so far), Ratner was lambasted as a "franchise-killer" for this film, thanks to an assortment of unjustified major character deaths and anti-climactic conclusions.
The movie combines the comics storylines "The Dark Phoenix Saga" and "Gifted" (the latter written by MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS writer/director Joss Whedon), with Dr. Jean Grey (Janssen), presumed dead at the end of X2, returns with an altered state of mind, expressing aggressive behavior and reckless power that Professor X had long been teaching her to control. Meanwhile, the mutant politics are in an uproar as a "cure" to mutant characteristics has been announced, fueling debate between those mutants who see the benefit of experiencing an ordinary life and those who abhor the notion that the mutant condition needs to be "cured". Magneto resolves to eliminate the so-called cure with an army of mutants, including the pièce de résistance of his Mutant Brotherhood, Jean Grey, now called "The Phoenix".
The political allegory from the source material is promising, but there is so much more done wrong in this film than is done right. The characters are depicted outside of their previously established personalities without any justification, with Wolverine lacking his trademark gruffness and practically a softy much of the time, and Magneto is made into a thoroughly unsympathetic (and thus uninteresting) mad man. A particularly weak part is the dialogue, which includes a great deal of groan-inducing embarrassments like "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" and the rest of Vinnie Jones's (as the Juggernaut (bitch)) lines, and my personal least favorite, Hank McCoy/Beast's fight scene banter, "As Churchill said, 'There comes a time when every man must'...Oh you get the point!" Gah, it's the worst. On the other hand, while used to much, much poorer effect, Kelsey Grammer looks a lot better as the Beast than Nicholas Hoult in FIRST CLASS.
X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE (ACTION-ADVENTURE/FANTASY, 2009)2 out of 4 stars
Directed by Gavin Hood
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston, Lynn Collins, Taylor Kitsch, will.i.am, Kevin Durand, Dominic Monaghan, Ryan Reynolds
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence, and some partial nudity.
Admittedly, it's been much longer since I last watched X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE than any of the other X-Men films. After THE LAST STAND essentially cut off the progress of the established X-Men team, in order to return to the franchise, X-Men origin stories were considered, the most obvious being the most popular character, Wolverine (an X-MEN ORIGINS: MAGNETO was in development a while before evolving in X-MEN: FIRST CLASS instead). The movie follows Wolverine from his childhood in 1840s Canada through the early 1980s, as he fights in many wars alongside his half-brother Sabretooth (Schreiber), eventually developing a rivalry with each other and Wolverine takes part in the experiment that leaves his skeleton is coated with indestructible adamantium, rendering him virtually immortal.
Throughout, the script takes vast leaps in logic and is typically watchable but almost wholly uninteresting. It's hard to remember what happened in each scene before as the movie just moseys along through cartoonish action and formulaic melodrama. Perhaps it's nitpicking, but something that particularly bothers me in this movie is the nature of the fictitious indestructible metal alloy, adamantium. Apparently it's established in the comics, but it doesn't make sense that Wolverine can be effectively shot through his adamantium-coated skull, just because the bullets are adamantium too. Why don't the indestructible bullets just bounce off the indestructible skull? Plus, there are multiple occasions where Wolverine uses his claws to slice cleanly through stone and metal like a hot knife through butter, without any apparent application of force. That's my stupid complaint about a stupid movie. I'd still rather watch this than THE LAST STAND. On a side note, the stars of JOHN CARTER, Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins both appear in this film as fan-favorite Gambit and Kayla Silverfox, respectively.
X-MEN: FIRST CLASS (SCI-FI/ACTION, 2011)
4 out of 4 stars
Directed by Matthew Vaughn
Starring: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Rose Byrne, Kevin Bacon, Jennifer Lawrence, January Jones, Nicholas Hoult, Zoe Kravitz, Caleb Landry Jones, Lucas Till, Edi Gathegi
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence, some sexual content including brief partial nudity and language.
Upon revisiting it most recently, X-MEN: FIRST CLASS didn't hold up quite as well as a remembered it, but it's still one of my favorites of the series regardless, holding it's own against the other pillar of the series, X2, but in a very different sort of way. While X2 seeks to create a mythic action saga, FIRST CLASS embraces the pulpy fun of a bunch of mutated super humans teaming up to fight world threats, but not at the expense of deep emotional complexity and significance.
A prequel to the first film, FIRST CLASS crafts the origin story of the X-Men, where it all started between Charles Xavier (Professor X), Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto) and Raven Darkholme (Mystique). Charles, having taken in Raven as a sister when they were children, is recruited by the CIA as a mutant specialist when an ex-Nazi scientist and other mutants are plotting to plunge the United States and the Soviet Union into nuclear war, destroying human civilization and carving the way for mutants. During their operations, Charles, assisted by Raven, encounter Erik, a Holocaust survivor who's been hunting down and killing ex-Nazi officers, with a particular vendetta against Charles' own mark, who killed his mother. Together, Charles and Erik begin recruiting mutants from across the States to help in their cause, forming the first X-Men team.
The script, written by director Matthew Vaughn and three other credited writers, handily creates the most fun of the X-Men movies, slyly paying homage to the established characters while creating believable and complex younger versions of them, especially with Fassbender's Magneto and pre-Katniss Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique (getting a wonderfully hilarious moment calling back to her character's trademark blue naturalism). Rose Byrne as the CIA operative who connects with Charles is a hidden gem in the movie, providing a human element and humor (this movie is genuinely funny). The pulpy elements of science fiction-fantasy variations on historical events like the Cuban Missile Crisis and Magneto killing escaped war criminals in South America are just too fun, and a showcase death scene involving a Nazi coin is one of the most incredible moments in the entire series. The only big weakness to the otherwise excellent film is Nicholas Hoult's Beast make-up, which despite his good performance, makes him look just too silly, even while red devil men and diamond-skinned women get a pass.
THE WOLVERINE (ACTION/FANTASY, 2013)
3 out of 4 stars
Directed by James Mangold
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Tao Okamoto, Rila Fukushima, Svetlana Khodchenkova, Will Yun Lee, Haruhiko Yamanouchi, Famke Janssen
Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence, some sexuality and language.
Wolverine's second solo outing is vastly better than the very weak X-MEN ORIGINS, but comprised of two parts brilliance and one part idiocy. THE WOLVERINE is a sequel to X-MEN: THE LAST STAND, several years after those events in Yukon, where he lives as a hermit, tormented by having killed his love interest Jean Grey/The Phoenix and now sworn to a life of peace. Tracked down by Yukio, a psychic mutant girl acting on behalf a Japanese businessman, Wolverine is persuaded to travel to Japan so the businessman can thank him in person for having saved his life in WWII during the Nagasaki atomic bombing. In Japan, the man offers to cure Wolverine of his immortality, but dies that night, leaving a power struggle over his considerable holdings, and at the funeral, his granddaughter and heir Mariko is targeted for assassination by Yakuza thugs. Wolverine rescues the girl and takes it upon himself to defend her while he sifts through the thick conspiracy to uncover the truth.
I absolutely love the first half of this film, and other than the occasional appearance of the unintentionally goofy mutant femme fatale Dr. Green/Viper (who has a long forked tongue and spits venom, before shedding her skin in the final act), the whole film up until the final act is excellent. The film noir aspects applied to the superhero genre in Japan are played to perfection, and although, once again, the R-rated superhero is constrained to a PG-13 rating, they get away with a surprising level of blood and brutality (there's also an unrated "Unleashed Edition", which ups that blood/gore quotient significantly). Hugh Jackman is excellent as ever in his signature role, and more complex, and Rila Fukushima as Yukio is a standout in the cast of Japanese actors unknown in the U.S. Then the final act happens, and suddenly it's a big, dumb, special effects-driven fantasy that gets super weird and I don't like it much. But the epilogue is good, so you can sit through it for that. The end credits sets up X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST.
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