I mean, it basically retconned the whole original trilogy, which is fine. I liked Last Stand the best of them, actually, but I am fine with it not existing because none of the Xmen movies have been really any good aside from maybe the second Wolverine one, though I haven’t seen Logan yet.
I re-watched all of these about a year ago leading up to Apocalypse, I probably posted about it itt as a matter of fact. First Class did not hold up at all, even though every time Magneto is on screen it’s a great movie. Everything else is bad. iirc the project began as a Magneto-centric prequel, they probably should have kept it that way.
DofP was better than I remembered it, it might be the best Bryan Singer X-Movie and it is surprisingly easy to follow given how convoluted the plot is.
Apocalypse is not good at all, esp. wrt Fassbinder’s Magneto, who is consistently the best part of the other prequel films (or whatever you call them)
The first X Men movie is very good and is only better now that super hero movies are kind of a cookie cutter genre of their own. It holds up surprisingly well. The second one is insanely overrated aside from a few good action scenes (which, admittedly it does better than the first one). I couldn’t bear to watch the third again, I’m guessing it’s as bad as I remember it.
I don’t really think Jackman’s Wolverine is all that great, but I’ve always found Wolverine to be a boring character. He is definitely the stand-out character from the first X Men movie, but I wished they had used that as motivation to make other characters also interesting rather than continuing to shoehorn him into all other X Men related films. I haven’t seen Wolvie Does Japan because I’m afraid of how racist it might be and anything related to Frank Miller tends to be incredibly disappointing to me.* I am kind of interested in the new one but probably not enough to see it in theaters
*With the possible exception of the Netflix Daredevil, but I have a feeling the things I like about it are the areas where it is most different from the Miller comics. That show would be so much better if both seasons didn’t somehow conclude with Deus Ex Ninja. Stupid fucking ninjas always ruining everything.
It’s not particularly racist, thankfully. It’s mostly just an enjoyable action flick unburdened by having to belong in the rest of the XMen continuity much at all. And yeah, Wolvie is a boring character that accidentally highlights all the worst tendencies of Marvel in the 90s.
And yes, X2 has always been super overrated.
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Logan is a legit good movie.
In fact the weirdest thing about it is the few moments that fall into superhero movie expectations and they come across incongruous when contrasted to the whole, but honestly the whole thing is so earnest and committed and full of integrity that doesn’t matter much at all.
Also he takes on Big Corn, why didn’t anyone tell me?
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All I remember about that movie is a bunch of fuckin old people grooving to “Palisades Park”. Absolutely baffling.
Also they didn’t fully commit to a 60s aesthetic so the whole thing was in this weird visual no man’s land, where it was all Like Now except sometimes there’s like wood paneling or long sideburns or some shit.
I saw Logan the other day and absolutely loathed it, but I hate all these grim superhero movies. I thought it was hokey as fuck.
Things that are great about First Class:
The jumpsuits
Movies I’m going to watch: The Japanese dubbed version of the ScarJo Ghost in the Shell after it inevitably gets English subtitles and leaked onto the internet.
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Oh my goodness Get Out y’all
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It’s good!
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The worst part of Get Out is the number of people who tell you the demographic breakdown of the theater they saw it in
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Saw an 11pm show last night. Movie is just lefty in general. Big Corn, GMOs, income inequality, Uber/the gig economy. Well, plus it has those minority characters who exist to help white people and then get killed, but you know, nobody’s perfect.
Yeah, the Wolverine reduced to being a cog in the gig economy doesn’t get talked about nearly as much as it probably should have. Same deal with his adoptive daughter effectively being a Mexican girl trying to escape the American hellscape into the perceived sanctuary that is Canada.
I wasn’t quite sure I caught what it was that killed off the mutants in addition to Charles’ seizure, I thought it was GMO nonsense in average home goods. I guess that felt almost too on the nose and pertinent to be an actual plot point in a cape movie.
And yeah, of course giving Logan a place to stay for the night would be a death sentence. I felt that trope worked out because he also ended up being perceived, rightfully, as a threat that needed to be eliminated for the safety of the family at the end of that sequence.
When I mention superheroics that jarred, I’m thinking of Caliban’s sacrifice and Donald Pierce’s comeuppance which is are both pretty minor plot beats all told, but more how underused Wolverine’s doppelganger was. The idea was sound and made a lot of sense textually and metatextually but felt underdeveloped and it would have probably helped the finale if they had granted just a bit more human development to him as they had the rest of the superpowered cast. By contrast, I actually felt the sheer disposability of the Reavers as cyborg manhunters with readily replaceable limbs (and functionality) worked in the movie’s dystopian favour.
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Yes, in the villain’s evil plan speech at the end before Logan just shoots him in the neck he says explicitly that they’ve inserted material into consumer foods in order to suppress mutations which is why no new mutants have been born, which links back in to farmer guy talking about HFCS in energy drinks and so on.
Man, they are really all about people dying in this movie.
Even if you used an adamantium bullet to penetrate a young healthy Wolverine’s skull, wouldn’t his brain just regrow anyway? I guess the comics have never really settled on exactly how powerful the healing factor is.
it was great
it’s one of those movies that already perfectly anticipates the thesis of every college film studies term paper that will be written about it
also the most amazing possible response to this tricky narrative challenge: how can you make a film about a heroic TSA agent?
also half the fun of the metagame about the movie and its creator is knowing that dave chappelle would have taken the same premise and used it as the basis for a comedy sketch, which i’m sure jordan peele also considered at one point, but i’m glad he didn’t even though the hypothetical chappelle version would have been great
the movie theater i saw it in was in a mall, and the mall experienced a fire alarm right in the middle of the hypnosis scene, so when we were let back in they rewound it and we had to watch that part again. i’m glad that happened, because i could fully appreciate how brilliant both actors are being in those moments, when the first time i was both a) very spooked and b) still just thinking that hypnosis is bullshit and a very dumb premise for me to have to suspend my disbelief on but yeah. catherine keener is v underrated imo. and i’m pretty sure the way daniel kaluuya plays that scene singlehandedly makes the movie transcend both the hokiness of using hypnosis as a major plot device and the even worse cliche of giving the main character dead parents in order to create a compelling backstory
honestly beyond the greatness of the premise, which is of course very great, the movie is just insanely well made. i usually don’t see horror movies or thrillers, but this one i figured i had to just because so many people were talking about it. i spoiled myself on it to make sure it wasn’t too gory and didn’t have an insanely bleak ending, which i hate and is a big reason i never see horror movies. anyway my main point is that good writing and acting can make even normally boring genres exciting and fun.
Batman Begins except Christian Bale drowns Rutger Hauer in a Waynecorp toilet.
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I think those mutant kids will turn out okay it looked like their leader had the magnet powers
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I saw Kong: Skull Island and it had Tom Hiddleston slicing pterodactyls with a samurai sword while wearing a gas mask. I enjoyed it as a big dumb monster movie.
In Japan before La La Land they showed a trailer that was entirely John c Reilly making midwest theater dad laugh jokes. That really turned me the experience. Did I just get a supercut trailer?
I have no idea why they had that trailer in Japan.
John C. Reilly kind of owns in it.
He’s also the only character that makes an impression at all.
Brie Larson is there because a Kong movie needs a blonde lady and she and Hiddleston share tight shirt duties and have hero moments but wash out as wasted and vacant, both.
Quality monster punches though.
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Yeah, TH and BL were kind of blank slates. All of the character actors and fodder left more of an impression on me.