X-Men Films: Part 1

So, for a different style review, I am covering an entire series! As some movie series are too expansive/similar to cover in singular reviews, I will shorten them down to quick reviews we'll refer to as Double-Time, to emphasize the speed of the review. In this review, I will cover the five X-Men movies released from 2000 to 2011. Each one left an impact to be certain, so I'm covering the series here today! This is the X-Men Review, part 1!

X-Men: 7/10

Pros: Story, plot, shots, some characters and one villain.

Points to the film for keeping the name "X-Men", itself a silly name. As far as I'm concerned, that's as wackiness of their series ends. This film is an engaging story about oppression and fighting against it that's also an X-Men story. The film's pacing is good and runs at a brisk 90 minutes. Where some films fail to tell a conclusive story in 2 hours, this film manages to keep it quick. The characters like Logan, Rogue, and Xavier are well-cast and well-acted, even with some minor writing grips or character changes. But, the best thing about this movie is without a doubt the story and its manners of telling the story. It always uses visual language to convey powerful emotional moments. The scene at the beginning is harrowing and haunting. I love it mostly because of the lack of dialogue and the raw acting ability. Additionally, I like the relationships between characters in this one. I can understand Jean and Scott's relationship here, mostly because it's subtlely portrayed by the two actors. While this does not continue, it's certainly well-done here. Last good note is the villain. I like Ian McKellen as Magneto and he's a perfect central antagonist here.

Cons: Other characters, over-reliance on punching down

With this good, comes some bad. While it's engaging, it constantly tries to remind you that "comic books are dumb" and that you're silly for liking these comics. It makes fun of yellow spandex, silly comic names, and any comic power that seems overly goofy or ridiculous. This in turn makes the film overall worse simply because the film has goofy and corny stuff. If the film just cut the act, it would be consistently better. On top of that, the way it chooses to represent certain characters... well, I'm not a fan. Rogue should not be taking the role of Jubilee as a mentee of Wolverine, but I'll let it slide as it was the early 2000's. Teenage angst was in and 90's pop was out. That being said, Cyclops and Storm are nothing characters. It's not like you couldn't portray them with your story, there are moments you could have them interject, but they just don't. Last bad point is the side villains. The government isn't really a villain here and the Brotherhood of Mutants are just henchmen. They do nothing and add nothing. Be prepared for more of that!

Verdict: A solid enough film bogged down by stupid things. Give it a watch if you're bored, it's funny enough.

X-2: 6/10

Pros: Some of the characters, much better fights, music, Gandalf, and story again

While this one is definitely scored worse than the last one, I do believe there are a ton of great elements in this movie. Logan and Jean do get more development alongside Nightcrawler being introduced and Brian Cox is incredible as the primary villain. While OTHERS are side-lined, you kinda forget about it beacuse there's much better action and fight scenes. The opening alone is enough to make you forget a ton of the other bad stuff simply because it's a cool as hell scene about Nightcrawler attempting to... kill a political figure. Yikes, bad timing. Let's just say it's coincidental and move on. The music is a lot less imposing this time, which wasn't really an issue last time, but it's very fitting to this movie. Gandalf as a sassy gay uncle to the X-Men is kind of hilarious, especially with how much Ian McKellen plays it up this time. Lastly, the story is still very engaging, plus a lot more bombastic! We leave the X-Mansion behind in exchange for new sets far and wide. While this film certainly feels like it just bounces between locations, the story does do a great job tying them together.

Cons: Runtime, more useless characters, and overall writing

For every good thing this film has, another thing seems to stand out in a bad way. The story is good, but the runtime is awful. Nearly two and a half hours and it really doesn't use the time to build the characters. While some characters are done okay, we get absolutely no development for Scott, Xavier, or any of the other side villains like Lady Deathstrike. Most people forgot she was in this because the writing does no favors for anyone. Jean Grey's death is a joke, completely suffering from the writing choice to say there was no other way to save them from the dam. Quite frankly, the bad writing drops this film below the previous one for me as a whole.

Verdict: A slower, more satisfying film filled with useless characters and and writing choices.

X-Men: The Last Stand: 3/10

Pros: Some really cool scenes and Beast.

Not a ton to love in this movie, but I do really dig the action and some of the cool scenes. There's powerful emotional scenes in this as well as really cool fight scenes such as the one towards the end, featuring Magneto moving the Golden Gate bridge and several of the mutants like Beast or Kitty Pryde getting fight scenes that are choreographed quite well. Speaking of Beast, this is by far the best portrayal of a mutant so far. Kelsey Graham kills the role of Beast here. His mannerisms, his voice, even his appearance is near-perfect.

Cons: Everything else essentially.

With non-sensical plot points tied together, several characters kept out of the story or just killed off, and basically no stakes for our central characters, how could I get invested in this story? On top of that, the new introductions are cut-outs, there's poor writing all over the place, and none of it really feels satisfying as the end to a trilogy. Ultimately, this movie fails as a sequel or even its own movie. Jean coming back is fine, but her killing Cyclops and Xavier is unforgiveable as this basically left Jean with no stakes in the plot. Magneto is not a good villain at this point after the second movie and the human antagonists pose no threat to anyone. Wolverine has no stakes in this story and the characters who do have any are just completely hollow as people. I could barely remember any lines from Storm, Colossus, Kitty Pryde, or even Bobby in this. THEY'RE THE FINAL FOUR MUTANTS AT THE END. This movie does everything else wrong and manages to be, above all else, boring. Verdict: A miserable mess of a movie saved by an okay finale with bad writing.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine: 2/10

Pros: Uhhh... Liev Schrieber? I guess it does have Ryan Reynolds.

The casting in this movie was actually on point. The actors are quite solid, even if nothing behind them supports anything. It also has a fairly gripping opening, with the brothers fighting in nearly every primary American war being fairly engaging. If anything, this should have been the whole movie.

Cons: Do I even need to say it?

This film is a slop heap of bad characters, poor directorial choices, and goofy as hell effects. No choices here were any good. They make so many continuity issues with the first three X-Men movies that it's basically impossible to associate this in any canon besides its own crappy one. Deadpool is proof enough of this film's squandred potential, but I'll go on. It wastes Blob, it wastes Sabertooth, it wastes Gambit, it even wastes WOLVERINE. Every character is completely wasted on a bad story, bad writing, and bad effects. There's nothing here worth praising. The effects on Wolverine's claws is worse than in the past three movies, most likely because the claws were mostly practical when they could make them so. The plot is basically a stretched-thin version of the two-minute scene from X2, except they completely make up stuff to make it so that they retcon him losing his memory from the procedure. It's baffling how much this movie does not work as a movie. Just... stunning.

Verdict: Awful. Watch for the funny moments and that's it.

X-Men: First Class: 9/10

Pros: A ton.

This movie is the opposite of X-Men Origins. Where that film hated X-Men, this film shows a clear love for the property and the comics, demonstrating a style and substance lacking from every movie before it. After four decent to bad movies, this movie brought me out of my coma and engaged me in this wonderful narrative about mutants being revealed to the world. Charles Xavier and Erik Lennsherr (Magneto) played by James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender are beyond well-portrayed here and are the clear stand outs. All the characters are given time to talk and goof around as kids, giving us attachment to each one. Even the villains are better-defined. Each one is given clear motive to mess around with the Cold War and display actual threatening qualities as villains. The runtime is expertly used and the editing is fantastic. But, how does the writing hold up? Of all the X-Men films, this is the best-written. No more cheap shots at comics, no more reliance on cheap lines, it now features fun dialogue and emotional moments delivered beautifully by every actor. As much as the actors sell this film, it would not work if the dialogue and cinematography did not enhance this movie so much. GO WATCH THIS MOVIE BEFORE DEADPOOL 3. It's worth it.

Cons: Darwin and some effects.

Darwin is like the one immortal mutant with no downsides and you kill him? Also, there's a really racist line about enslaving mutants given directly to him. Just... wow. That being said, some effects are not great, but it doesn't overstay its welcome. This film does mostly everything right.

Verdict: A near-perfect movie... only done in by a few cons.

LITTLE THINGS:

• Practical claws for Wolverine in the first three movies is very cool!

• Ryan Reynolds using X-Men Origin's failures to get Deadpool off the ground is hilarious.

• Kelsey Grammar is a massive fan of Beast to the point where he came back for a recent MCU cameo in the Marvels, a movie no one watched (but I love).

• The casting for First Class is terrific. Love Kevin Bacon in a villainous role.

• Wolverine's portrayal here inspired a great show in the mid-2000's plus got Steve Blum as the main lead, the best Wolverine voice. I know it's mostly a knock, but some good came out of these movies.

• The Fastball Special in Last Stand!

NITPICKS:

• Rogue's actress is holding back a fart in every scene in X-Men 1.

• So many deleted scenes that would've added character from every movie.

• KILLING THE ONE MUTANT WHO DOESN'T DIE IN FIRST CLASS.

• "I'm the Juggernaut, b-" is cringy as heck.

• Magneto has bad one-liners in the 3rd movie.

• Xavier walks in Origins: Wolverine despite being paralyzed in First Class.

• They recast Kitty Pryde several times.

• Cyclops is too old in Origins.

• Gambit's accent.

• Rogue's accent.

• Storm's accen- you get the joke now, any accent is awful in these movies besides Nightcrawler's.

• Last thing: I cannot take the black suits seriously. Glad they made fun of it in X-Men '97.