After being blown away by X-Men: First Class I decided to go back and re-watch X-Men 1 and 2 (don't have to re-watch 3 to remember it... uuuugh) before seeing First Class a second time. And as much as X2 is awesome... I think First Class is my favorite of the X-Men movies. I have been an X-Men fan since the cartoon show first aired. I remember as a kid, first seeing promos for it, I thought it looked dumb. Then on one fateful afternoon, a friend of mine insisted on showing me an episode they had recorded (remember when you could record videos of your favorite shows!?)... My life was never the same. I remember the episode too, it was the one where Storm, Gambit and Jubilee go to Genosha, allegedly a vacation spot for mutants, but turns out it's not so much of a resort as much as it's a slave camp. From that one episode, I was hooked, and so began my obsession with superheroes, especially X-Men. I love the themes of X-Men, and I love that its message of acceptance and fighting prejudice can be used for such rich story telling, while still having a very human element of people dealing with their lot in life. That being said, when Bryan Singer's X-Men came out, I accepted that it was drastically different from any depictions of X-Men we had seen before. I appreciate that they begin a new story and don't try to replicate the comics exactly. The movies are their own thing, separate from the comics or the cartoon. I will make lists of pros and cons counting as +1 and -1 and see how the movies add up!
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X-Men
Pro x 2
Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen are perfect as Professor X and Magneto. Throughout the films they really carry the stories and make these larger than life characters very real and tangible.
Pro
Hugh Jackman, an unknown to
Hollywood, brought a level of humanity to Wolverine. Jackman made him much more approachable and relatable as a character compared to the cartoon and the comics.
Pro
They change the character of Rogue (Anna Paquin) drastically from the strong, self-assured badass we know from TV and the comics into a timid, insecure and scared teenager. This was very controversial to many X-Men fans because Rogue is such a beloved character, giving us strength and sexiness long before Buffy took up that mantle. Yes, it is sad to see your favorite characters changed, but for the purpose of the story it works. I like that they show a horrific side of mutant powers that isn't flashy or cool, but traumatizing. And I understand why the made the choice for the character. This film is supposed to bring X-Men down to earth, making them and the mutant phenomenon very real in the world. Having Rogue suck the power from another non-mutant superhero to gain her super strength would have been too otherworldly for this film.
Pro
Opposing the X-Men are the Brotherhood of Mutants. And while most of them only have a couple lines, all of them ooze with cool attitude and fit their roles perfectly, having fun with the performances. Rebecca Romijn is cunning as the slinky and cunning Mystique, Tyler Mane is the perfect brute as Sabretooth and you can see the fun Ray Park has as the playfully diabolical Toad.
Pro
On a whole, the movie looks at mutants from a very sociological standpoint. We see the two opposing views of mutants, some wanting to conquer humanity, others wanting to work with humanity. And we see the effect mutants have on human politics, frightening humans with their abilities. I appreciate the movie because it takes on the larger issues than just people with superpowers, it makes us question if we would side with Professor X or Magneto. It takes a look at how the world would cope if people were who better than the rest of us were suddenly born. But the film also makes us think about those who are different and what different perspectives can help provide for one another.
Con
The rest of the X-Men, Jean Grey, Cyclops and Storm are not spectacular in their roles, mostly because their characters are somewhat lacking. Cyclops (James Marsten) is stubborn, Jean (Famke Janssen) is smart and sympathetic and Storm (Hallie
Berry) is mostly just there. Cyclops sorta gets a get out of jail free card because it's hard to show deep emotion when half of your face is covered, Jean gets her chance to shine in the next two movies. Hallie
Berry gets a lot of criticism for her performance, which I both agree with and disagree with. You can see
Berry try and give Storm a level of conviction that she needs, but it just seems phoned in. However, there are a couple touching scenes in which we see Storm's vulnerability that make her seem real. There is a deleted scene with Storm and Rogue in which Storm asks Rogue how she is fitting in, and we see Storm as sympathetic and concerned. Another scene in which Storm consoles a dying Senator Kelly, he asks "Do you hate normal people?" and she replies "Sometimes... Because I am afraid of them" giving us a very real insight into what so many mutants must feel in the world. The scene is well written, but Berry still seems like she is an amateur acting student. Then he dies, and she runs off to give us the flattest report of a character's death in the history of cinema. She says "Senator Kelly is dead" in such a way that she might as well be saying "We're out of top ramen"
Con
One of my biggest problems with this movie is there's too much Wolverine. There's not much action in the film and most of it is dominated by Wolverine. Of course, Wolverine is great, but fans want to see Storm shoot lightning from her hands, and see Cyclops put up more of a fight than being kicked into another room and out of the scene.
Con
The movie on a whole is a very understated opening to the franchise. I understand why they made it this way, they wanted to depict them as very real people, not as spandex clad, untouchable heroes. But the result is a little underwhelming, and for the most part the ensemble cast just isn’t strong enough to make up for it. Much of this is due to budget, there were plans of having Beast in the film and a whole Danger Room sequence, and both were cut due to financial restrictions.
Final Score: 3
X2: X-Men United
Pro
The opening scene to this movie in which Nightcrawler attacks the White House and almost assassinates the President is the most awesome single display of mutant powers in all of the X-Men films. The scene is exciting, action packed, a little scary and nothing if not memorable!
Pro
Alan Cumming was a perfect choice for Nightcrawler, a mutant who has spent his entire life struggling with his identity, only finding acceptance in the Circus and in God. He doesn’t play a huge role in the film, but his scenes and dialogue are very purposeful. Despite being shunned by humanity, he doesn’t let himself be overtaken by anger like Magneto. Instead he sympathizes with them, as expressed in one of his best lines, “You know, outside the circus, most people were afraid of me. But I didn't hate them. I pitied them. Do you know why? Because most people will never know anything beyond what they see with their own two eyes.”
Pro
The movie tackles many of the same issues as the first film, people struggling to find acceptance in a world that fears and hates them, only this time they deal with a human enemy. It was an element present in the first film, though it does not present much of a danger as it does in this film. Another main theme of the villain, Colonel Stryker (Brian Cox) is that of mutants being taken advantage for political means, something that would probably really happen. People like to take advantage of other people. Stryker uses mutants against their own kind claiming they “have their uses”. One of the more tragic figures is Lady Deathstrike, who, throughout the film we see as a cool, diabolical bodyguard. She is actually just a mutant who Stryker controls using a serum he developed. She and Wolverine have an awesome fight that ends with him pumping her body full of adamantium, and right before she dies we see her dead-looking grey eyes turn brown, and we see her look of pain and confusion just for a moment before she falls backwards, dead. We see first hand the tragedy that can be inflicted on innocent people in her and Nightcrawler.
Pro
It does have more action than the first film, giving it more of an edge. We see Wolverine go into “berserker mode” when the Xavier Institute is stormed by troops, Storm creates a sky full of hurricanes, even Rogue is useful when she stops Pyro from killing police officers!
Pro
Jean is depicted as a woman brimming with more power than even shw knows. We see the first signs of the
Phoenix power as her mutant abilities give her more power than we have ever seen before. But she is also sometimes unable to control it. Her struggle between power and control is mirrored in her love triangle between Cyclops (representing control) and Wolverine (representing power).
Pro
Magneto is a survivor and opportunist who will not let himself be contained, and way more badass and villainous as he gleefully murders his jailers. The survivor in him is also what brings him to ally with the X-Men against a common enemy. A shaky allegiance that he only uses as long as it suits him and the moment he gets the chance to move towards his own goals of mutant supremacy he pushes forward without a second thought.
Pro
Mystique gets strong but minimal characterization. In a touching scene Nightcrawler asks Mystique why she doesn’t pass as human all the time if she can, to which she responds "Because we shouldn’t have to". This small scene gives us insight into Nightcrawler and Mystique, who have both clearly struggled with their mutations throughout their lives. But where Nightcrawler has grown used to living in the shadows, Mystique fights for the world she wants to live in.
Pro
Perhaps the most interesting new addition is Pyro (Aaron Stanford), a young student at Xavier's Institute who refuses to see his powers as something to hold him back and takes any opportunity to display them in front of humans. Throughout the film we see Xavier and the X-Men trying to teach him discipline, and when Magneto tells him "You are a god among insects" the character's fate is sealed. It is interesting to see someone to through this transformation in the film, someone who comes to see Magneto's perspective.
Con
They take Cyclops out of the movie pretty early on, and while he’s not spectacular in the movies, you can tell they just wanted him out of the picture instead of making him interesting. Kind of a cop-out.
Con
Iceman was always one of my favorite characters and they just make him a little mini-Cyclops, the good kid, instead of making him the fun jokester who is always under appreciated. I understand that they changed characters, but they just made him utterly bland instead of making him interesting in any way. And making him more true to the original character would have helped the film since there’s nobody in it who’s lighthearted... at all.
Final Score: 6
X-Men 3: The Last Stand
Pro
I like how they handle the
Phoenix. The
Phoenix story can get really contrived really fast when you involve alien races and magical crystals and diety-esque mystical forces like in the comics. They opt for a more human explanation, that
Phoenix is the ultimate manifestation of Jean Grey’s telekinetic abilities allowing her to manipulate the physical world down to its very atomic structure. In this film the
Phoenix is Jean, it is the darkness that lies in everybody. Power, incarnate. Granted, it could have been done better, but it also could have been much worse. Also, while it is not the phoenix mythos most people know from the TV show, more recent comics have leaned toward this perspective on the Phoenix force.
Pro
Kelsey Grammar is perfect as Beast. Perfect perfect. His character is summed up by his personal struggle as a blue mutant and being somewhat ashamed of himself. He has a great inner divide between his political beliefs which tell him to be proud of his mutation, but he also has great confliction about his blue-ness.
Pro/Con
Rogue takes the "Cure" thereby losing her mutant powers. It is a shame to see a character with so much potential for growth, both personal and with her powers. But I like that in the story they have one of our heroes decide to get the cure, and if anybody would, it makes sense that it would be Rogue. So this cancels itself out.
Con
I like that the film (kind of tries to) focus on ushering in a new team of X-Men, Iceman, Shadowcat and Colossus all play roles as the new X-Men. This theme of a younger generation of mutants is always present in the comics, and while appropriate in the film, the characters they add are all utterly bland. Even as they try to create a love triangle between Iceman, Rogue and Shadowcat, you just don’t care about any of them. And obviously Colossus was just cast because of how he looks. They don’t even try to develop the character.
Con
I see what they were going for with this film. They tried to give the fans what they wanted, the action packed climax of the franchise. What they ended up giving us was a poorly constructed action film devoid of character or any real sympathy with some badass fights thrown in for good measure.
Con
The plot has some interesting themes, the “Cure” for mutancy, the
Phoenix but the director clearly doesn't know how to wrangle in all these different story lines and characters.
Con
For some inexplicable reason they decide to kill Professor X (they also kill Cyclops, but he was always kind of a weak link in the movies, and while it is another cop out like in X2, I will let this one slide since there’s already SO MANY cons for X3). Stewart was clearly one of the strongest performers in a cast of many mediocre characters… Why they did kill him, I will never know.
Con
Archangel who only appears in 4 scenes is completely superfluous and Ben Foster is just desperately trying to figure out this role, which is really quite simple… Perhaps too simple. And the flying looks terrible.
Con
They de-power Mystique!!! She was always one of the strongest and engaging characters in the films), and they replace her with a bunch of completely forgettable new, made up characters.
Con
After killing Professor X and Cyclops we have Storm leading the team, but she is just wholly underwhelming.
Con
Another big problem with this film is that it has more mutants than any of the other films, just mutants reaching into the far corners of the silver screen throughout the film. And while I accept that the movies are different from the cartoon or the comics, I was upset that instead of using the HUGE pool of already created mutants they decide to make up completely new characters whose specific powers are not exciting or important. I just wanted a LITTLE effort!! Like the man in the woods who grows bones out of his body and has a fight with Wolverine, would it have been THAT difficult to make it a woman and therefore an already existing character (Marrow) who would be fun for any X-Fan to see?!
Final Score: -6
X-Men: First Class
Pro
This film is the best X-Men film yet largely because of its devotion to the characters. Most of the main characters we are already familiar with in the films. You can tell that the filmmaker and the actors wanted to make sure and depict the same characters at a very different time in history and in their own lives, not yet wrapped up in mutant drama. James McAvoy does a great job carrying the film as the X-Men's founder and teacher, Charles Xavier. But this is not the refined and collected Xavier depicted by Patrick Stewart, this is a young, impulse driven and blindly idealistic man with an ego and a libido. He wants what's best for mankind, but doesn't even allow himself to do what's best for those closest to him, namely Raven a.k.a. Mystique. Raven is his adopted sister, who Xavier taught to be careful about her powers, but he is so overbearing about it that she grows up ashamed of who she really is because of how he treats her. Xavier is flawed, yet trying his hardest to create a better world. This is the humanistic approach to Xavier that I find more interesting than the stoic leader in the other films.
Pro
The biggest "Pro" for the film is Michael Fassbender as Magneto. He is strong, powerful, driven and angry, and this film showcases him in such a way that we wholly understand and even sympathize deeply with a man so tormented by the evils of mankind that he has become that which he is determined to destroy. Fassbender is phenomenal as such an outlandish character, making him both distinguished, and totally badass and yet, we believe this man could exist. The strength of Magneto as character in any medium is that he forces the audience to ask themselves "Who would you side with?" And the audience finds themselves at a bit of a loss. Everybody wants to be a hero, but Magneto, as a reactive advocate of mutant survival, always provides a worthwhile counterpoint to the X-Men. A world filled with shades-of-grey perspectives is more evident in this film than any of the others, and is what gives the X-Men universe much of its storytelling power. Also, Magneto is SUCH A BADASS in this movie!!!!!! He trashed a yacht with its own anchor!
Pro
Mystique was always one of my favorite parts of the X-Men films, but she was always coolly in the background delivering few, but concise lines or smirks that showed her as a strong and powerful woman to trifle with. In this film, she takes center stage and is very different, timid, and unsure of herself because of Xavier's years of trying to force her to fit in. In her few scenes with Magneto, we see the seeds of her liberation from her own insecurities being planted, much in the way Magneto titillated Pyro with the promise of power in X2. While she is drastically different from the Mystique in the other films, we understand her character and the arc she travels as she comes to terms with herself, like so many of us have to. We can all only hope to become as sure of ourselves and our own capabilities as she does by the time we see her in the first X-Men film.
Pro
Beast was previously featured in X3, and in that film as well as in First Class, he makes for a strong supporting character. Beast is always a character battling his own nature. Torn between his civil and carnal instincts, his superior intellect is betrayed by his animistic powers. In First Class, we see a young man who is so desperate to fit in he uses himself as a guinea pig in an experiment to make himself normal. Of course it goes ironically wrong and worsens his physical state. While his character isn't deeply focused on, we understand that he is tormented by himself and even when he finds other mutants, he's still teased and feels distanced from them. His character isn't as strong as the three leads, but he is a good supporting character to add to the film.
Pro
Something the X-Men movies finally got right was its use of background characters. In the past films, there were a few strong characters and pretty useless background characters, who have one or two displays of their mutant powers in the film, and then fall into the background to let Wolverine deal with whatever threat is present. Or, as is the case with X3, we're shown several mutants having cool displays of their powers, but with little in the way of plot or character to make us care much about the outcome. This film seems to understand that as long as you have strong main characters, it's okay to have other characters who use their powers more than they speak. Banshee, Havoc, Darwin and Angel have distinguishable characteristics, but don't have much of a character arc. But we don't need to see an elaborate story of every single character, Magneto, Xavier, Raven, Sebastian and Beast give us the character development the adult in us wants to see and Banshee and Havoc deliver blasts of action that the kid in us wants to see!
Pro
That leads me to my next pro, the action! This movie pulls no punches in the action department! Full of mutant powers, but it's not phoned in or plotless the way it is in X3. Banshee screams, Angel spits, Havoc blasts, Magneto destroys, it's full of awesome displays of different powers!
Pro
Contrasting the original films, which deal with the mutant phenomenon on a societal scale, this film deals with mutation on a very personal level. In a world where mutants are unknown to society, we see several isolated people who are scared of their abilities and have been forced to learn to cope with them without any support. Characters like Mystique and Beast show us the ways physically evident mutations can affect one's perception of themselves, and we end up with opposing sides, one who wishes to fit in, and one who will not modify herself for others, even though she can look however she wants. Xavier and Magneto provide an interesting counterbalance as they both feel an obligation to others because of the power they have been given, but their allegiances lie on opposite sides.
Pro
I know I already gave Magneto a "Pro" for being badass, but the scene with him and the Nazis in Argentina.... Just see it and tell me you don't want to have a "Magneto: Nazi Hunter" movie!!!!!
Pro
Kevin Bacon does a good job with relatively little as Sebastian Shaw. He is written as a fairly run-of-the-mill scheming villain, and Bacon is throughtly engaging. He provides an interesting counterpoint to Xavier and Magneto's X-Men, as he mirrors Magneto's future path as the man who is determined to bring superiority to mutant kind.
Con
I was so excited to see Emma Frost in the film! In the comics, she has come to be one of my favorite characters, a woman haunted by the mistakes of her past. She is constantly in a state of trying to redeem herself for her past evils, but also trying to stay true to herself as someone who will see things as they are, and not as one would want to see it (this includes her perception of herself, as someone she knows has a slightly askew moral compass). She is less interesting as a villain, but still should be an entertaining combination of sarcastic, beautiful and devious. None of which come across whatsoever in January Jones' performance which begs the question "Can she even move her face or is she one of those mechanical Japanese sex dolls?" ..... I can't help but think that even Bryce Dallas Howard would have been better.
Final Score: 8
Yup, X-Men: First Class wins!
Bonus: X-Men The Animated Series
I've been rewatching the old X-Men cartoon from the 90's, which sparked my interest in superheroes altogether. I'm surprised to see how well it actually holds up! In some ways I think it's even better than Batman: The Animated Series, which is a great noir-esque tribute to the Dark Knight, but X-Men's continuous dedication to plot, character and themes give it strong re-watch value. What comes to mind as a strong example of honoring the themes of X-Men is an episode in which Beast helps develop a procedure that will give a blind woman her sight back. The patient and Beast end up caring deeply for each other, but the patient's father refuses to allow Beast to be there for her procedure because he is a mutant. I love that this kids show showcases themes of prejudice and inner turmoil.
Also, as an example of the animated series taking the task of adapting X-Men in a way that's honest to the source material, you can see below are two images, both from The Dark Phoenix Saga battle with the Hellfire Club, the top image is from the cartoon and the image below it is from the original comic (an iconic depiction of Wolverine's resilience). It's literally the exact image recreated, even down to the pipe on the right side of the image! Extra nerd points if you can tell me which prominent writer/artist team featured which character in the same pose (and saying the same line) in a recent X-Men comic after fighting one of the same villains!
