Rewatching and reviewing the X-Men movies

[NealKenneth]

X-Men - This came out sixteen years ago already. Even as a kid, I knew superhero movies could be better but, rewatching this I was surprised to find the movie is actually quite good. With the elimination of a few cheesy lines ("Do you know what happens to a Toad when it's struck by lightning?") and a bit more color and lightheartedness this movie could have really shone.

This one gets a 7/10. Ultimately what really makes this movie forgettable is what they did with the machine that causes mutations. Rather than have it actually work, which could have created a conflict of philosophy and ethics between the characters, they decided to have the device malfunction, causing the humans it transforms to die soon after. This makes the ethics a no-brainer and a simple story of good versus evil.

Magneto, Professor X and Wolverine are fantastic. Perfect casting!

X2 - Almost everything about this movie is better than its predecessor. In particular, the action is phenomenal and Stryker is an excellent villian. Unfortunately, the tone issue carries over as well, with the characters posing silently when a normal human would be reacting in some way. Or worse, posing silently to start a scene, as though they were waiting for the scene to start. This happens way too often and continues through every Singer film in the franchise.

This one gets an 8.5/10. I don't believe Magneto would see it in the interests of mutantkind to kill every human on the planet and Jean's death at the end is a bit forced, especially Logan's reaction to it.

X3 - This black sheep is underrated, probably because it was so much worse than the one before it. The high point of this one is the action, which is great. There are even some moments, such as when Magneto and Mystique are "cured," that are compelling.

This one gets a 6/10. It's major failing as the final film in a trilogy is that it spends time introducing new characters that should have been spent with established characters. For example, where is Nightcrawler and why isn't Rogue much more in focus?

X-Men: First Class - Amazingly, the casting in this film is again fantastic, even though it's recasting two of the three most perfectly cast in the series. There are a lot of great characters in this film, with Mystique rising to the forefront. This film also has a great tone, getting just as dark and serious as before, but this time with cheerful moments too.

This one gets an 8/10. This film could actually have been the best of the series if not for a minor flaw, which was attempting to develop a cast of new X-Men. I'm not sure if they were hoping to franchise these guys, but cutting Havok, Banshee, Darwin and Angel out of the film would have made it tighter, have a better flow and a good twenty minutes shorter. As it is, they just waste time and detract from a good film.

I will post more as I get further along. I'm skipping X-Men Origins Wolverine and Deadpool in this rewatch marathon (for very different reasons though.)

 

[Doctor Octopus]

Good scores. Agreed with most of them. Why you skip Deadpool though?

 

[NealKenneth]

For this marathon I'm watching X-Men, X2, First Class, The Wolverine, DoFP, and Apocalypse. I included X3 cause I just happened to see it last week. Deadpool I'm skipping just because I don't feel it's really part of the main series. 8/10 though, about as good as a Deadpool movie can be.

 

[spider-neil]

This film could actually have been the best of the series if not for a minor flaw, which was attempting to develop a cast of new X-Men. I'm not sure if they were hoping to franchise these guys, but cutting Havok, Banshee, Darwin and Angel out of the film would have made it tighter, have a better flow and a good twenty minutes shorter. As it is, they just waste time and detract from a good film.

What you call a flaw, is for me its greatest strength. In the X-Men movies the professor is a professor who never teaches anything (or if he does it's so fleeting as not to leave an impression). In FC for the first time you see Prof. X recruit this kids and actually TEACH them how to improve their powers.

The Mansion is a SCHOOL but I never got the impression before because you are only shown a few fleeting shots of some lessons. Watching the likes of Banshee learn to fly, Havok control his power, Beast use his feet than more than clinging onto low hanging objects is the highlight of the movie.This is why I like FC more than any other X-Men movie, yes, including DoFP and X2.

 

[Mike Murdock]

The Last Stand is just so dull. I agree there are good moments (I think the problem was too many cooks making too many plots). The cure plot, imo, was far better than the Phoenix plot and they intersected awkwardly. Angel was used very interestingly and probably handled the mutant message better than others. But it's just not a fun movie and the ending is extremely awkward.

 

[SM_experiment]

I have only recently been reading up on X-Men comics of the past especially Chris Claremont. But in my opinion I really do not like anyone of them except X-Men FIrst Class. I mean of the "original" trilogy none are particularly interesting or hit upon any good ideas. There good moments but almost all of them are drowned out by what follows or preceed them. Days of Future Past is decent and better than any of the original ones but even that one has for me problems which I think is because Bryan Singer is not that good a director especially not with ensembles and action scenes. Last one was boring and unintentionally funny in scenes.

 

[2kt09]

It's been a year maybe since I re-watched the original trilogy out of curiosity.

The first X-Men movie is quite the feat, but it's cinematography and the various scenes without much going on really date that movie.

The pacing for X2 was brisk, so I honestly didn't notice "characters posing" this go around, and the moments and characters worked so well.

The Last Stand is a weird one because it had many great performances interspersed between frequent cornball decisions.

Much like the first X-men, First Class's story and villains were fairly basic, but certain characters and their interactions made up for an otherwise alright installment.

I intend to watch Apocalypse again and DOFP's rogue cut for the first time, eventually.

 

[NealKenneth]

What you call a flaw, is for me its greatest strength...for the first time you see Prof. X recruit this kids and actually TEACH them how to improve their powers.

I agree that it's nice to have the Professor teaching for once, but I also think this was better shown with how he taught Magneto rather than the kids. As a character arc it would make much more sense to have Xavier decide to be a teacher of mutants after the film ends, not before he sees how well he did with Magneto.

 

[Doctor Octopus]

For this marathon I'm watching X-Men, X2, First Class, The Wolverine, DoFP, and Apocalypse. I included X3 cause I just happened to see it last week. Deadpool I'm skipping just because I don't feel it's really part of the main series. 8/10 though, about as good as a Deadpool movie can be.

I feel it part of it because X mansion is in it, and Collossus, even though he have Russian accent now lol. He trying to make Deadpool part of X-men team.