The X-Men, Four films and counting!

Rewatched X-Men 1 and 2 recently. X-Men 1 doesn't hold up, it's just kind of dull and you can really feel the shrinking budget at times. It feels like the film goes out of it's way to avoid going big. X-Men 2 is probably one of the best superhero films made. It's up there with Spider-Man 1 and 2 and it's just full of fantastic set pieces and a ton of little moments. McKellan completely steals the film and his escape from prison is probably one of my favourite superhero sequences ever. It's just handled perfectly, a mix between horror and sheer awe at Magneto's power. The one thing I've never understood is why Marsden gets so shafted in the film. It feels like Cyclops should be a major character, but he's in about seven scenes in the whole movie and literally disappears for about 50 minutes. Was Marsden hard to work with, or did they just not write Cyclops into the film. It's also a shame that across all three films we barely see the X-Men actually coalesce as a team. Storm, Wolverine, Jean, Magneto and Mystique working together in X2 is probably the closest we get to actual team dynamics. 

It seems to be that they just didn't really know what to do with Cyclops. Marsden getting into Superman Returns was, apparently, an apology from Bryan Singer for that fact.

I didn't mind the lack of Cyclops at the time, since I always found him to be pretty dull in the X-Men cartoon in the 90s (which is all I knew about X-Men).  Too bad for Marsden though.  At least he got to be the most heroic character in Superman Returns.

No writer seems to have the badass good guy type down, yet. That was the problem with Cyclops. It's one of the biggest problems with writing Superman, too. Cyclops always was a favorite of mine in the comics. Not to mention how they de-powered the shit out of him.

I never read the comics, but even in the 1990s cartoon he had a purpose. I guess stoic good guy just doesn't translate well, which is a shame because I always appreciated how innately good Cyclops was in the more morally grey world of the X-Men. 

I had heard that they wrote Cyclops' death scene AFTER he signed on to Superman, and he was just contractually obligated to do it. Which is shitty. Almost as shitty as rushing X3 into production to beat Superman to the punch despite a completely compromised product.

Anyway, as a HUGE X-Men fan, the movies really did a number on me. The first one was... ok. I loved how they got real actors to play Xavier and Magneto, giving that conflict some serious weight. The plot, involving that super mutant-transforming machine, just doesn't make a whole lot of sense and seems like a poor mix for the series' grounded approach, but the stuff with Senator Kelly transforming, and then melting, seems eerie and very sci-fi-ish - wish future comic book adaptations took notes from this and tried to embrace their sci-fi origins, instead of establishing a boring superhero template.

Second one had some fantastic set pieces, and Cox was great, but I had become increasingly bummed that they had eliminated the colorful ethnicity of the characters. McKellan's Magneto seemed less like a German Jew and more like a British Mastermind, while Pyro's Aussie roots were scrubbed in favor of the antagonistic character arc (good move, probably) and Colossus just became Generic Action Strongman (boo). Add to that the complete avoidance of Storm's roots (and Berry's apathetic performance), and I just thought that, while the economy of the movie is impressive, they removed a lot of the most interesting aspects of the characters to make it work. Not a great adaptation. Near-great movie, though. And Wolverine's fight against the soldiers was IMPRESSIVE.

Third one? Borderline ghastly. A big fuck you to Cyclops, who interests me not only because of his innate struggle to live up to Xavier's ideals but also because, within the mythos, he's a pivotal legacy character. And then they had to turn Wolverine into a den mother, which, honorably, completes a character arc within the films, but also just makes him less interesting and more Standard Issue Action Hero. The third movie also finally FIRMLY puts me in Magneto's camp - I mean, the government is weaponizing a mutant "cure." Yeah, I think you kinda need to seriously fight back in that case. I just think it's such a punk move that the X-Men are so anti-cure, and then at the end they USE it on Magneto. How "heroic." I mean, once Magneto shows up at that dinky rec center where the mutants are meeting (which I thought was somewhat plausible, as far as Morlock-type mutants upset with the government) and he's like, No ink shall ever touch this skin again, and talks about how genocides just HAPPEN without warning, then he has a real viewpoint compared to the X-Men. Politically, I am PRO-Magneto.

It's too bad that third one has to be so misogynist. In addition to Mystique selling out the Brotherhood (with the president pointlessly saying "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned"), there's Rogue feeling the need to change herself simply because Iceman is straying with Kitty (nice message to the girls in the audience) and Storm's righteous indignation about the cure being sublimated as she is denied a chance to lead the X-Men into battle, despite having seniority over Wolverine. And that's neglecting the idea that the action just BLOWS. The wirework is awful. The staging is messy and the fights almost do nothing to advance the plot. And for the sake of practicality, the final battle (which goes from day to night within seconds) features six X-Men against Magneto, the Master of Magnetism, and two of them are metal-based. What exactly is stopping Magneto from flinging 33% of his enemy into the water and being done with them? This is a question I feel the first two films doesn't make you ask. Oh, and the person who decided to put Colossus and Juggernaut in the same movie and NOT have them fight? Someone deserves to have their butt nightfucked.

Wolverine, though... appallingly bad. I was one of the roaches who watched the workprint, but I tried to be fair about it, and I said that most of the film was unfinished, and that, despite a terrible story and nonsensical plot developments, things could be fixed. Then I saw it in the theater and was STUNNED about how much of the workprint WAS finished. Just an awful, idea-less, incompetent, poorly-acted movie. Nearly every scene has a moment (or four) that just makes you slap your forehead that an adult thought it was a good, or even PASSABLE idea. There had to be more than a few elements of this film brought into our reality out of SPITE. Perhaps towards the audience. Perhaps towards Bryan Singer. Towards Hugh Jackman? Just fucking AWFUL.

That was far too much said about these movies.

The 90s cartoon was the *only* medium in which i've liked Cyclops. Wolverine's gruff act worked so many wonders there just because of how well they set Cyclops up as the straightman.

Also, not to derail, but probably the one issue I've ever had with Jackman's Wolverine is that whenever I hear that character in my head, I hear Cathal Dodd, and no one else.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gabe T 

And that's neglecting the idea that the action just BLOWS. The wirework is awful. The staging is messy and the fights almost do nothing to advance the plot. And for the sake of practicality, the final battle (which goes from day to night within seconds) features six X-Men against Magneto, the Master of Magnetism, and two of them are metal-based. What exactly is stopping Magneto from flinging 33% of his enemy into the water and being done with them? This is a question I feel the first two films doesn't make you ask. Oh, and the person who decided to put Colossus and Juggernaut in the same movie and NOT have them fight? Someone deserves to have their butt nightfucked.

 

The thing that X2 gets oh so right is the characters and their use of powers. I kind of love that Magneto's too big action sequences in the film involve him using his powers to take people by surprise. Him pulling the iron from the security guard and unpinning all of the grenades are just fantastic because they feel in character for Magneto. Having him directly face down his enemy like he does, continually, in X-Men 3 just doesn't feel in character. Similarly I love the Wolverine vs. Lady Deathstrike fight in X2 because it's amazingly filmed (love the little camera pull back when Wolverine first stabs Deathstrike) and really captures the beserker nature of both characters. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spike Marshall 

The thing that X2 gets oh so right is the characters and their use of powers. I kind of love that Magneto's too big action sequences in the film involve him using his powers to take people by surprise. Him pulling the iron from the security guard and unpinning all of the grenades are just fantastic because they feel in character for Magneto. Having him directly face down his enemy like he does, continually, in X-Men 3 just doesn't feel in character. Similarly I love the Wolverine vs. Lady Deathstrike fight in X2 because it's amazingly filmed (love the little camera pull back when Wolverine first stabs Deathstrike) and really captures the beserker nature of both characters. 

Precisely. It's the difference between a director who knows how to stage an inventive action sequence and one who, let's face it, is a moron.

And, assuming Dodd is the voice of the animated Wolverine, I have the exact same issue. I see Jackman and hear Dodd going, "Here was here... I can sssssssmell 'em."

Yeah, Jackman's great, bless him, but there has never been a moment in these films as simply, effortlessly badass as "THIS ONE'S FOR YOU, MORPH!"

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spike Marshall 
Similarly I love the Wolverine vs. Lady Deathstrike fight in X2 because it's amazingly filmed (love the little camera pull back when Wolverine first stabs Deathstrike) and really captures the beserker nature of both characters. 

I'm sure it's been said around here before, but that sequence was shot by Street Trash director J. Michael Muro, and Singer attributes most of the good stuff to him on the commentary track.

And for a solid treatment of Cyclops my money is on Grant Morrison's New X-Men comics run. Morrison went out of his way to make the character more complex, according to interviews.

"Wolverine!  Pull back!  HWOOARGH!"

That line was ingrained into my head due to the animated series referring back to it CONSTANTLY in the "Previously, on X-MEN!" recap.

Also, I pimp it a LOT, but I can't completely dismiss X3 due to John Powell's score.  I thought it was the best one of all 4 movies.  Really, it's because of the Phoenix theme that promised so much more than what we got in that movie.  It's the only reason that final scene with Jean and Wolverine gets to be a little better than the cover of a trashy romance novel.  The theme also enhances the sequence in Jean's house, which is actually pretty well done.  Of course, it really helps that both Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan look scared shitless during it.  I love the "WTF!?" expression on McKellan's face as he sees his friend and adversary disintegrating before his eyes.

X3 has many flaws. None of them involve Magneto. Especially the film's last moment. Erik is just BROKEN there.

That whole Xavier death scene is actually quite well done by just about everyone. I think that's why X3 was ultimately more frustrating than Wolverine - some of it actually worked quite well. Total crap is easier to ignore than half crap half good.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcnooj82 

 

Also, I pimp it a LOT, but I can't completely dismiss X3 due to John Powell's score.  I thought it was the best one of all 4 movies.  Really, it's because of the Phoenix theme that promised so much more than what we got in that movie.  It's the only reason that final scene with Jean and Wolverine gets to be a little better than the cover of a trashy romance novel.  The theme also enhances the sequence in Jean's house, which is actually pretty well done.  Of course, it really helps that both Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan look scared shitless during it.  I love the "WTF!?" expression on McKellan's face as he sees his friend and adversary disintegrating before his eyes.

That's what makes X3 so bitterly disappointing. There are moments (the levitating house/any scene with Sirs Ian and Patrick ) that hint that this really could have been something special if it had been treated like a film and not a product. There isn't a single moment in Wolverine worth a damn (sorry Duke) but this could have been salvaged.

ETA. Gabe got there a minute earlier. Well played.

I actually prefer Wolverine to X3. There's a weird kitchen-sink attitude to Wolverine that, even though the finished product is ass, I kind of enjoy. Reynolds and Kitsch are also pretty good. Unfortunately the film makes terrible use of them.

X3, on the other hand, is literally one of my least favourite movies ever. Apart from the house scene, none of it works for me.

Five minutes of the Wolverine game wipes the goddamn floor with that movie.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justin Clark 

Five minutes of the Wolverine game wipes the goddamn floor with that movie.

This. Five thousand times, this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justin Clark 

Yeah, Jackman's great, bless him, but there has never been a moment in these films as simply, effortlessly badass as "THIS ONE'S FOR YOU, MORPH!"
 

I was always partial to that same episode's HEY. TIN MAN. AHM SENDIN' YOU BACK TA OZ! IN PIECES!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gabe T 

I had heard that they wrote Cyclops' death scene AFTER he signed on to Superman, and he was just contractually obligated to do it. Which is shitty. Almost as shitty as rushing X3 into production to beat Superman to the punch despite a completely compromised product.

 

Anyway, as a HUGE X-Men fan, the movies really did a number on me. The first one was... ok. I loved how they got real actors to play Xavier and Magneto, giving that conflict some serious weight. The plot, involving that super mutant-transforming machine, just doesn't make a whole lot of sense and seems like a poor mix for the series' grounded approach, but the stuff with Senator Kelly transforming, and then melting, seems eerie and very sci-fi-ish - wish future comic book adaptations took notes from this and tried to embrace their sci-fi origins, instead of establishing a boring superhero template.

 

Second one had some fantastic set pieces, and Cox was great, but I had become increasingly bummed that they had eliminated the colorful ethnicity of the characters. McKellan's Magneto seemed less like a German Jew and more like a British Mastermind, while Pyro's Aussie roots were scrubbed in favor of the antagonistic character arc (good move, probably) and Colossus just became Generic Action Strongman (boo). Add to that the complete avoidance of Storm's roots (and Berry's apathetic performance), and I just thought that, while the economy of the movie is impressive, they removed a lot of the most interesting aspects of the characters to make it work. Not a great adaptation. Near-great movie, though. And Wolverine's fight against the soldiers was IMPRESSIVE.

 

Third one? Borderline ghastly. A big fuck you to Cyclops, who interests me not only because of his innate struggle to live up to Xavier's ideals but also because, within the mythos, he's a pivotal legacy character. And then they had to turn Wolverine into a den mother, which, honorably, completes a character arc within the films, but also just makes him less interesting and more Standard Issue Action Hero. The third movie also finally FIRMLY puts me in Magneto's camp - I mean, the government is weaponizing a mutant "cure." Yeah, I think you kinda need to seriously fight back in that case. I just think it's such a punk move that the X-Men are so anti-cure, and then at the end they USE it on Magneto. How "heroic." I mean, once Magneto shows up at that dinky rec center where the mutants are meeting (which I thought was somewhat plausible, as far as Morlock-type mutants upset with the government) and he's like, No ink shall ever touch this skin again, and talks about how genocides just HAPPEN without warning, then he has a real viewpoint compared to the X-Men. Politically, I am PRO-Magneto.

 

It's too bad that third one has to be so misogynist. In addition to Mystique selling out the Brotherhood (with the president pointlessly saying "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned"), there's Rogue feeling the need to change herself simply because Iceman is straying with Kitty (nice message to the girls in the audience) and Storm's righteous indignation about the cure being sublimated as she is denied a chance to lead the X-Men into battle, despite having seniority over Wolverine. And that's neglecting the idea that the action just BLOWS. The wirework is awful. The staging is messy and the fights almost do nothing to advance the plot. And for the sake of practicality, the final battle (which goes from day to night within seconds) features six X-Men against Magneto, the Master of Magnetism, and two of them are metal-based. What exactly is stopping Magneto from flinging 33% of his enemy into the water and being done with them? This is a question I feel the first two films doesn't make you ask. Oh, and the person who decided to put Colossus and Juggernaut in the same movie and NOT have them fight? Someone deserves to have their butt nightfucked.

 

Wolverine, though... appallingly bad. I was one of the roaches who watched the workprint, but I tried to be fair about it, and I said that most of the film was unfinished, and that, despite a terrible story and nonsensical plot developments, things could be fixed. Then I saw it in the theater and was STUNNED about how much of the workprint WAS finished. Just an awful, idea-less, incompetent, poorly-acted movie. Nearly every scene has a moment (or four) that just makes you slap your forehead that an adult thought it was a good, or even PASSABLE idea. There had to be more than a few elements of this film brought into our reality out of SPITE. Perhaps towards the audience. Perhaps towards Bryan Singer. Towards Hugh Jackman? Just fucking AWFUL.

 

That was far too much said about these movies.

Very strong assessment Gabe, I would agree with most of what you say here. I can't really fault the first one for its lack of scope as that was a result of its lack of budget. The mutant making machine didn't bother me either, as it was simply a MacGuffin, a plot device to bring about the irony of Senator Kelly becoming what he feared and hated most. Where that subplot failed, however, is it bears little consequence to the larger plot after Kelly is changed. He arrives at the X-Men's mansion and dies after sharing a brief scene with Storm.

That scene is a bit of a head scratcher, as it starts a characterization of Storm that continues through the sequels: her reverse-racism towards humans. Kelly asks her, "Do you hate humans?" and she replies, "Sometimes." This is made even more prominent in X2 when she advises Nightcrawler to find strength from hatred, and in X3 when she is the most defensive and vocal about the possibility of "the cure". Was this intentionally on Singer's/the screenwriter's part, giving the only black hero in the series such honest lines?

I was bothered at the time that the multi-national feel of the 70's comics was neutered, but I see now that Singer was trying to make the X-Men a very American story. Although prejudice is universal, the metaphor for racism and homophobia here is very much within an American context.

Very good points about the misogyny in X3, I never realized that before. I would also point out the scene in which Kitty Pryde, a petite, young girl, is chased by the Juggernaut, an obvious phallic symbol (she even refers to him as "dickhead"). I can never hate X3 for the aforementioned Ms. Page, the balls of killing or depowering half the cast, the score, and the battle of wills between Xavier and Jean. I also love the moral ambiguity of the movie: Xavier's mindwipes of Jean is subtly contrasted with the government experimentation on Wolverine and the cure itself. Although the movie gets criticized for not doing the Phoenix saga justice, I do think Jean has a significant role in the movie: she represents the worst side of mutantkind, the real threat that they represent. I like that Magneto may very well be right by the end of the film.

To this day I've still only seen about eight minutes of X-Men 3 and less than five of Wolverine. I think the moment I heard about all of the behind the scenes nonsense about Bryan Singer's departure, I knew all sorts of bad things were afoot. One of the interesting things I heard after X-Men 3 came out was about McKellen being vehemently against Rogue trading in her powers because as he was chiefly attracted to the racism/homophobia metaphor inherent in the concept, he saw this as a really negative message to send to young LGBT people. I think he's right. Also, though I'm not the biggest X-Men fan, Cyclops has always been my favorite. He has to work with a guy that he knows has a thing for his wife with the constant fear that the feeling is mutual, and still provide clear, strong leadership, and he does so. That's a guy you want in your corner, not some dude with an aggression problem who's constantly trying to plot out how he can fuck your wife.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bartleby_Scriven 
Very strong assessment Gabe, I would agree with most of what you say here. I can't really fault the first one for its lack of scope as that was a result of its lack of budget. The mutant making machine didn't bother me either, as it was simply a MacGuffin, a plot device to bring about the irony of Senator Kelly becoming what he feared and hated most. Where that subplot failed, however, is it bears little consequence to the larger plot after Kelly is changed. He arrives at the X-Men's mansion and dies after sharing a brief scene with Storm.

 

That scene is a bit of a head scratcher, as it starts a characterization of Storm that continues through the sequels: her reverse-racism towards humans. Kelly asks her, "Do you hate humans?" and she replies, "Sometimes." This is made even more prominent in X2 when she advises Nightcrawler to find strength from hatred, and in X3 when she is the most defensive and vocal about the possibility of "the cure". Was this intentionally on Singer's/the screenwriter's part, giving the only black hero in the series such honest lines?

 

I was bothered at the time that the multi-national feel of the 70's comics was neutered, but I see now that Singer was trying to make the X-Men a very American story. Although prejudice is universal, the metaphor for racism and homophobia here is very much within an American context.

 

Very good points about the misogyny in X3, I never realized that before. I would also point out the scene in which Kitty Pryde, a petite, young girl, is chased by the Juggernaut, an obvious phallic symbol (she even refers to him as "dickhead"). I can never hate X3 for the aforementioned Ms. Page, the balls of killing or depowering half the cast, the score, and the battle of wills between Xavier and Jean. I also love the moral ambiguity of the movie: Xavier's mindwipes of Jean is subtly contrasted with the government experimentation on Wolverine and the cure itself. Although the movie gets criticized for not doing the Phoenix saga justice, I do think Jean has a significant role in the movie: she represents the worst side of mutantkind, the real threat that they represent. I like that Magneto may very well be right by the end of the film.

That's an excellent point about Storm. I wish it went beyond those small character moments, however. And I would have liked to see an X-Men 4 because I think you could have conceivably had Storm become the head of Xavier's School. Would have been interesting to see her follow Xavier's ideals and try to mesh that with her own reservations about humanity. You could bring back Ellen Page, boost Jubilee's role, add Boom-Boom or something, make it more femme-powered in the wake of the late Xavier paying the price for trying to neuter Jean Grey.

Re: misogyny. How could I have forgotten the treatment of Phoenix? With what little time we have with Jean as Phoenix (seriously, why was X-Men 3 less than two hours?), most of the chaos she causes seems borne out of her sexuality. She immediately returns to life (quite arbitrarily) and kills Cyclops with a kiss. Then she gets in on with Wolverine, and, in a bit of completely ridiculous stupidity, the movie has Wolverine react like, "That's not right! You're supposed to HATE sex!" While Professor X seems like a complete dick for controlling her like a dog (I loved his catty out-of-character "I shouldn't have to explain myself, least of all to YOU" to Wolverine), the movie's thesis seems to be that Jean/Phoenix is sexuality run wild, and it needs to be not only controlled, but ERADICATED.

Thank you for reminding me about Kitty Pryde vs. Juggernaut again. Geez. Oh, well, we have the most muscular X-Men villain in the world. Who can we match him up against? Aha! The teen girl who can run through walls! BRILLIANT. Seriously, Colossus was only a COUPLE OF FEET AWAY. This will ALWAYS bother me.

I understand the criticism about Rogue being keen to "cure" her powers as well as McKellen's (shit, I spelled his name wrong in previous posts) passion on the matter.  I had a friend who was similarly pissed about that development as well.  But when it comes to these stories, there's a point at which the metaphor stretches itself thin.  In the context of the films, I feel that Rogue was completely justified in considering the cure.  Her powers didn't just alienate her from one "side."  It prevented her from making ANY intimate human contact.  And unlike the comics, she didn't get to have the extra incentive of extra powers.  It was literally a curse and the movies rarely made a positive case for her wanting to keep them (other than an action beat or two).

Now, if she had an alternative of making a connection with someone who was immune to her powers (and there very well may be in the comics, I have no idea) or the film decided to get all Pushing Daisies on us with more creative use of partitions, I would be more inclined to agree with the criticism. 

But in the movie as is, I would've been sympathetic to either decision she made (the DVD had an alternate ending where she didn't take the cure) IF ONLY the movie had given some more thought and time to it.  As it is, Rogue's story was given short shrift.  The character was pretty much sidelined after the first movie.