Marvel Movie Madness! Part 10: X-Men

Stepping Razor

I think this movie is still best of all X Men movies thus far. We'll see if First Class can top it.

May 30 - 01:44 PM

Matt St. John

Still gotta go with X2 for sheer scale, and... Fuckit, that scene when Wolverine thrusts his claws into some dude's chest for the first time might be the single coolest thing I've ever seen in a movie PERIOD.
(It just felt pointless in X3 when he was slicing everybody up running through the forest)

May 30 - 02:00 PM

Nights Domain

I agree that Xmen was the best of the series so far and it had a major factor in helping to usher in the era of comic book movies. For the first really good enesemble film it showed that you can make a movie with multiple super characters and make it work. Hopefully Xmen FC and next years Avengers took good notes on how to do it right.

May 30 - 02:03 PM

Daniel Petersen

I think you guys give this a little too much praise. It was a good faithful X movie but the over all vision was pretty bland. It was ok. Best part= Wolverine, worst part= Sabertooth. He sucked big time.

May 30 - 02:03 PM

The Watcher

I really liked this one, and still do, but I prefer X2 over this any day. Jackman as Wolvie was some truly inspired casting and I didn't know that he was hired at the last minute - interesting. Friday can't come soon enough, I'll be first in line to watch First Class, shouting FIRST first... well, not really, but I am excited, and this is the first time this year that I can truly say that for a new movie.

May 30 - 02:05 PM

Chris Moore

Gotta give the devil it's due. X-Men did for comic book films what Jaws did for big budget summer movies.

May 30 - 02:23 PM

Phillip Kissell

The casting in these movies are amazing. I really need to get around to watching them over again.

May 30 - 02:29 PM

M Mikell

Ironic that in a movie with an anti-discrimination message, all the heroes are attractive and white (or Halle Berry) and the villains--except for their leader--are "freaks." (That's another reason X2 gets more kudos; for giving us Nightcrawler.) Daniel P. is correct about there being a certain blandness about "X-Men," and the Good Mutants = Dry White Toast element is probably where that comes from.

I don't have a huge problem with Sabretooth, but it's sad that he (and Lady Deathstrike in X2) had too much backstory to squeeze into the plot and thus got the Bane-as-Oddjob treatment of "Batman & Robin"--turned into wordless goons who kick ass for a few minutes then get squelched.

But wordless is okay, because the dialog is awful (Storm's "toad struck by lightning" bit is particularly embarrassing). And there's a general disrespect for the audience's intelligence (...an energy field that can be retracted after it's emitted, just by yoinking its power source? A bullet that maintains inertia after being stopped cold in mid-air? Seriously?) But yeah...the casting. The casting overcomes a LOT. Stewart, McKellen, and Jackman get the most attention but I think everyone involved does the absolute best anyone could with the material they were given.

May 30 - 02:49 PM

Pamela Bryant

X Men was a very good movie. As everyone else has said, Hugh Jackman was a great Wolverine! He was gruff when he needed to be and he handled the soft moments without being too tender, which is what you would expect from a man named Wolverine. His lines were great!

Magneto and Charles Xavier were perfectly cast as well. Halle Barre, not so much. I became a fan of X Men with the Saturday morning cartoon series in the 90s, then read some of the comics. Storm was more regal and majestic then she was played by Halle. (side note: She got her butt kicked all over this movie! I think she got the worse beat downs of anyone in the movie, more than any guys, just sayin. What's up with that?) And sometimes Halle had an African accent and sometimes she didn't. It was definitely gone by X2. So I thought the Storm character was definitely the worse cast.

But the movie flowed well. It was a good origins movie without taking too long to build up the characters. And speaking of characters, this was more of a character movie than a special affects movie...which is what a movie should strive to be. In order to keep people interested, they have to care about the characters. I think this movie was directed in such a way that you cared about the characters.

Visually it was pleasing and the action was top notch. I thought the fight between Wolverine and Mystique was the best. Bryan Singer did a great job with this movie. This was a good start to the Superhero blockbuster movies to follow. (not to down play Blade which came out before it...Blade was great, but more people knew the comic book characters of XMen then the character Blade)

I can't wait to see First Class this weekend!

May 30 - 02:55 PM

Mathias N/A

I remember watching this in theaters when i was 14.

But the only seats available were in the 3rd row and all the way to the left.
I got a crink in my neck but the first thought that went through my head was, "Huh, that was short." And it is, it's actually 95 mins long with 9 mins of end credits.

Should've been at least 15 mins longer and i also wish Singer explored Cyclops and Jean a bit more.

May 30 - 03:04 PM

Captain Terror

Funny--I remember when this was about to be released. I told a friend, "Even if this movie sucks I'm going to see it 20 times, because if this is a success maybe they'll make some more superhero movies." Little did I know........

May 30 - 03:18 PM

King Simba

I think this movie brought a certain reliatability that hadn't been seen before by exploring the effects of having super powers in a much more complex way than simply superheroes and villain. Some wanted to fit in to the world and dispised their powers because it made them different, others saw their powers as a benifet to mankind, while others believed their powers made them superior to ordinary humans. Also, as said before, the film managed to deal with themes such as teenage angst in a far more believable way than say Twilight or I am Number Four.

Yeah, it can be a little dull at times, but it also managed to make us more interested in the characters themeselves than whatever powers they had, which is a factor all the best comic book adaptations have (such as Batman Begins, Spiderman, Iron Man, and others) and it certainly wasn't at all like the dullness of say Fantastic Four where you'd be checking your watch waiting for some action.

On a side note, was Toad supposed to be that powerful in the comics? Because as far as I recall, all the X-men shows I watched when I was a kid had him as one of the weaker mutants, yet in the movie he was able to hold up all by himself against Jean, Cyclops and Storm. Not that I'm bothered or anything by that, but I was just curious.

May 30 - 03:21 PM

Alexson Philipiah

I actually did not like this, I felt the special effects were pretty mediocre to bad, and I didn't like how they treated sabretooth in this movie...which was more of "chewbecca" type of character...looks freaky and does some slapstick jokes, which i didn't like. Most of the characters besides wolverine needed depth, and ye. I felt bored watching this.

40%

hey, dont hate on me, i mean there are some bad reviews for this movie, or else how would it be a 82%

May 30 - 05:24 PM

Markus Arbutina

I liked them but they were not great. There was too much of a focus on Wolverine through all 3 films. There are a lot of great characters outside of Woleverine. Loved the Professor X and Magneto casting, amazing. Patrick Stewart is one of the greatest actors of our time.

May 30 - 05:53 PM