Well, I did it. It took me a week and Rifftrax but I did it! I re-watched all the X-Men movies. Will be watching the Wolverine ones as well, for shits and giggles. But perhaps not for a while. Need some recovery time. The movies: they don't necessarily hold up as well as I remember, but then, the first two are still imminently watchable. Not high art (ugh to that term but also, accurate) but totally enjoyable blend of story and effect. The third one is still a beautiful disaster. I was definitely infatuated, as a teenager, with Wolverine in a way that I am not really anymore. I think the Rifftrax's constant jokes about the animal wolverine's actual characteristics in contrast to the ridiculous Marvel character really helped to put the nail in that coffin.
So, what to say of the first installment? I still think it's a pretty strong entry. The visuals are arresting (some of the CGI has aged badly though). The story is a good introduction, I think. I still think it's a travesty what they did to Rogue's character but, hey, what can you do?
X2! I think this opening sequence is one of my favorite not only of the X-Men movies but of all the comic book films. In it Nightcrawler *BAMF*'s his way into the White House and very nearly assassinates the President. He looks like a blue devil. Like, the Mystique makeup/effects are really impressive and cool but his make paired with his power just makes for a really visually cool, exciting beginning to the film. And slightly less dour than a young Eric Lensherr being forcibly separated from his parents during the Holocaust.
The first two movies have a tendency to pick a spot and kind of hunker down, and base most of the action there. In X-Men it's the Statue of Liberty and in this one it's the secret military base located in the dam at Alkalai Lake. Although the early action happens at Xavier's School, which is cool to see more of, and we get little side adventures in Boston, Eric's prison, the museum, the White House, and Bobby's home, things really come together once everyone gets to the lake.
And of course it ends on a sad note, with Jean dying, which sets things up perfectly for Brett Ratner to totally botch it! (I mean he's not the only one to blame but... let's just get down there...)
I don't think anyone would deny that X-Men: The Last Stand has some wicked effects. A lot of it still looks really good. A lot of it doesn't (coughcough FLYING SAN FRANCISCO BRIDGEcough). But the tone, right from the beginning, is... off. The dialogue seems to have been dumbed down. The action is more frenetic, the story moves way more all over the part. I'm not sure. Better writers than I have surely explained why the third film in the trilogy falls down. I still remember seeing this one at the midnight screening in South Jersey (what up, high school years) and being fucking amped. And being in a theater full of similarly excited fans and enjoying the hell out of myself. And some time later catching the film again in a different context and realizing how utterly, contemptuously, incoherently stupid it was. Ah well. I'll always have the memories, I guess?
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