I have talked a lot about the X-Men, especially recently if you listened to the latest episode of the Good Shit podcast. The recent news of the final Wolverine movie sparked my noggin to thinkin all about Logan and the rest of the X-men, and then this movie came out on Blu Ray. Perfect. Anyway, I'm not going to go into detail about how exhausting it is to be a comic book fan and watch the X-Men movies. There's just so much different stuff that it becomes an entirely different conversation. So today, I'm going to talk straight about this movie and it's special features.
Pros:
There's a bunch! I really enjoyed this movie. It was my favorite of the X movies since X2 and (also like X2) it featured the best on screen version of my favorite character (Wolverine) that we've seen!
If the new Wolverine movie is something like that + Donald Pierce and the Reavers as the villains + an R rating = a potentially AWESOME MOVIE!!! But, but, but I've been burned too badly before to get my hopes up.
But I digress...BIG PROS: A FULL POWERED MAGNETO!!!! First of all Michael Fassbender KILLS it as the Mutant Master of Magnetism, but what I loved the most was getting to see a fully powered Magneto surrounded by a magnetic force field and pulling all magnetic objects out of the Earth! Wow!
The character performances really made this movie great. Quicksilver was the brightest point amongst the other shiny parts. One of the best scenes of the whole movie was when he rescues everyone from the X-Mansion before it explodes! So great! This Quicksilver is just SO MUCH better than the Avengers' Quicksilver.
As I started to say above, it's the character performances that make this movie. The young blood especially helps everything. I never liked Halle Berry as Storm, or Famke Janssen as Jean Grey or James Marsden as Cyclops for that matter, so to see all new actors playing those great characters is just terrific. Plus the addition of Nightcrawler was a lot of fun!
The final boss battle is one of the coolest things I've ever seen in a comic book movie! From the devastation of Magneto's power, to the physical fight with Apocalypse vs. the X-Men at the same time as a mental battle of Apocalypse vs. Professor X! Wow! Just really really well done.
My final pro is the part when Professor X tells Jean to let go and unleash her full power potential and she let's out what looks like the Phoenix Force. I don't think it was the actual Phoenix Force, but a tease at what could be. But we'll see, that could have very well been the introduction of Phoenix the character. One moment of this sequence sticks out to me as the coolest. It's when Jean realizes what she has to do and stands up to confront Apocalypse. She starts walking out of the half of a room, but instead of stopping right where the floor drops off, she just casually continues walking on the air above Apocalypse. It's just a cool scene with a simple moment that made me go, "OH SHIT it's about to go DOWN!"
The Cons
There aren't many, just a few. For instance, I didn't DISLIKE Oscar Isaac's performance as Apocalypse, but I did feel like it was missing something. As far as villains go, they kind of nailed the power level of Apocalypse, but his appearance and screen presence seemed a bit lacking. Apocalypse should be the kind of character that completely dominates the environment he is in. If they had upped the intimidation factor a bit, and made him sound a bit more menacing it would have been perfect. But honestly, I have nothing to complain about here, Apocalypse was a GREAT bad guy!
Archangel, while he looked cool and is a cool character, he was underused and totally disappointing. I'm sorry, but I don't understand why Archangel had to be different than how he is in the source material. His real name is Warren Worthington III, and he is an over-priviledged, and very wealthy dude! Finding him fighting in a cage against nobodies does the character a disservice and also did not do a great job of making Archangel seem like much of a threat. That goes for the rest of Apocalypse's "Horsemen". Storm was really cool, Pyslocke was a nice addition but was underwhelming, Magneto was a total bad ass, and then Archangel lost in a one on one vs. Nightcrawler then is beaten two more times in the final battle. Disappointing. The Horsemen are supposed to be who Apocalypse believes to be the STRONGEST mutants. Magneto totally fits the bill, hell even Storm and Pyslocke have a decent argument going for them, but Archangel... BORRRRRR-INNGGGG!
2nd to last Con and it's in 2 parts. Jennifer Lawrence's performance and Mystique as a character in the movie are both points that I did not like at all. First of all Mystique is NOT that interesting of a character, nor was she ever a member of the X-Men let alone ever led them! I had a big problem with this because it was obviously studio involvement that placed JLaw and Mystique at the center of this movie. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Jennifer Lawrence as an actress. I think she's very talented, but her involvement in this movie was purely for profits. Fox Studios knows how big her star power is and so would NEVER allow anything other than her or Hugh Jackman as the "lead" character of the story. This is just another of the MANY reasons these movies are so exhausting to X-Men comic fans. There's just SO MANY differences between the movies and the comics, and most of the complaints are about the changes in the characters rather than the stories.
The second part of this complaint is Mystique herself. As a comic fan and X-Men fan in general, I HATED seeing Mystique take a leadership role. WHY?? Aside from JLaw's star power what other reason was there? Answer: none. Even in the other X-movies, I've felt that Mystique's role was too much. She's not a feature character, she's a wild card and she was never used in that way well enough. I'm reminded of the first time I discovered (as a reader) that comic book characters had sexual relationships. I knew that a lot of my favorite characters were involved in romantic relationships, but as a pre-pubescent young man just learning about sex, it wasn't something I looked for in my comic books. So when my favorite character Wolverine takes off from the X-Mansion to blow off some steam at a bar, I was shocked to discover that he winds up sleeping with Mystique. As I grew up and became more familiar with Wolverine, I learned how common this was. Not just hooking up with Mystique, but his casual relationships with women other than Jean Grey, Silverfox, and Mariko Yashida (his "true loves").
This wasn't all what Mystique was about. No. The point here is that she would pop up out of no where, disguised as someone else until it was time in the story for the big reveal. I know that using this device in more than one movie is redundant, but there's still a lot to play with. I guess what it comes down to for me is this; there are SO MANY characters associated with the X-Men and the mutants connected to their universe that I don't understand why Mystique became as popular as she did. I didn't think Rebecca Romijn, while not a bad performance, wasn't that popular of a character. Nor did I think that Jennifer Lawrence's portrayal gained any more new fans, but obviously the studio saw more than I did. Whatever.
Finally, my last con and biggest pet peeve of the entire franchise is FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING HOLY CAN WE PLEASE STOP CALLING MAGNETO "ERIC"????!!!!!!! I can't even begin to describe how much this irritates me. As an X-Men comic reader for most of my life, I discovered Magneto's real name in the late 1990's just like all the other comic book readers. Then the X-Men movie came out in 2000 and EVERYONE was calling him Eric. In my eyes this is a total snub of the character. Magneto is a complex character, and has done MANY terrible things in his life. This movie did a great job of showing what Magneto really wants. A peaceful and quiet family life where he can work and raise his family without fear of being persecuted. In the comics, he did this several times, changing his identity each time. That's how Wanda and Pietro Maximoff (the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver) are revealed to be HIS children (this has since been redacted and Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver have been rewritten to actually possibly be Inhumans rather than Mutants)! Or how Polaris is also his kid! Magneto even had a family and family life almost identical to the scene in the movie where he kills all those policemen! He's so dangerous and awesome and NEEDS to be called by his real character name. MAGNETO. Not fucking Eric.
Final Thoughts: Overall this movie is the most fun I've had watching an X-Men movie. And while it has it's negative points and continues the tradition of exhausting fans of the source material, it really is a well made movie. The visuals are stunning, the action is fantastic, and best of all we get to see a young but FULLY POWERED X-MEN team! I definitely recommend this and maintain it's place in the Year (So Far) rankings of #2 after Deadpool and followed by Captain America: Civil War.
The Special Features:
Deleted/Extended scenes are OK. Not that long, so if you're into what "could have been" then it's worth it.
The gag reel produces some chuckles. You can tell that the actors seemed to be enjoying themselves. But it also makes Jennifer Lawrence seem like she's only interested in lunch.
The Behind the Scenes stuff is what's cool. There are several short documentaries that give us a closer look at the new characters, new villain, and some of the returning vets.
There's also a wrap party video. The music annoyed the hell out of me so I shut if off soon after it started.
Thanks for reading! Be sure to check back tomorrow for Part 2 of WHAT WOULD BATMAN DO...Against a Team of "Evil" Super Heroes!
The Cons
There aren't many, just a few. For instance, I didn't DISLIKE Oscar Isaac's performance as Apocalypse, but I did feel like it was missing something. As far as villains go, they kind of nailed the power level of Apocalypse, but his appearance and screen presence seemed a bit lacking. Apocalypse should be the kind of character that completely dominates the environment he is in. If they had upped the intimidation factor a bit, and made him sound a bit more menacing it would have been perfect. But honestly, I have nothing to complain about here, Apocalypse was a GREAT bad guy!
Archangel, while he looked cool and is a cool character, he was underused and totally disappointing. I'm sorry, but I don't understand why Archangel had to be different than how he is in the source material. His real name is Warren Worthington III, and he is an over-priviledged, and very wealthy dude! Finding him fighting in a cage against nobodies does the character a disservice and also did not do a great job of making Archangel seem like much of a threat. That goes for the rest of Apocalypse's "Horsemen". Storm was really cool, Pyslocke was a nice addition but was underwhelming, Magneto was a total bad ass, and then Archangel lost in a one on one vs. Nightcrawler then is beaten two more times in the final battle. Disappointing. The Horsemen are supposed to be who Apocalypse believes to be the STRONGEST mutants. Magneto totally fits the bill, hell even Storm and Pyslocke have a decent argument going for them, but Archangel... BORRRRRR-INNGGGG!
2nd to last Con and it's in 2 parts. Jennifer Lawrence's performance and Mystique as a character in the movie are both points that I did not like at all. First of all Mystique is NOT that interesting of a character, nor was she ever a member of the X-Men let alone ever led them! I had a big problem with this because it was obviously studio involvement that placed JLaw and Mystique at the center of this movie. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Jennifer Lawrence as an actress. I think she's very talented, but her involvement in this movie was purely for profits. Fox Studios knows how big her star power is and so would NEVER allow anything other than her or Hugh Jackman as the "lead" character of the story. This is just another of the MANY reasons these movies are so exhausting to X-Men comic fans. There's just SO MANY differences between the movies and the comics, and most of the complaints are about the changes in the characters rather than the stories.
The second part of this complaint is Mystique herself. As a comic fan and X-Men fan in general, I HATED seeing Mystique take a leadership role. WHY?? Aside from JLaw's star power what other reason was there? Answer: none. Even in the other X-movies, I've felt that Mystique's role was too much. She's not a feature character, she's a wild card and she was never used in that way well enough. I'm reminded of the first time I discovered (as a reader) that comic book characters had sexual relationships. I knew that a lot of my favorite characters were involved in romantic relationships, but as a pre-pubescent young man just learning about sex, it wasn't something I looked for in my comic books. So when my favorite character Wolverine takes off from the X-Mansion to blow off some steam at a bar, I was shocked to discover that he winds up sleeping with Mystique. As I grew up and became more familiar with Wolverine, I learned how common this was. Not just hooking up with Mystique, but his casual relationships with women other than Jean Grey, Silverfox, and Mariko Yashida (his "true loves").
This wasn't all what Mystique was about. No. The point here is that she would pop up out of no where, disguised as someone else until it was time in the story for the big reveal. I know that using this device in more than one movie is redundant, but there's still a lot to play with. I guess what it comes down to for me is this; there are SO MANY characters associated with the X-Men and the mutants connected to their universe that I don't understand why Mystique became as popular as she did. I didn't think Rebecca Romijn, while not a bad performance, wasn't that popular of a character. Nor did I think that Jennifer Lawrence's portrayal gained any more new fans, but obviously the studio saw more than I did. Whatever.
Finally, my last con and biggest pet peeve of the entire franchise is FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING HOLY CAN WE PLEASE STOP CALLING MAGNETO "ERIC"????!!!!!!! I can't even begin to describe how much this irritates me. As an X-Men comic reader for most of my life, I discovered Magneto's real name in the late 1990's just like all the other comic book readers. Then the X-Men movie came out in 2000 and EVERYONE was calling him Eric. In my eyes this is a total snub of the character. Magneto is a complex character, and has done MANY terrible things in his life. This movie did a great job of showing what Magneto really wants. A peaceful and quiet family life where he can work and raise his family without fear of being persecuted. In the comics, he did this several times, changing his identity each time. That's how Wanda and Pietro Maximoff (the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver) are revealed to be HIS children (this has since been redacted and Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver have been rewritten to actually possibly be Inhumans rather than Mutants)! Or how Polaris is also his kid! Magneto even had a family and family life almost identical to the scene in the movie where he kills all those policemen! He's so dangerous and awesome and NEEDS to be called by his real character name. MAGNETO. Not fucking Eric.
Final Thoughts: Overall this movie is the most fun I've had watching an X-Men movie. And while it has it's negative points and continues the tradition of exhausting fans of the source material, it really is a well made movie. The visuals are stunning, the action is fantastic, and best of all we get to see a young but FULLY POWERED X-MEN team! I definitely recommend this and maintain it's place in the Year (So Far) rankings of #2 after Deadpool and followed by Captain America: Civil War.
The Special Features:
Deleted/Extended scenes are OK. Not that long, so if you're into what "could have been" then it's worth it.
The gag reel produces some chuckles. You can tell that the actors seemed to be enjoying themselves. But it also makes Jennifer Lawrence seem like she's only interested in lunch.
The Behind the Scenes stuff is what's cool. There are several short documentaries that give us a closer look at the new characters, new villain, and some of the returning vets.
There's also a wrap party video. The music annoyed the hell out of me so I shut if off soon after it started.
Thanks for reading! Be sure to check back tomorrow for Part 2 of WHAT WOULD BATMAN DO...Against a Team of "Evil" Super Heroes!
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