Thaidakar the Ghostblood

Alright, yall

i have seen four of the X-men films now. I intend to watch at least two more. I will also watch X-men origins at one point, if only to laugh at its ridiculousness. 

First and foremost, I have watched the following films: X-men, X2, X-men the last stand, and X-men first class. The next ones I will watch are: The Wolverine and Days of Future Past. 

(hey, you, yes, you. I recommend watching the movies I did before reading this. All of the ones I’ve listed and watched are pretty good, except the last stand, but it’s a necessary evil. X2 is phenomenal.)

Before I get into the meat of what I want to talk about, I will summarize my reactions to the first two of these films.

X-men: this movie was pretty fine. Had some great and meh parts, which was to be expected. Felt like  prologue or first chapter. Highlight of the film was Rogue and Wolverine’s father daughter relationship. 7/10

X2: I loved this movie. This felt like the beginning and middle of the story. This was amazing. The writing was glorious. Cyclops felt more like a human in this one. I actually liked Logan this time. Rogue was great too. Magneto is phenomenal as usual. 9/10. 

the last stand and X-men first class are of very different qualities. While one is an enjoyable, illogical, horribly written romp through a world we love with characters we enjoy, the other is an enjoyable, illogical, well written adventure through a world we love with characters we enjoy. I would call the first two acts of both films of a similar quality from a viewers standpoint. The major difference being that first class felt more intentional with how it was done and with the way they handled the characters. It felt like First Class was respecting the characters and having fun with them. They were making them feel like how they were before and respecting previous writers. X3 was just throwing together characters and respected none of the previous arcs and build up or the characters whatsoever. 

The major differences come in each film’s third act. It is at this point that the differences between the films which I noted before become glaringly clear. One film had a well executed and focused set of action scenes, one film made it grounded in characters, one film sought to complete arcs and do proper moments.

it ain’t the last stand.

the last stand, to be fair, isn’t a bad movie. It’s merely fine. It’s just okay. It’s enjoyable, has shining moments, but ultimately fails in being the big movie it needed to be to be a sequel to X2. 

you need to have good motivations for your characters set out and at least a little relatable if you are going to make your reader, viewer or listener care about your characters and what they are going through in most cases. First class vs the Last Stand is just such a good study for this because of Magneto.

magneto in the last stand felt divorced from the Magneto we got in X2, he felt like ge was doing so many things he just wouldn’t have done without some sort of explanation or reasoning to why, no matter how twisted that reasoning it is. Magneto just did dumb things in the last stand while in First class he did dumb things because it fit his motivation perfectly. The music really helped in first class too, to make those scenes work as well as they do. 

The Last stand is a 5/10. First class is an 8.5/10.

all in all, these movies are worth a watch. They have great parts and things that make them worth while. They’re fun and entertaining with good studies on character. I will most likely rewatch the first two and first class at some point. 

Mutant and proud.