Reviewing The Avengers Part Two: Here's us, on the raggedy edge...

So, here we are, about a month after The Avengers came into our lives and quite possibly changed the world with its awesomeness. It made over $200 million worldwide in its first weekend and is pretty much praised by critics and fans across the board. Everyone's getting paid and no one's going anywhere. Whedon's a made man, a sequel's all set up, and the fans go home satisfied. Maybe the happiest ending ever associated with Joss Whedon.

So...what now?

Seriously, they have spent four years and all these movies have been building up to this one event, which was indeed successful, but now it's all over. Most people will not see Avengers more than once in the theatre, and based on its box office success we probably won't see a DVD release until at least the fall (which, granted, is not all that bad and I'm sure the DVD is gonna be awesome, and damn skippy I'll be first in line for it). But even then, I'm left thinking about what is going to happen now that this one movie changed the game. 

What I'm getting at is that there might be something rotten in the state of Asgard.

First, let's get the obvious out of the way: Marvel has officially kicked DC's ass out of the multimedia game. There was a chance, before Superman Returns karmically failed (see my X-Men 3 address for the story) and Green Lantern facepalmed its way into The Abyss, where DC and Marvel could have had a good race for the better general movie franchises. The X-Men movies were getting worse and worse, mediocre films about B-Level heroes were getting pushed out (The Punisher, Daredevil, Ghost Rider), and the bigger name hero movies were failing (Hulk, Fantastic fucking Four).

Amidst the mediocrity came Batman Begins and Spider Man, the crown jewels of DC and Marvel respectably. By 2008, Batman Begins was viewed as the best Bat-movie made up to that time, and Spider Man 2 probably received even more praise than that. 2008 changed everything with The Dark Knight and Iron Man. Basically polar opposites of each other, both got ridiculous acclaim and attention, with TDK making more money than God and changing the way people approached Comic Book movies forever. Iron Man flew a little more under the radar (ironically, considering the differences between Iron Man and Batman), but started the Avengers movement leading us to the now of things.

Like I said, there was a lot of potential for there to be a close race between the companies, even after Avengers-planning had begun. But after four years and so many misfires, DC had two things going for it: Dark Knight and Smallville. And guess what? Both are done. Smallville ended in pretty much the worst way possible, and Dark Knight Rises gets released in a couple of weeks, and that is going to be a BIG FUCKING DEAL. But once that happens they have nothing. Nothing, and staring down the barrel of upcoming releases the likes of Iron Man 3, Thor 2, and, of course, Avengers 2. I'm sure DC will attempt to make a comeback (and that I will enjoy it because maybe they will actually try), but it looks bleak, which is hard for me to say because I'm a DC guy at heart. 

So why is this bad? For the zero wrestling fans that will read this and understand this reference, wrestling was redefined by a neck-and-neck competition between WCW and WWF, resulting in the best possible product it could present. It was glorious. Then one day the war ended: one company bought the other, and people stopped giving two shits about how good the product was because they knew there were no other options. This is what I am afraid of. It is easy for a director like a Nolan or a Whedon to legitimately care about their work, but for a company like Marvel (or Disney, really) to maintain that enthusiasm in a fight they have already won years down the road when Avengers 2 is ready to go? The pessimist in me does not think Avengers 2 will live up to the original. 

Let's move on to the Superbowl Syndrome (patent pending).

'But Knight Owl, what ever is the Superbowl Syndrome?'

Oh, I'll feed you, baby birds. Every year I watch several months and many games worth of a season of football to come to an exciting playoff exchange and then the big climax in the Superbowl. There is a lot of anticipation and build up in that time: following teams, becoming emotionally invested in wins and losses. An inexplicably and unjustifiably large amount of time is devoted to this, even though it has that expiry date in the Superbowl and then the whole thing starts from scratch the following fall. Now. I'm not sure about most people, but I can't really think of a Superbowl that had lived up to my expectations fully, or even justified all the time I spent prior to that event preparing for it in so many ways.

I'm not saying that Avengers didn't live up to expectations because it did, very much so. But think about how you'd feel if the football season leading up to the Superbowl was FOUR GODDAMN YEARS LONG. The thing happens, and it's great...but then it ends. Loki. Shwarmas. Done. Would you be sad? I was a little sad. Maybe not the first or second viewing, but after the third or fourth I realized it was over until the next big game. So, sadness after witnessing the end of the conclusion of an culmination of a significant amount of time and investment=Superbowl Syndrome. Tell your friends.

My last big issue to address is the question of what's going to happen with the new characters that have been established? Sure, there's Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor that are all set up, but what about the other kids in the class? I'm sure Fury will pop up every now and again with Agent Robin Sparkles at his side, so no big there. But Widow and Hawkeye? Probably not. I do not think that 'Black Widow and Hawkeye Strike Back' is going to be a thing any time soon, which is a little too bad because I enjoyed their perspectives in this over-the-top world of gods and giants, being two just plain people who are pretty and shoot things.

The big question mark for me is The Hulk. This guy made the movie for me and pretty much everyone else as I understand, and in my opinion it was because it was the first time he was done RIGHT. The movies where he was solo were both two hours of melodrama and 15 minutes of FUCKING HULK SMASH! In Avengers there was a hint of that melodrama, but it wasn't his reason for being or his driving force. He wanted to help out, and he straight up knocked the gig out of the park. As both Banner and Hulk, he was entertaining, convincing and interesting to watch. Throw in a bit of slapstick comedy and you have yourself Hulk as he was meant to be seen. Now based on that, do I want to see a Mark Ruffalo-led Hulk standalone? NOOOOOPE. Let's face it, Hulk was awesome because there were people he could play off of. Banner hangs out alone because he's scared to death of killing ALL OF THE THINGS but he's cool around the Avengers because they can give him a run for his money. Lose them and it becomes another pity party for Bruce Banner and his stretchy pants. If it happens, I'll see it. If it's good, I'll eat my words. But for right now, history is on my side for this round. 

Welp, that's it people. The Avengers is a thing and I am very, very happy about it. If I were smart enough to just live in the 'right now' and pay no nevermind to what's up ahead, I'd have no complaints. I could be very wrong about everything here, but I can very much see myself walking out of Iron Man 3 and saying, 'It was good, but it wasn't Avengers.' That phrase scares the shit out of me because I can see myself saying it a lot.

Let's face it, comic book movies can only really exist among themselves until they pull a Lord of the Rings and win an Oscar or some shit and truly legitimize the genre, but not even I want that to happen. Right now, I don't see myself comparing Django Unchained to Avengers, nor am I going to think about how much the new Superman movie coming out next year is NOT like The Artist (HATE). Keep it that way. At this point all I can say is that The Avengers is awesome and has changed everything. Watch it. Watch it again. Enjoy a shwarma, and we'll wait and see what happens.

Knight Owl

Reviewing 'The Avengers' Part One: Achievement Unlocked

...and we're back! Sorry about the lack of a post from last week, faithful reader(s)(?). If one were to put blame on my late post (and I will), the responsibility falls on three things:

1. Random Shit (i.e. 'Life')
2. Work
3. Final Fantasy 7

Yes, I have finally put some significant time into a console RPG for the first time, 15 years too late as it turns out. But Super Mario 64-level graphics notwithstanding, and my constant and desperate search for a save point persistently unfulfilled, the game is quite awesome (as per what everyone who has ever played the game has told me), but I digress.

I suppose an additional reason for my absence can be attributed to the subject of this post, a little movie that I have now seen 3 times, with more viewings to come: Joss Whedon's Disney's Marvel's THE MOTHERFUCKING AVENGERS!

My wait for this event (make no mistake, this is no mere movie, people) began with a viewing of Iron Man in 2008 upon opening night, after a nice 3-or-so hour wait in the mall among friends because of my overzealous desire to make sure both tickets and decent seats were attained (I REGRET NOTHING). After an awesome 2 hours, we were subjected to an extra treat after the credits, where Jules Winfield sans afro, avec eyepatch informs both Tony Stark and the audience that the Avengers is officially a thing that is happening. Cue blown mind.

This became a pattern over the next 4 years of Marvel movies, except Ghost Rider cuz fuck that guy. We, the audience, would be subjected to a good-to-great comic-to-film adaptation, followed by PSA about THIS PERSON IS GOING TO BE AN AVENGER in so many words. It sucked. Straight up, it was bullshit, mostly because meanwhile, on Earth That Is, the actual film was in some sort of developmental limbo because of 1) costs and 2) a lack of leadership because Captain America is neither real nor a film director. No one wanted, or could manage, a large-scale, high-budget film as unprecedented as Avengers, and those who would couldn't be bought with what was left after RDJ and SLJ got their $$$.

Enter the Chosen One: Joss Whedon. He was perfect. A skilled but unestablished-in-the-mainstream writer and director, who happened to also be a legendary fanboy and specialized in working with larger casts. It was truly brilliant in its simplicity.

Things only got better when Whedon showed up on the sets of Avengers platforms 'Thor' and 'Captain America: The First Avenger...that wasn't even on the team until long after it was established' and said "FUCK THIS SCRIPT"* and helped to re-write the scripts of both movies to better fit his, as the films would all be revealed to be very closely related. As far as I know, Whedon didn't even want a writing credit for the changes, because fuck Edward Norton (but that's a story for another time).

And so the board was set for the endgame that had been built up for 4 years. To say that the hype behind this movie was 'substantial' is so understating that you should frankly be ashamed of yourself. It was the culmination of, and maybe even the reason for, several films that preceded it, including:

Iron Man
Iron Man 2
The Incredible Hulk (kinda, sorta...)
Captain America: The First Avenger
Thor

...and through these movies, the cast was established and expanded to include Nick 'Bad Mother Fucker' Fury, Black Widow, and Hawkeye. Basically, if you weren't invested in this movie, you never will be. And if you were, you knew that this movie couldn't be anything but the absolute best. I ended up being more invested in the film's quality than most, for one simple reason: May 4th, 2012 absolutely SUCKED for me from 7:00am to approximately 10:00pm. Here's the thing, though...I remember nothing from that day now, except that I saw this movie.

So, yeah, The Avengers fucking delivers on every single level. I'm usually accepting of the opinions of others, but if you were overly unsatisfied by this movie, either take the stick out of your ass or get to a therapist for a prescription for whatever pills make you not sad, because there's something wrong with you. First off, the movie looks fantastic, probably better than any of its predecessors. The action scenes were surprisingly clear considering everything going on throughout the scenes, getting away from the up-close, 'What was that? Was that an arm?', Michael Bay-like kind of action that high-scale popcorn movies tend to force-feed the audience. The great visuals continue onto the depictions of the characters themselves. For example, the Hulk has never looked better than in this film. Of course he was going to be heavy CG because hey, Lou Ferrigno and green body paint were not going to work for this (it would have made the Eric Bana-led Hulk movie WAY better though).

The story wasn't as linear as the average action movie, but it fit. Through every viewing I felt as though I was reading a comic book. The pacing, the shifting points of view, and the exchanging dialogue were as reminiscent of a comic book as a movie can get, unless you're Zack Snyder, who basically copy-and-pastes comic book panels onto storyboards while telling Gerard Butler to punt someone down a hole whilst debating the differences between Madness and Sparta.

The true strength in this film, like every other Whedon-written work, lies in the characters themselves. It helps that most of the characters have had at least a two-hour window to develop during previous movies, but they still take on a separate identity when forced to interact with each other. Considering the cast is made up of Robert Downey Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, Chris 'LOL Human Torch' Evans, and Chris 'I was in Star Trek for 2 minutes hurrdurr' Hemsworth, the acting in this movie was absolutely fantastic all around, with Tom Hiddleston's Loki and Edward Norton Mark Ruffalo stealing many of the scenes they were part of.  I was also very surprised by how much I loved the Hulk's appearance in this film considering his former appearances in his own work. Previously, Hulk was depicted as somewhat melodramatic and straight up unfun for a huge green rage monster. Avengers changes all that and turns Hulk into said monster who then develops a sense of humor of sorts, bringing in a not-too-subtle slapstick element to an already entertaining experience.

Were there problems with this movie? Sure, but mostly due to my fanboy anal-retentiveness did I even notice them. The 2-1/2 hour length didn't bother me at all. I mean, seriously how else was this getting pulled off? Biggest problem: Where was the catchphrase I've either been saying or hearing for weeks before the movie debuted: AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!? There is no real phrase for any individual involved here, save for 'Hulk Smash,' which made a cameo appearance. Why not throw it in there? Problem #2: Cap looked rediculous. Not the uniform so much, just the mask. In his movie, the mask was a helmet that not only looked fine but had a practical purpose. There was no need for him to be wearing this half-fabric, half-plastic, painted-on-wings horse shit, but realizing the outcry that would have taken place were he to wear nothing on his head, this is probably the better option.

The only other thing bugging me takes the form of a slightly glaring plot hole that I can't see past. Before the climax in New York, Hulk and Thor get separated from the group and each other, and yet somehow, with no method of communication between them, they both show up in New York to Assemble. Midfight, Thor flies in from out of nowhere and later on, Banner putt-putts in on what looks like the shitty bike Peter Parker had in Spider Man 2.

What in the Seven Hells did I miss?

To think about it, there are perfectly plausible ways to explain how the two deux-ex-machinaed their way into the climax, and I won't really get into them to avoid further spoilers, but it takes little effort to throw some extra info the audience's way to clarify the goings-on.

In conclusion (but not really), Whedon and Co. pulled off what many thought impossible, and did it with seeming ease; and, as far as I am concerned, mindblowing success and accuracy. If you haven't seen this movie, go...NOW. If you have, see it again, because I have enjoyed it more and more with every viewing and have caught something new every time. I heart this movie. I'll have a Part Two coming up addressing what should happen now, considering I believe that this film and its success will be changing the game considerably.

Knight Owl

*Paraphrased

A Review of Cabin in the Woods; Death of a Sub-Genre?

**I'll try to keep this spoiler-free, in the interest of those who haven't seen this movie, as I very much want people to go see it. If I can help that with this review, even better.**


This might be the year that Joss Whedon takes over the world.

Unless you have been living under a rock (in a basement, on the moon, of Earth 2), you are aware that the Avengers movie is coming out this year, in less than a month in fact. That movie alone will put Whedon's name on the map of not just the cult following he has, but the entire mainstream world. As a filmmaker, Whedon has yet to really make his mark on anyone other than Browncoats, the devoted fan base of his masterpiece Firefly who made Whedon's first film Serenity a reality in the first place. While that was a wide film release, and saw some successes in box office and DVD sales, it could be argued that he still hasn't made the transition from TV to film, even with Buffy, Angel, Firefly, and Dollhouse under his belt.

After this year, that argument is over. And it starts with Cabin in the Woods.

CITW has been finished and caught in post-developmental hell for about a year, and finally found its way to a wide release this April through Alliance and Lionsgate (I'm writing a Thank You letter as we speak). The trailers and marketing campaigns show this movie as a new way to approach the 'cabin in the woods' horror sub-genre, made famous by films like Friday the 13th. However, anyone following the development of the film, or anyone who knows Whedon's work for that matter, expected more of a tongue-in-cheek satire of sorts. So before I go on, let me say this: THIS IS NOT A HORROR MOVIE. The negative criticisms made by people who have seen this movie basically surround how they 'thought they were going to see a horror movie'. The fact that this movie is as good as it is and people can still hate it based on that drives me insane. It's the same attitude people brought to Drive, hating it for not being Fast and the Furious. There is a reason these expectations were not met, and it is because THESE MOVIES ALREADY FUCKING EXIST! Seriously, anyone going into CITW expecting a new Friday the 13th, don't go. Don't pay your money to be disappointed (or do, because I want this movie to make money). Just go to your closest movie rental store and rent a couple of the LITERALLY THOUSANDS of movies that belong to the 'cabin in the woods' sub-genre. It is entirely possible that the marketing of the film is at fault for this attitude, and that's fine. I could see that, and have been burned by similar misconceptions based on trailers and the like. So shame on whoever let the audience think this satirical masterpiece was just another manipulation of jump-scares and torture porn.

Now it might seem that I'm giving Joss Whedon all the credit for Cabin, and that's wrong. Total kudos goes to director Drew Goddard, who also co-wrote the film with Whedon. The film looks and flows greatly, and even the parts that look 'bad' do so for a reason, like a lot of the less-than-perfect elements of the film. Goddard has worked with Whedon in the past on his works, and is probably most famous for writing the (under appreciated, in my opinion) film Cloverfield. Considering that CITW is his directorial debut makes me all the more impressed with the film.

The plot synopsis, as stolen from Joblo.com, is as follows: Five friends head to a cabin in the woods for a weekend of fun, not realising that forces outside of their control have vastly different plans for them.In the interest of what I said earlier about expectations, I'll go on record saying that this is a pretty weak sum-up for this movie. Also, to be fair, I went into this movie just because I knew Whedon wrote it and I loved it, and pretty much everyone who has gone with me to this movie did so with the same motivation. I could have known absolutely nothing about this movie except for that and still would have gone in with every expectation of awesomeness, but I can accept that not all people have that faith. While the idea of turning a film sub-genre (ESPECIALLY a horror sub-genre) into a satire of itself is hardly original, this movie has done it better than most. I hesitate to use the word 'spoof' as a way to describe this movie because at times it comes off as such, but it's much more than just that. Besides, using 'spoof' to describe a good movie died with 'Scary Movie'. I'll use 'satire' because much of the humour in relation to the sub-genre it's referencing is much more subtle than a spoof like Scary Movie 'Young Frankenstein'. I would describe CITW as more of a 'Galaxy Quest' for horror movies, only R-rated and WAY darker, in that the humour and satire is strongly present but there's enough elements of the genre in the story that the film could and should be considered a part of it. Basically, at the end of the day, if I have to decide whether to put CITW in the 'Comedy' or the 'Horror' section of the movie store, it's going in 'Horror'. 

My question is this: What happens to the titular cabin?

The 'cabin in the woods' motif that this movie plays off of has been a part of scary movies since (at least) the 1970's, with classic films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th. Granted, these two films alone have been sequeled, remade, and rebooted to True Death, never mind the constant reuse of the motif in MUCH lesser films. It could even be said that Evil Dead (the film I believe CITW emulates most) was satirical towards this sub-genre, and is now considered a classic horror film in it's own right. Despite this, there really hasn't been a significant 'cabin' movie in some time, probably since Eli Roth's 'Cabin Fever', a breath of fresh air into the genre that, while great in and of itself, didn't help anything in the big picture. The sad news is that the horror genre is dying, with the mainstays being 'Zombies', 'Remakes', 'Torture Porn', and 'Paranormal Activity'. Vampires have been slowly castrated over the last decade, and while I could make an argument about how Whedon might be a little responsible for that, I'd rather be a hypocrite and blame Twilight, because I believe that all the world's problems are either Twilight or World-of-Warcraft related. The need desire for major film companies to make money over quality horror films typically result in a lesser rating, maybe something in a PG-13. This results in:

1. less language, blood/gore, sex (don't kid yourself, it's necessary for horror films)
2. a hard and swift kick to the balls of the filmmakers, fans, and the films that preceded them.

Now, as I said before, making fun of horror happens all the time, and it's never hurt that much before. Evil Dead turned out to be a satire almost by accident, but picked it up and ran with it and made the genre stronger for it. 'Shaun of the Dead' breathed new life into the 'zombie' sub-genre, which as we can see today is all over the goddamn place. But I don't think that CITW is going to have the same effect. Why? It simply might be TOO good.

Think about it: back in the day, movies like TCM and Friday the 13th were unprecedented and state-of-the-art horror films. No one had seen anything like them, and the movies scared the ever loving shit out of just about everyone. Then the darkness came. Sequel after ripoff after reboot, the motif became less and less effective up to now, with the walls of Family Video lined with direct-to-DVD releases with ridiculous names like MURDERDEATHKILLEXTREMEBOO-AH-AH-AH-AH hanging out beside the newest Hellraiser sequel or whatever. This particular sub-genre may never see better days than people like myself watching these movies ironically amongst highly intoxicated friends laughing at nothing in particular. And while that sucks, what may be worse is to have two outsiders come in out of nowhere with a movie that is not only better than 99.999% of all 'cabin' movies, but picks apart and makes fun of every recognisable trope within said movies, and to have that movie be such a critical and financial success (again, as it deserves to be) that it executes the coup de gras on the legacies of Jason and Co. As a movie fan, I don't want that to happen.

So yes, go see 'Cabin in the Woods', knowing that it is not a straight-up horror film. Expect to laugh, if only at the absurdity of it all. Appreciate the talents of Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard behind the camera, as well as the performances of those in front of it, like Chris 'Thor' Hemsworth, Amy Acker, and Fran 'I steal ALL of the scenes' Kranz. Then go home and decide if this will be the 'Shaun of the Dead' of the 'cabin' motif, or does it make Friday the 13th look ridiculous.

Next week, I'm throwing my hat into the 'Hunger Games VS Battle Royale' debate. After that, expect a whole lot more Whedon ass kissing as I address the Earth's Mightiest Movie (May 4th!).

And for fuck's sake, don't split up.

Knight Owl

A Retroactive Review of the X-Men films.

So, barely an hour after I post my inaugural blog, I see that X-Men First Class has been added to Netflix. Upon seeing this, I have three prominent thoughts:

1. Man, dat Jennifer Lawrence.
2. I should watch this again (and then I did)
3. The X-Men movies are as good a place as any to start...

And here we are. The X-Men have become a huge part of pop culture since 2000, and have made impacts on almost every way I intend to address in this blog (fingers crossed for a Nightcrawler-led emo rock band, just so I can cover all the bases). The X-Men have been a prominent force in comics for decades, and had a good run in the 90's as a cartoon series as maybe the second best animated show on TV inspired by a comic (Batman TAS FTW!!!11!!); but their importance wasn't realized by the world until the first live-action movie came out to tremendous success...and, some say, the subsequent renovation of the 'Comic Book Movie' genre that many thought was killed by bat-nipples.

Now, as I've stated, I love me some comics. And movies. X-Men has long running franchises in both now, and yet I can't claim to know everything about them. My interest in the mutants growing up began and ended with Wolverine, and the movies didn't change that much. Not a good sign. I've come to define a great film adaptation by giving me the desire to go back and read the source material, leading to me reading the Harry Potter series, the Song of Ice and Fire books, and looking to start the Hunger Games books. The fact that I still haven't read more than a handful of X-story arcs doesn't say much for these movies, regardless of how important they are to the genre.

To date, there are three actual 'X-Men' movies, with one 'Origins' movie and 'First Class' being either a reboot or prequel...I'm not sure which. It would be an understatement to say that, out of the five movies, some are better than others. To avoid being TOO long winded, my opinions of the X-movies will be quick to the X-point to keep the X-interest of my X-readers. X-citing, isn't it? (See what I did there?) Also, fair warning: there are probably X-spoilers ahead, but if you haven't seen these movies you probably shouldn't be reading this in the first place. It's not your thing. Trust me.

And now, I will proceed to tear these movies a new adamantium-laced asshole.

X-Men (2000):

So, yeah...I've never liked this movie.

And not for no reason. And like Green Lantern other comic book movies, I'm willing to admit what movies I don't like do well. But as a comic book movie, there are certain aspects of the story that should, if not absolutely NEED to be true to the source material. This movie drops the ball on a couple of them.

"But Knight Owl, what ever do you mean?" Put on hard hats, I'm dropping some hard knowledge.

Example #1: Wolverine and Rogue, pre-X-Men.

So we have Rogue, a southern belle teenager who finds out that she literally sucks guys dry with a single touch. We also have Wolverine, a grungy, tough, Canadian badass who participates in cage fighting because that is what Americans believe Canadians do for kicks. What do these two sub-plots have in common?

Yep, nothing.

I get that there is a need to establish Rogue's exile from normal life, as well as Wolverine being Canadian and also a badass, and it does set up plot points for the movie down the road. But it seems like just such a random pairing to me (and not the first, or the most random pairing...I'm coming for you First Class).

Example #2: The Costumes.

Ok, the crack made by Cyclops about yellow spandex fit, and probably would have looked ridiculous. That doesn't mean the group of heroes that are already being subjugated to persecution by those people they are trying to save should show up looking like walking billboards for the Leather Factory or antagonists of the latest Clive Barker horror work. I've heard this decision was based upon the success of Batman's costume going from the tights in the comics to the rubber leather whatever the hell the batsuit was made of. Sounds like bullshit to me. Batman wearing black was essential to the practical uses of his suit and therefore his appearance in general (how Adam West struck fear into the hearts of criminals with those eyebrows is fucking beyond me). Having the X-Men show up looking like a cyberpunk biker gang is a bad move.

And my personal favourite:

Example #3: Wolverine and Sabertooth barely acknowledge each other.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

WolverTooth might be one of the best rivalries in any forum...probably just for the fact that it could go on for literally forever. I would have been less angry if the relationship between Professor X and Magneto was non-existent. It was bad enough that they gave Sabertooth the 'Batman-and-Robin Bane' treatment, but then to castrate their feud down to 'LOL I STOLE UR DOGTAGZ' damn near ruined an already good-but-not-great movie. 

Ok, I'm done being angry (with this particular movie), and I wouldn't be fair if I didn't say there was a lot with this movie that I like. The casting was very inspired when it wasn't obvious (who else was going to play Professor X?). Thank you for finding Hugh Jackman. The rumours surrounding Dougray 'evil Tom Cruise' Scott being Wolverine in pre-production gave teenage me panic attacks. Could have done without Halle Berry, especially after hearing that she threw a fit for not getting more screen time in later films, and Famke Janssen as nowhere near hot enough to play Jean Grey, but I can get past little nit picky things like that. The few action scenes in the movie were pretty great. Most importantly, for the most part the individual relationships and personalities of the main characters (minus Sabertooth) were pretty spot on. The relationship between Xavier and Magneto and the love triangle between Cyclops, Jean and Wolverine were key elements in making this work, and I'm happy they made a point of making it part of the film.

All in all, I can't deny the successes of this film, and am glad that it is at least partially responsible for the rise of the 'Comic Book Movie'. It will never be my favourite of the genre, much like the source material may never be my go-to read. It's important to the culture that is important to me. So there's that.

X2 (2003):


I've heard this movie called one of the greatest Comic Book movies ever made. It was certainly up there, especially at the time it came out, where the closest competition since 2000 was Spider Man (which featured Kirsten Dunst *shudder*). X2 was everything X1 was, turned up to 11...both a good and bad thing. While everything good about X1 was emphasised by a grander storyline, better visuals, and the benefit of watching Wolverine go Nucking Futs on a mansion full of soldiers. It also began the pattern of throwing more and more mutants into the movie. It was well done in this movie, but gets ridiculous later on. It also means that the problems that I had with X1 are still there, nagging at me. No lessons were learned from the WolverTooth debacle. This time around, Deathstrike is the anti-Logan, a hot Asian chick with five adamantium claws to Logan's three. Also side note, in canon Deathstrike, aka Yuriko, and Logan are ex-lovers. Seeing as how a great deal of the movie's plot has to do with Wolverine\s past, you would think that this tidbit of information could have found it's way into the film. NOPE. She's just there, barely says two words the whole affair.

Also, is anyone else bothered by the fact that, after maybe the best introduction of a character ever, Nightcrawler basically does nothing awesome the rest of the movie. Alan Cumming didn't return to X3 due to the hours upon hours of make-up it took to get into character, and I wouldn't blame him if he went through all that to sit on my ass in a plane, or chill out in church rafters.

While this is easily the best of the original X-trilogy, there is one staggering disappointment...but it's not this movie's fault. The foreshadowing that takes place in this movie promises that one of the best story arcs in Comic Book history will make it's way to film: the Dark Phoenix saga. Now, I was aware that it was impossible for this to be totally accurate to the source material, but the precedent was there so I wouldn't be too upset with moderate inaccuracies. So, with the quality of movie that X2 was, and the promise of Phoenix making an appearance in the third film, I was actually excited for X3. And then...

X3 (2006):

This poor, poor movie was fucked from the get-go.

The story starts with the need to follow up X2, which is considered a perfect Comic Book movie at the time. Living up to that expectation alone is a daunting task in and of itself (and we will see if Nolan can pull off a similar feat this summer with DKR. I have faith.). The script is complicated by a pending writer's strike within Hollywood, though not in full swing as of the script's completion.

Then the shit hits the fan. Bryan Singer, director of the preceding X-films, takes off mid-pre-production to make a new Superman movie (considered a failure in it's own right), and takes star James 'Cyclops' 'Guy who flies planes and is Lois Lane's random boyfriend' Marsden with him. So now the movie is short a main character and a FUCKING DIRECTOR. Dire straits, one might say.

So how does Fox fix this?

First, we bring in Brett Ratner, considered a poor man's Bryan Singer, with credits to his name such as Red Dragon, the Rush Hour series, and making Chris Tucker popular. Not the worst choice that could have been made at the last minute, but not the best fit for the series in my opinion.

Then, in response to the combined rediculous decision making of Singer and Marsden, the writers pull a full-on Whedon on the series. In one way or another, characters are taken out left, right, and fucking centre. Remember the thing about spoilers? Here we go:

Cyclops
Professor X
Jean Grey
Mystique
Magneto
Rogue

All of these names met some kind of end during this movie. Cyclops didn't even get the dignity of an on-screen death (mind you, in my experience there wasn't much dignity to Cyclops's life either). Now I know that neither Magneto, Rogue nor Mystique actually died, but their powers were taken away, and with that effectively killed off their characters. It was an interesting approach that I actually liked. It gave the story a sensible conclusion, and proved an effective distraction from all that was wrong with the film.

And holy tits, was there a whole lot wrong.

Remember the whole 'Dark Phoenix' story that they were playing up in X2? Consider the ball dropped. In the comics, the 'Phoenix' was an alien entity that merged with Jean Grey and, with her already extraordinarily strong powers, became an overpowered and COMPLETELY INSANE being of near-godlike ability. Here, in X3, the 'Phoenix' is a nickname for Jean's subconscious.

Lol wut.

Apparently, her so-called death and overuse of power during the conclusion of X2 caused a psychotic break that led to her: killing the shit out of a large amount of people, including her husband and her greatest mentor; joining forces with Magneto, for pretty much no reason whatsoever; and completely changing her wardrobe, including new black contact lens.

This was enough for me to not love this movie, but there were other problems as well. The 'more mutants makes it better' approach did not leave with Singer, and went from nerd-pleasing to re-goddam-diculous really fast. The X-Men add Colossus and Kitty Pryde to the roster, which would be nice if that was the end of it. Angel makes an appearance for MAYBE 5 minutes. Juggernaut is brought to the screen by a HORRIBLE casting decision and the ruining of an Internet meme (I love Bullet Tooth Tony as much as the next guy, but this didn't work). Multiple Man was in a scene. Leech was a plot point. The Morlocks Omegas(?) appear as Magneto's new goons. There was just too much going on in regard to the amount of new potentially significant characters to enjoy, especially considering there were two equally significant story lines going on at once: Dark Phoenix and the Mutant Cure. The greatest benefit however: Kelsey Grammar as Beast. That was pretty much perfect.

Nitpicking with accuracy to source material aside, this movie seems as though it was put together way too quickly. There didn't seem to be the effort put into it that the first two had. Also, while I'm glad this movie wasn't longer, it definitely could have been. There was a lot going on for a movie that was just over 100 minutes long.

I'm glad that this is the end of the series, creating a succinct beginning-to-end trilogy (and no, I do not consider First Class a prequel). As a stand alone movie, I still prefer this one to the first, for no reason in particular. I can accept and appreciate that they tried to do right by the fans while also trying to make a movie that will appeal to a general audience, and the box-office success of this movie proves that they were successful in that. But I'm not the only nerd who didn't love it.

What would I have done differently? Scrap the Phoenix storyline and bring on the Sentinels.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009):

Snikt. Bub.

I'll keep this short, there's only so much I can say about a 100-minute cliche.

Is this movie a prequel? No, for the same reason Elektra isn't a sequel to Daredevil. The movie has nothing to do with the movies it is related to, other than having a character appear in the film, played by the same actor. I'm happy that Hugh Jackman got room to run as the best Canadian export since beer, but this could have been SO much better. Instead, they took the same 'more mutants' formula that damn near ruined the X-trilogy and threw in 'ACTION MOVIE'. Let's look at the people that make appearances:

Wolverine
Sabertooth Victor Creed
Stryker
John Wraith
The Blob
Silverfox
Gambit
Agent Zero
Bolt
Deadpool Ryan Reynolds avec swords
Ryan Reynolds sans mouth

AND MORE!

First off, they attempt to fix the WolverTooth shenanigans by throwing the two together in this, but go out of their way to only refer to him by his actual name. So either this is a prequel and there are TWO SABERTOOTHS (RAGE) or this is a stand alone movie and the writers did not approve of the monikers of legendary comic book villains. Either way, I mad bro.

And what in the Seven Hells is Gambit doing in this movie? Seriously, I know there was an outcry to see the Cajun card thrower on the big screen, but why this one? There is NO existing non-X-men relation between the two characters, but I guess that precedent went out the window in the first movie. How about ACTUALLY MAKING HIM CAJUN? No? How about not having him scale a building using only pieces of his staff because that makes no goddam sense? Fine, stop listening to me then, stupid movie I never liked you anyways.

And let's not talk about Deadpool. That way lies madness.

X-Men First Class (2011):

And we come to the reason for this particular review. XMFC is a re imagining of the origins of the X-Men, going back to the roots of Professor X and Magneto, both portrayed greatly by James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender respectably.

As I said before, I do not consider FC to be a prequel to the X-trilogy, although there are some subtle references to it. Everything is different. The look of the characters, the relationships between them, even the origins of elements of the story itself. It's established that Cerebro, stated in the trilogy to have been created by Xavier and Magneto, is created by Hank McCoy in FC. Speaking of which, we see the transformation of Hank into the blue furrball we know as beast in FC, while during the trilogy he appears on television as an adult, still looking human.

Maybe the most glaring difference is also the biggest thing that bugs me about this movie: the relationship between Professor X and Mystique. This was Wolverine/Rogue x incest + alignment change. We have an adoptive brother-sister relationship where the sister makes subtle (or not so much) advances towards the brother. Throughout the movie, her attitudes towards mutant pride become more and more like Magneto's and less like Xavier's, and in the end she leaves the X-Men to join up with the Brotherhood.

In what way is that history conveyed in the trilogy?

The first movie alone shows that she could give a fig's ass if Xavier lives or dies. She specifically targets him by sabotaging Cerebro to incapacitate him so the Brotherhood can something something. Estranged relationship notwithstanding, that's pretty hardcore.

Other than that, and me wanting more time spent on the relationship between Xavier and Magneto (there doesn't seem to be a whole lot there), I have pretty much no complaints. There were lots of new faces, but no old ones, so the 'more mutants' formula doesn't apply. The uniforms actually resemble the original X-Men outfits and not designed by The Gimp from Pulp Fiction. The casting and acting was fantastic, even January Jones (who I loath entirely) was good and I promise it has nothing to do with the ratio of clothing-to-flesh shown. The film's feel was like that of a 60's action film, fitting to around the time the story was set in. Looked great. Well paced action. Best cameo EVER. Not bad for a film that took less than a year to put together. I think a great deal of thanks should be given to director Matthew Vaughn for pulling this off well, and not let my last X-Men experience in film be an Amnesia-causing bullet.

So, in summary:

X-Men: Worst
X2: Best
X3: Worst
X-Men Origins Wolverine: Worst
X-Men First Class: Best

And so ends my inaugural review, long-winded and negative as it was. Feedback is always appreciated, and probably necessary. I understand that my opinions may not be yours, and I respect them even if I disagree with them. I have already begun work on my follow-up, hopefully out by this time next week (go see Cabin in the Woods as preparation). Thanks for your time and support.





Knight Owl

This is the way the world ends...

Welcome to the (hopefully) organised thoughts and opinions of me. This has been on my 'to-do' list for some time, and with any luck, my dependable routine, amount of free time and the upcoming summer movie season starting soon will be able to keep this going for a while still. However, with my luck, the very day that this blog becomes a regular and high-quality happenstance will be the day the world ends.

This blog will mainly take the form of reviews and opinions of movies, TV shows, and other forms of popular culture, peppered with personal experiences and my own...unique...sense of humour. As much as I would love this to go viral and have my blog read by everyone with eyes, my infinite realism leads me to believe that I will be writing this to no one and my lovely wife-to-be will only read it for the sake of proofreading so my grammatical oversights don't embarrass the family. Nevertheless, I am doing this for no more than my own well being, hoping to better organise my thoughts, express my opinions, and fully embrace my nerd-hood.

I'm hoping to post every week, but like I said that's pretty optimistic. At first it'll be pretty much when I have the time and enough material to conjure a sensible publication. I've already begun working on one that I hope to post soon. Until then, I appreciate the interest and hope all readers stick around.

The Knight Owl