X Marks The Spot - A Ranking of the X-Men films

And now the last in this wave of X-Men-related posts - a ranking of the X-Men films. 

First, a caveat, I still haven't seen Logan. When it was released, L banned me because he was more than slight (and justifiably) concerned that I would cry so hard I would desiccate (full story here - https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2017/03/04/logan-which-im-banned-from-watching/). Unfortunately, due to content and language, when it's shown on TV it tends to be after 9 pm, which is when Mum calls so I haven't had the chance to watch it since. One of these days I will set aside an afternoon to watch it, but I haven't managed that yet. 

With that understood, a countdown from 9 to 1 below.

9: X-Men: The Last Stand (or X-Men 3 as everyone calls it). To quote T, it was made by the despair squid, it's the only explanation. In between at least three moments where the audience goes "but character X would never do that", a character who looks like Maggot but has Marrow's powers and randomly killing off characters at the same time as pulling the second stupidest incident of Marvel-Dead in Marvel film history ... it's not good. 

8: X-Men: Dark Phoenix - Terrible dialogue for everyone. Too much action, not enough character. Randomly making Emma Frost an alien. None of these are factors in its favour. 

Those are the only two films I probably would actually not recommend. The rest all have at least a few plus points. 

7: X-Men: Apocalypse - Apocalypse the Eternal should not feel like an afterthought in his own film, and it felt like half the film was missing. That being said, it contains the Plane Scene of Much Ow! and the look of Peter's face when he realises, this time he just wasn't fast enough. 

6: X-Men Origins: Wolverine - It leans too hard into making Wolverine a generic action hero. Hugh Jackman, lovely, marvellous, fantastic Hugh Jackman, cannot do dramatic "nooooos". On the other hand, Danny Huston gives good slithery evil as Stryker, I get to have flying exploding playing cards on my cinema screen, and for all he looks nothing like Sabretooth, Liev Schreiber gets him right. There's also the excellent pre-credits scene which would probably have been better received if Watchmen hadn't done the same thing better at around the same time. 

Everything placed 5 or higher, I actively enjoy and recommend. 

5: The Wolverine or Wolverine in Japan. The idiotic real name is probably the worst thing about it. Other than that, what's not to love. It's Wolverine with a teenage girl sidekick, well done fight scenes and a film that gets Wolverine. 

4: X-Men: Days of Future Past I am strongly tempted to put this second, and basically 4, 3 and 2 are all equally good, or near as damn it equally good. This has some excellent character bits, the most gloriously ridiculously brilliant action setpiece with the RFK stadium (seriously, you could hear the Guardian film reviewer giggling about it in his written review) and some excellent Mystique bits. 

Why is it lowest of the top 4? They kill a certain character off, and unfortunately, when the comic did it, I swore never to forgive them and so I'm not going to forgive the film for it either. 

3: X2 - X-Men United - Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler (and I don't care that it was a deleted scene, Nightcrawler and Mystique). Brian Cox giving excellent slithery evil as Stryker. *That* moment where Magneto does the thing because he actually believes he's right and what happens in this may have made him even more "ends justify the means". The end scene! 

The only draw back, matters Phoenix Force seemed a little rushed. 

2: X-Men: First Class - as the writers and producers admitted, they didn't have the money for big action scenes so they did character stuff instead. So much glorious character stuff. Banshee!!! Hank!!! Presumably teenage/early adult characters actually acting like it. The fact that I wanted to shake sense into both of the lead characters exactly when the film wanted me to. 

Best of all, the parts of it that make up "Mystique Origins (part 1)" (Mystique Origins (part 2) is the best bits of Days of Future Past). 

1: X-Men - So part of it was that this was at the height of my comic book times, and seeing the Marvel logo on the big screen back when getting to a cinema was a major process. 

The other part of it is that I love it so much. 

It's not perfect, Storm's dialogue needs a rewrite, but everything else - the opening conversation between Professor Xavier and Magneto, the introduction to Wolverine, that Wolverine, while pretending to be grumbly and grouchy immediately tries to protect Rogue, yet more teenagers actually behaving like teenagers, the sheer gribbliness of everything to do with Senator Kelly, both his politics and his fate. Rogue and Wolverine at the end of the end fight scene. 

I love it the absolute most out of all of the films.

4DX is a completely nonsense cinema gimmick

I want to start by acknowledging that I am everything that's wrong with modern cinemagoers.  Give me excitement, give me escapism, give me explosions. 

Part of this moral failing includes an enjoyment of silly cinema gimmicks. Give me 3D nonsense or IMAX and I will at least try it. I am the audience William Castle aimed for. 

Of the nonsense cinema versions, I like IMAX best because the films normally look good despite the technology. As one of my eyes is stronger than the other I get a slight green shift with most 3D films and I can normally tell when a film's been converted to 3D rather than made for it because the background goes all diffuse. 

So when I see the adverts for 4DX, I am tempted. I know it won't be as good as advertised, I suspect it won't even be good, but I just have to give it a go. 

But, in case it's terrible, I don't want to ruin a good film by distracting myself with the 4DX nonsense. Then Dark Phoenix came out in the cinema and I thought, "that's it, that is my solution, because it is going to be terrible so it will not be ruined." 

And I was right, Dark Phoenix turned out to be a good choice to try out 4DX (my review of Dark Phoenix is here). 

4DX wasn't as distracting as it could have been - the biggest physical jolt was in the demo at the start, and any other movement was roughly equivalent to an unruly seven year old hitting your chair about three hours into a flight. 

The smells were done with the usual sugar powder so there was no smell at all. It's noticeable that the 4DX trailer used coffee, toast and orange juice. Because they're strong smells. Most films do not include strong smells (and those that do are mostly smells that no-one would want to smell). 

I do not regret watching a film in 4DX just once, but it was a damp squib, especially for the price. It strikes me as the sort of thing I might do every 5 years for giggles, not because it's good.

Film Review - X-Men: Dark Phoenix

 Spoilers throughout

With Dark Phoenix I find myself torn because I am not sure how much of my dislike of the film was it being bad, and how much of my dislike is how close it came to being better.  

I'll quickly skim through the bits I liked - Kurt being the loveliest (even if Kodi McPhee's accent continues to be made of LOL), Genosha not starting in (hell)fire and the film getting me to shout at Charles the way it wanted me to (even if I don't actually believe in the film's solution to the problem, mostly because Hank does not have the personality to be a headmaster and no-one else is alive or around).

The largest part of the problem was the film spent so long on action scenes that went nowhere that there was no time for character bits.  Now that was fine for Xavier and Magneto where we know them well enough, but it's a problem for the characters, or versions of these characters, that we've barely met like this Scott Summers and this Jean Grey.

Jean is the one who suffers the most from this overweighting of action over character.  Sophie Turner does amazingly well with nothing, Jean's dialogue being the same three lines on repeat all the way through.   

I'd accepted that one of my bluesome twosome was not going to make it out alive, and was just happy it wasn't both of them.  Hank suffers a lot from having nothing to do, with a lot of the rage reaction he ought to have being given to Magneto instead.  I'm not sure if that's because it's more expensive to pay for the blue furry special effects than Michael Fassbender's wages or what, but it was annoying.

The other person who got to have manpain over the suffering of the female characters rather than be useful is Scott.  Now I am miffed because they have finally made a film where Scott gets something to do … and they have given the role to someone with the range of a wooden spoon.  The one poor choice the X-Men casting directors have made over 10 films really broke part of the heart of this film.  I didn't believe in anything Scott was going through.

But the worst thing about the film is that they finally had a perfect Emma Frost and they made her a space alien for no good reason.  I don't even like Emma Frost but Jessica Chastain in the scene they used in the trailer was perfect, all slinky evil and seducing Jean to the darkside; the White Queen of the Hellfire Club writ cinema screen large.  Oh, how I would have love the film that scene was from.  But no, we got random alien Emma instead.  

And that's the point, if they'd wanted aliens there is a Phoenix Force plus aliens story.  It's called the Dark Phoenix story - you know the comics arc this film is named for.  It's a fantastic story, with aliens, but no Emma Frost.  Just make Jessica Chastain Deathbird and have her be the power-mad dictator instead of D'Ken.  Or do the Hellfire Club story properly.  Do not mix and match and end up with sludge!

(Like I said, I would be happier with this if that one scene hadn't given me perfect Hellfire Club Frostie)

Overall, that’s why the film doesn’t work.  It tries to be all things to everyone and ends up missing important things about all of the characters.

Very Belated French and Hungarian Grand Prix Thoughts

The thoughts are belated not just because Ferrari have depressed me, they are also late because I have been busily watching events live at the Commonwealth Games. If you do ever get the chance to watch anything like that (the Olympics, World Championships, anything like that) grab it with every hand available, it's such a fun experience. 

French Grand Prix 

Despite the engine penalty, and the pitstop screw up, Sainz jnr did well, as well as he could have done. To beat the two Red Bulls, things need to go well, and I think the 5 second penalty meant that neither Mercedes could be caught. Sainz jnr gets a cookie, because none of this is his fault. I'm not even going to talk about Leclerc because if I did, I would have to give him a card, and I do not want to. Hungarian Grand Prix Which I missed, between the Commonwealth Games hockey, eating some excellent food and then desperately trying to find somewhere to wait for trains that wasn't showing the Women's Euro 2022 final so I didn't accidentally bring them bad luck. 

All I knew about the Grand Prix was L occasionally looking at his watch and wincing. And L isn't even a Ferrari fan (I have tried to bring him to the one true faith but he resists). I cannot sum up the problem any better than the last 20 seconds of this video.

   

Ferrari strategy is so bad that our rivals are laughing at us. LAUGHING!!!! It is so bad that I am bringing back the bingo card.

   

You'll note some of the squares have been updated for this year. The feelings behind it haven't been.

How are one team so consistently bad at the basics? 

Part of the reason I am being quite so hysterical about this season's failures is because they gave me hope this year. 

For the first time in years, Ferrari have managed to produce a good car. One of the two other teams who have recently vied for titles has a car that's only as good as the Ferrari, not miles better, and the other great rival are having an off season. That's unlikely to happen again, particularly with engine regulations remaining fixed till 2024. 

Mercedes will be better again next year, Ferrari, you have to use this opportunity while you have it!