X-Men: First Class

Holy cow.  X-Men: First Class is actually good!

Some background: I never got into superhero comics.  Everything I know about the X-Men I’ve learned from going to the movies.  Consequently, my last exposure to the X-Men universe was through the odious Wolverine.  When I went in to this one, my expectations were low.

Here’s the setup: it’s the Kennedy Administration.  A dude with groovy brain powers recruits a coldblooded revenge killer to join Team Good.  As one may imagine, things do not work out as groovy brain guy might have preferred. 

The film hangs a pretty good story on that frame, helped along by fun period work, seamless effects, well-directed action set pieces, and the revelation that the amazing young actress from Winter’s Bone looks great naked.

The consensus among my filmgoing friends is that X-Men: First Class is average, at best.  I don’t get it.  I had more fun at this film than any other superhero film released this year.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

What would you rather see: yet another movie in which an indestructible superman unflinchingly walks away from a rear-projected fireball, or a film in which a girl stands atop a file cabinet, unbalances it, then somersaults down the slope while it falls to the ground? Would you rather see yet another CGI-heavy revenge picture, or a movie with real stuntmen about an autistic kid who's trying to get money to pay for her mom's medicine?

If you chose the former two out of two, then X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE is the movie for you. I'm sure real stuntmen and real explosives guys and real pilots and such were used in the making of this movie, but the fact is that there's less drama and less entertainment value in animated supermen destroying stuff than there is in real people doing things like sliding under tables and doing backflips.

Unfortunately, limp action setpieces are all this movie has to offer. The gifted Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber are given little more to do than snarl and be thankful that the Actor's Guild doesn't require urinalysis, and the film even manages to take the voice away from the consistently funny Ryan Reynolds.

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE simply has nothing going for it. What a waste of time.

X-Men: The Last Stand

X-MEN: THE LAST STAND makes up for its abundance of fireworks by minimizing its sense of fun.

The first two X-Men movies weren't masterpieces, but they rocked along reasonably well. They had some laughs, they had some fights, they had some things to think about. X3 has no laughs, too many fights, and enough things to think about for at least three breathless college essays.

The whole thing just feels like an exercise in action filmmaking, but a film like THE HIDDEN BLADE so eclipses it even in purely action-related terms that it can't fully succed even in that limited arena.

X3 is a mediocrity. I can't muster up much more to say about it than that.