X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019)

 “She’s not your little girl any more.” 

It's always instructive where a movie that has a lot seemingly going for it, like this one,turns out to be mildly disappointing. Not that it's terrible, but there's no denying that it fails to translate the excellent of Christ Claremont and John Byrne's source material, nor that the promising first half hour with lots of interesting character development and subtext yields to a load of dull fighting against a bland alien threat. Beyond the fact that we can by now be sure, I think, that Simon Kinberg isn't the person who should have been in charge of these films. But what went wrong?

There's a lot of good stuff in the early part of the film. All the characters feel real and well-rounded, even relatively minor ones like Quicksilver and Nightcrawler. There's some interesting questioning of Charles' habit of manipulating people's minds for their "own good". There's also a nice point made of Charles pushing the X-Men, at great danger, to be superheroes and to be popular, as the alternative is to be hated and feared: it's effective to see how quickly Jean's antics have the X-Men change overnight from popular celebrities to feared outcasts. It's unexpected, and effective, to have Raven die at the hands of Jean.

And yet, James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender aside, the main cast are all a bit bland, despite a splendidly charismatic performance by Evan Peters as Quicksilver, for the last time in this continuity. And then there's the vague nature of where the Phoenix force comes from and the equally vague aliens looking for it. There's a lot of good ideas here, but no real way of resenting them once the plot gets moving. A sad ending for the Fox X-Men movies. Let's hope we see them again under happier circumstances.

It Chapter Two (2019)

“You've all grown up..."

This is a long film, in many ways well-structured, good with character, well cast, with excellent effects and a witty script. There are plenty of effective scares and Bill Skarsgard is still a superb villain. This is a very good film. But it’s not quite up there with the first chapter.

Why? Well, I’ll admit it gets the main things right in spending time on the characters and the demons they carry. Pennywise always was a metaphor for abuse- sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse and (especially) gaslighting. This subtext is handled exactly right here, hence things like our glimpse of the horribly abusive relationship with which the adult Beverley starts the film. Henry Bowers, while bad, is bad because of the abuse he's suffered. And Bill's guilt over little Georgie always was exacerbated by Pennywise's gaslighting. And I like the way this version was careful to emphasise the childhood anxieties we all had, and which can linger into adulthood if we don't face them as the Losers do here. And Beverley may be a textbook example of Smurfette Syndrome, but one can't blame this film adaptation for that.

The visuals, direction, lighting and suspense are superb, as are most of the scares. But there are, it has to be said, one or two which don't quite work, and in some places made us laugh- floppy jiggle tits, I'm looking at you. And, while there are plenty of effectively funny lines, Bill Hader in particular is superb at this side of things, and there's a splendidly metatextual cameo by Stephen King in which he accuses his fictional alter ago Bill of the rubbish endings his own critics keep mentioning, in the end the film is just a little too long and flabby, ad could do with editing down just a little.

None of that detracts from the fact I very much enjoyed this film, however, and the way it was shot was superb. It just didn't quite match the standard of its predecessor.

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

“Well, at least we can all agree the third one's always the worst...!

 Yet again an X-Men film that isn't supposed to be all that great turns out to be pretty damn good viewing. Oh, I know that the continuity has been pretty dodgy anyway and at this point they just give up and blatantly contradict stuff about all kinds of characters. It's also awkward having two alternate casts, the less expensive of which we see here. But it's nice to get an X-Men film where Scott gets to be a likeable hero for once. It's also nice tht Wolverine, rather than hogging the limelight as usual, only gets a Weapon X cameo.

Apocalypse is a solid villain, with  suitably epic backstory and oodles of power. The film has metatextual fun with its 1983 setting, hence the line above, ostensibly about Return of the Jedi but, well, you know. It’s also fun utilising the freedom to make characters like Angel (him off EastEnders), Psylocke and even Storm be baddies for a bit. There’s the obligatory “how Charles lost his hair” bit. Of course there is. There are the obligatory philosophical scenes with Charles, Eric and Raven, but not too much. But most of the time it’s what we want to see: cool set pieces. And few are cooler than Quicksilver, even if he is dead in Marvel’s other celluloid universe. This film is quite simply just fun to watch. The timeline  and cobrinuity may be utterly broken but the film makes the right decision to ignore all that and just go with it. Quite right too.

Is it just me, though, or are we all fed up of Colonel William bloody Stryker...?

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

“Humanity has always feared what is different,"

 I've read a lot of Chris Claremont's run on X-Men (the comic book, of course) but not this seminal storyline although, of course I have a broad awareness of it. It’s a good choice of storyline for the next film and, course, offers a great opportunity for a bit of sneaky retconning; welcome back, Jean and Scott.

It’s all very much what we Doctor Who fans call “timey-wimey”, of course; Wolverine is sent back in time to 1973, with shades of Life on Mars, in order to prevent a Sentinel-riven hellish dystopia, and we follow the twists and turns as he does so. It’s an enjoyable concept and one not slavishly following the comics, as we find a disillusioned Charles who has clearly been taking hairstyle tips from me, while Magneto’s allegiances are again ambiguous and interesting. Michael Fassbender is, of course, superb, and it’s a shame we don’t see more of Ian McKellen but this film is crammed to the rafters with characters jostling for something to do.

The cast is superb, to the point that I’ve had to leave the likes of Elliot Page, Halle Berry and Famke Janssen off the tags through lack of space as the boys, alas, drive the plot and hog the screen time. There are some magnificent performances, though, the highlight being the interaction of James McAvoy and Patrick Stewart as the two Xaviers talk. Plus of course we have cameos from so many characters including an awesome-looking Bishop, Kitty Pryde and Colossus, and Peter Dinklage being superb as the villainous yet idealistic Bolivar Trask.

This may not be the greatest film of the series but it’s solidly entertaining, well-acted and full of surprises, so the Utopian ending comes as a surprise. The post-credits sequence suggests trouble to come, though...

X-Men: First Class (2011)

"I've been at the mercy of men just following orders all my life. Never again!"

Wow. Best X-Men film ever, or at least so far. Thank you, Matthew Vaughn.

Of course, this is the Fox continuity, in spite of only a cameo appearance by Wolverine linking it to its predecessors, and rather divergent from the comics; Banshee seems like he's going to die, for example, and doesn't. And there's the silly fact that Chares Xavier has a British accent and has done since childhood, in spite of having grown up in that mansion in Westchester County. And why is Moira MacTaggart now an American CIA agent, having previously been shown as English and never Scottish?

But we'll ignore all that because this is a brilliant and exciting tale of a deep friendship unable to withstand ideological differences; you really believe in the friendship between Charles and Erik. James McAvoy is good, but Michael Fassbender is exceptional.

It's interesting that Mystique is Charles' step-sister, and to see her gradually being drawn towards Magneto. Her connection to Hank McCoy is well-handled, too, as is the question of whether mutants ho look unusual should visually conform or not. The Beast's fate is cruel but poetically appropriate, especially given the allusions to Jekyll and Hyde.

The Hellfire Club gives us two impressive villains in January Jones as Emma Frost and the ubiquitous Kevin Bacon as the mercurial Sebastian Shaw- perhaps he's Joseph Dashwood in this continuity? But there are striking similarities between Shaw and what Magneto becomes although, of course, he killed Magneto's mother and must die.

The plot is superb- using the Cuban Missile Crisis is inspired- but ultimately the film works because of its successful focus on Erik and Charles as characters. Superb,

Wanted (2008)

"This is me. Taking back control."

Grr. Don't talk to me about "taking back control". I'll be glad to see the back of 2016.

I watched this film at the suggestion of Mrs Llamastrangler as she hates it and wanted me to administer a good spanking in my blog. The things we do for love, eh? This is the most awful film I've seen since The Black Knight, and that's saying something.

Actually I suspect that the original comic book (which I haven't read) is likely to have been quite good; there's nothing wrong with the intrinsic concept of a beaten down, cuckolded office drone finding out that he's connected to a rather cool secret society of assassins and at last gets to be cool. The twist is pretty effective, too, and, in fact, I don't think the script is the problem at all here.

No; it's the awful direction from the enfant terrible of Central Asia, a man who comes with a certain reputation and from whom I expected better. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with an ever-moving camera or even with the things that happen with bullets in this film, but here it's just style over substance. The curved trajectories of the bullets (er, yes) and the  over-use of the same CGI tricks give an impression of style over substance, of a strongly emphasised visual style which doesn't actually mean anything and gets in the way of both the characters and the story. The visual style isn't just annoying; it's actually a barrier.

Also, it's noticeable that Angelina Jolie's character, Fox, is there only to look cool and spout exposition rather than have a character as such or, indeed, a first name, which is a shame. Still, at least we get Nine Inch Nails on the soundtrack and the performances are good. It's just st that the direction has to spoil everything and turn a film that could have been something into... this.