The X-Men Trilogy Rewatch

Now here's a set of films I haven't watched in quite some time and I'm trying to actually get some use out of my bonus Disney plus subscription so I sat down to watch these over the last week. If you want the quick version, these held up much better than I was expecting and even X-Men 3 which is the DMC2 of this series really isn't that bad with the benefit of perspective. Longer version:

I'm not going to waste a thousand words talking about the X-Men franchise as a whole but it would be tricky to not talk about so I'll cover the basics and quickly move on. This series has definitely had its ups and downs, from the disaster that was Origins: Wolverine and the core plot never really changing over the course of nearly 20 years and the moon sized elephant in the room of why they never show up in MCU the X-Men universe has had a bumpy road. Couple that with the business side of things and who knows what kind of craziness is going to have to take place in order to make them fit into future films but we're all going to have just wait and see on that front. 

These movies are very, very serious about their subject matter. Mutants being discovered in the real world is something that you can easily imagine wouldn't go over that smoothly and for each of the three films this is their main focus. In the first movie the government is pushing a mutant registration act to be voted in; the particulars of which never get outline but it's fairly safe to assume it would at least be their name, location and a clear definition of their abilities. Something that when you consider the way the world is now is pretty easy to believe. It was also nice to go back to movies before the social media boom of the last 5 or so years, the first movie is actually over 20 years old now. Consider the following bits of trivia to put that into some perspective:

• The first X-Men movie was 8 years before Iron Man
• It was 5 years before Batman Begins
• The entire trilogy happened before Iron Man and The Dark Knight saw their release
• It came out 2 years before Raimi's Spider-Man
• It's only two years older than the first Blade movie

The more serious tone of the films might not be everyone's cup of tea but after the last decade of comic book movies a film like this was a breath of fresh air. The opening scene sets the stage extremely well for the kind of movie you are in for and while most people probably remember these movies as action films I would say the first movie is much more of a drama/thriller for the most part. For the most part having any kind of super power is usually portrayed as being nothing but cool and awesome but that is most certainly not the case in this film. While there would be benefits for sure there is no denying that you would still be a minority and if modern media has showed anything in recent years it's that most people don't seem that well equipped to handle such things.

X-Men 2 is probably the most favoured among the original 3 and it certainly has all the trademarks of a sequel to a movie that likely wasn't intended to be the huge hit it was. Everything about X2 is bigger, more flamboyant and over the top but it still retains the tone of the first movie. X2 isn't full of cheesy one liners nor does it make jokes at the expense of the villains, something I really wish modern movies would stop doing so often. On that note I would argue Striker is by the far the best villain of the original movies. Magneto is great when he gets to play the pure bad guy but I feel like he's the best when he is delicately walking that fine line of villain and anti-hero. Striker has a very calculated menace to everything he does and this makes the reveal of his final goal quite terrifying when you put the pieces together. 

This film is definitely where the movie goes full on action movie with its fight scenes but they are very well done and more importantly, feel like they have stakes which is something I have come to miss. However that is not to say the dramatic elements from the first movie are gone in X2, far from it actually. Without going into spoilers I'll say there's more than one core plot point that isn't about people punching each other. 

One thing that is really apparent here though is that this is where you can clearly see the focus shift towards Wolverine as the main character. For the purpose of action it's not hard to work out why but it really is a shame other characters didn't get more time to be developed. This is a problem that I think only gets worse as the movies progress with First Class being the only exception to this rule.

Now, X-Men 3, this really is a movie most would prefer not to acknowledge and I admit at the time I felt the same way. I have to say though after watching it again I really don't think it is that bad, a waste of the Dark Phoenix saga? A definitive yes but I cannot say much on that as I am not a comics guy but I don't think you have to be to see how rushed and thrown together the third movie is. It's not a terribly made movie by any means, the special effects are actually pretty insane and hold up really well for a 15 year old film for example. 

This film just feels like they didn't quite know what story they wanted to tell, was it the continued struggle of mutants in the real world or was it the Dark Phoenix story? Neither one really get enough time to be fully fleshed and this is by far the shortest of the original 3 films. X-Men 3 just feels like a string of missed opportunities rather than an aggressively bad movie but you can't help but think this film could have been so much more. 

Given the pace that the entertainment business moves at these days it's becoming more and more difficult to keep a balanced perspective on just how much of it there is but also how quickly things can become dated or considered old. The above realisations about the release of these movies really brought home just how much groundwork had actually been covered by the time the comic book movie machine really starting churning around 2010. Consider for a moment that the First Class era X-Men movies might be someones first thought when you say X-Men movie. It's these kinds of things that make it so enjoyable to go back and revisit older media for me, your memory forgets and perhaps more importantly replaces things about the mediums you enjoy. Rewatching these did a good job at reminding me that before Iron Man, Spider-Man or Thor we actually did get a solid entry in the Marvel universe with one of their strongest properties. 

Thanks for reading and I would strongly recommend giving these movies another go or seek them out if you missed them.

Peace,

JTB.