My Thoughts on the X-Men Film Universe
Growing up as a kid, I LOVED the X-Men, chiefly, the animated series on Fox. I would watch my favorite mutants every week and play with my action figures and video games all the time. I even liked 'X-Men Evolution', the animated series that followed the one in the 90's.
So when an X-Men movie was announced and eventually was released in 2000, I was super excited. The 90's was not a good time for super hero films, but 'Blade' had seemingly turned things around for the genre.
Seeing my favorite mutants on-screen, like Wolverine, Cyclops, and Professor X, I was convinced that super hero movies could actually be done right: they could be enjoyable, legitimate films.
'X-2' came out a few years later and was a really fun film. The franchise seemed to be heading in the right direction. I mean, come on, Nightcrawler was in this one!
By 2006, director Bryan Singer had stepped away from the franchise and Brett Ratner took over, giving us the very underwhelming 'The Last Stand', a film where a mutant like Magneto is hanging out in the forest WHERE THERE IS NO METAL! The whole thing was a clear departure of what had been so special about the first two films in the series. Cyclops is quickly killed off at the beginning of the movie, Mystique lost her powers, and the whole thing was just a mess.
In an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of Hugh Jackman's Wolverine character, he got two solo spin-off films, in 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine' and 'The Wolverine', with a third film coming out next year in 2017. 'Origins' was terrible. It did give us our first glimpse at the Merc with A Mouth, Deadpool, but somehow, the execs at Fox thought it would be a good idea to sew his mouth shut and give him all sorts of strange powers and completely changing the character. 2013's 'The Wolverine' looked to further Logan's story after the events of 'The Last Stand' by sending him to Japan. His powers are stolen by a man trying to cheat death. The trailers for the movie promised us a grand battle with ninjas, but the actual theatrical cut gave us none of it. The villain in Madame Hydra/Viper was cheesy, and the giant robot samurai was also dumb. The uncut version of the film did give us the ninja battle and even a deleted scene, showing Wolverine's yellow spandex outfit (which looked awesome), but in all I did not really care much for the film.
After a few hits and more misses, Fox decided to take the franchise in a new direction, with 'X-Men: First Class' in 2011, with new director Matthew Vaughn on the project that was set in the 1960's, giving us younger incarnations of mutants like Professor X, Magneto, and Mystique. 'First Class' was a great film. James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender stepped into their roles as Xavier and Magneto flawlessly.
2013 saw the release of the next film sequel, 'Days of Future Past': a time-traveling, continuity changing movie that I really enjoyed. With Bryan Singer back at the helm, the 'First Class' cast was intermingled with the original cast, as Bolivar Trask created the Sentinels, mutant-hunting giant robots that would eventually leave the world in ruins. To stop the future from happening the way it did, Wolverine's consciousness was sent back to the 70's to find Xavier and help him stop Trask. The film seemingly altered the timeline of the entire franchise to this point, essentially making 'The Last Stand' and 'Origins' obsolete. Fox did an ok job at rebooting the franchise internally without having to create something completely brand new.
Which leads us to 'X-Men: Apocalypse', the third film in the current trilogy (check out my review here). In all, I enjoyed the film, despite problems I had with it. The end-credit scene was very interesting and could potentially set up a great villain for the next film, rumored to take place in the 90's.
While I have enjoyed the current trilogy, a couple of issues stand out to me. I don't like Jennifer Lawrence as an actress. Because of her star power, the films are putting her character at the forefront of the films, where Mystique just isn't all that important. It's easy to see that Lawrence wants out of the franchise, and her performance in 'Apocalypse' really shows it.
I also am not a fan of the time-jumping aspect of each new film. The ending of 'Days of Future Past' showed us Wolverine, back in the present, with the original cast. If everything works out and the cast is all back together, why did we need 'Apocalypse' to be set in the past as well? Obviously, everything would turn out ok for the X-Men if they're all fine in the future (or is it the present?). I want a film that moves the story forward, not backward. Obviously, Fox isn't willing to do that, since the original cast is in the future/present and they want to continue with the 'First Class' cast. The only other options would be to change the timeline AGAIN and have them come to the present, or to completely reboot the franchise altogether (which I would be all for).
I feel like Fox is just patching up the holes in the franchise rather than learning from past mistakes. We've now seen multiple characters played by different actors and incarnations. We're seemingly getting the 'Dark Phoenix' story AGAIN. Glaring plot holes, such as Wolverine being taken by Stryker (actually Mystique in disguise) at the end of DOFP, only to have him held captive by the REAL Stryker during 'Apocalypse', and the fact that this is the THIRD TIME we're seeing Wolverine's origin (EVEN THOUGH HE HAS HIS OWN MOVIE ABOUT IT), shows that Fox doesn't have the love for the franchise that they should.
I hate comparing it to Marvel/Disney, but take a look at the two companies and their films. Sure, here and there, characters have had to be replaced in the MCU, but it hasn't changed the story lines of any of the films. Kevin Feige makes sure that even the smallest details are gone over with a fine-toothed comb, where Fox seems to just throw darts at a dart board to see what to add or change.
I WANT the X-Men to be great. I WANT to love the films more than I do. The possibilities for X-Men films are so great, but we keep getting the same recycled plots over and over again. Please, Fox, start thinking outside of the box before the next film comes. Give us something new and exciting. If you could give us gold with 'Deadpool', you can certainly do the same for the X-Men.
