X-Men: Casting Successes and Failures – Tim The Film Guy

X-Men: Casting Successes and Failures

To avoid having the world’s longest post I will be limiting the casting to the first X-Men film. So you will have to submit a request for my thoughts on Vinnie Jones as Juggernaut (haha awful). First I will talk good cast then bad and explain why they were good and why they were bad from a comic book point of view. Some may disagree and I am sure I will be arguing with some in the comments but just shut up, like the post, share, comment and visit Zoë’s other X-Men posts. This should be fun.

Success:

Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier

Picture anyone else as Professor Xavier. I dare you. It’s a role he was born for and he never seems to age. He could play this role for another 20 years. Now don’t get me wrong, James McAvoy did an excellent job of playing a younger less experienced Xavier and I am sure he will do great in the new film but as the classic Professor Xavier, it’s still Stewart. He is stoic, strategic and you know he has power beyond anything he is willing to use and Stewart plays that role.

Changes from original: Generally speaking the character is spot on with only a few surrounding plots that where either changed or missing from the films. Certain stories I would have liked to be included that help develop the character of Xavier such as His complicated upbringing (Interesting Juggernaut origin that has never been touched on), his failed engagement because of the Korean war, his meeting of Erik (Magneto) in Israel at a support clinic for Holocaust victims. There’s loads that they never really touched on.

Failure:

Anna Paquin as Rogue

When you give a comic book character a nickname of Rogue you instantly get what you are walking into. When you cast Anna Paquin in a role you know exactly what kind of acting you will get. How someone connected the two is beyond me. In the comics Rogue was an outgoing brash and powerful female character but in the film she a weak timid and eventually just a tool for the plot who needs to be saved.

Excuses: My guess for why they changed the character was simply for the plot. They needed a damsel in distress and making Rogue into that was the easiest option. It could also be for cost reasons as the majority of Rogue’s stories have her being able to fly and have super strength. Saved some money there.

Success:

Hugh Jackman as Logan/Wolverine

Wolverine was Hugh Jackman’s first real acting role in a film and boy did he start strong. If you asked most people who saw the first film when it came out who was their favourite character it would be Wolverine because Jackman really brought him to life. He was so popular that he has pretty much led every X-Men film that has come out since. Even First Class a film he wasn’t supposed to be in had a brilliant cameo of Wolverine that was one of the films many highlights.

Changes from original: Now bear with me on this one because whilst initially it’s a pretty insignificant part of the performance but it does affect the character. Wolverine in the comics is about 5’3” give or take in height but Jackman is 6’2” in height. Why does it matter? Well Wolverine was always a kind of underdog in all his fights; he’d attack like a wild animal, punch way above his weight and had a foul temper. It’s why he was named after an animal with many of the same traits. This kind of gets lost in the films I think. Also wear the f**king costume!

Failure:

James Marsden as Scott Summers/Cyclops

Nothing against Marsden I think he is really fun but he’s just not right for this role. Cyclops is the strong, strategic and commanding leader of the X-Men. In the film he was a miserable, jealous and pretty useless leader. I mean that love triangle between Jean, Scott and Logan was just irritating. Really hope they try again with this character because it’s such a waste.

Excuses: Again I don’t blame Marsden; he could have done a good job, I blame the script and Bryan Singer’s direction. Singer has in the past stated that he regretted not being able to adapt the character and even stated he couldn’t bring him back for Days of Future Past. I just think he doesn’t like the character.

Success:

Ian McKellen as Eric Lehnsherr/Magneto

McKellen can play anything he wants but when he plays an authority character he really owns the role. Whether it be Gandalf the Grey/White or more importantly Magneto! They showed the character in a lot of his comic glory in the films. Magneto was a man haunted by the events of his past and takes an extremist view to make sure what happened to him never happens again, but in doing so he becomes what he feared as a child, a dictator who believes in a superior race.

Changes from original: Well in terms of history, not much. In the first film they even showed him being separated from his parents in the midst of the holocaust, serious stuff for a comic book film. There are a few changes to his physique but I am not too sure how many talented actors in their 60+ years that look like Henry Cavill in Man of Steel.

Failure:

Shawn Ashmore as Bobby Drake/Iceman

You know what I don’t like in the X-Men films? Because the films have large ensemble casts the majority of characters have the same personality (none). This last pick could have been about a lot of characters but I singled this one out because he was featured more than the rest as the love interest to another failure on the list, Rogue. This relationship should have been a fascinating sub plot but was so unbelievable dull I just fast-forward any scene with the two.

Excuses: My current theory is that much like Rogue having Iceman as a main character with his powers would require a big budget that the films didn’t have initially. There is hope though; in the recent Days of Future Past trailer you can see Iceman pulling some really cool Iceman moves against some sentinels.

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Tim, this is an awesome selection, and I definitely learned a few things here I did not know before! Thank you very much for your participation!

 

 

Review: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

“The future: a bleak desolate, place. Mutants and the humans who helped them, united in defeat by an enemy we could not stop. Is this the fate we have set for ourselves? Could we have done nothing to stop it?”
– Professor Charles Xavier

A dystopian future of bleak proportions play out the days of the remaining mutants. Made made Sentinels are tracking and hunting down the mutants. Mutants and people who attempted to help them have been captured, they are being butchered and hunted and murdered. Their race is nearing extinction. Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) works with Bobby “Iceman” Drake (Shawn Ashmore), James “Warpath” Proudstar (Booboo Stewart), Peter “Colossus” Rasputin (Daniel Cudmore), Roberto “Sunspot” da Costa (Adan Canto), Clarice “Blink” Fergusen (Fan Bingbing), and Bishop (Omar Sy). They have been relatively successful at avoiding the Sentinels and their tracking beacons. They meet up with Charles “Professor X” Xavier (Patrick Stewart), Erik “Magneto” Lehnsherr (Ian McKellan), Ororo Storm Monroe (Halle Berry), and Logan, a.k.a. Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). Kitty is asked to send Charles’s consciousness back to the seventies, when Raven “Mystique” Darkholme (Jennifer Lawrence) killed Boliver Trask (Peter Dinklage), setting this entire debacle in motion. Mystique’s DNA is also what has made the Sentinels so strong. Charles knows his body will not survive it, and Wolverine steps forwards. His body can heal quickly, and he decides that he will be the one that will have to do what he can to make it right.

“Basically, your body will go to sleep while your mind travels back in time. Whatever you do won’t change anything, not until you wake up. And then everything will be different, and you’ll be the only one who knew what happened before.” – Kitty Pryde

Returning to the seventies, Logan visits Charles’s school, but finds it shut down. He runs into Hank “Beast” McCoy (Nicholas Hoult), and a fight ensues. Ultimately Logan gets to speak to Charles (James McAvoy), and is shocked to find him walking around, but it seems he is powerless. He is taking a serum created by Hank which allows him to walk but blocks his telepathic abilities. Logan cannot understand how and why Charles is such a shattered man, embittered, twisted, furious with the world. Ultimately Logan convinces Charles that he needs his help, and that his older self and Erik have sent him from the future. They need to get Erik (Michael Fassbender) to help, though he is imprisoned at the Pentagon. Enlisting the help of Peter “Quicksilver” Maximoff (Evan Peters), they break him out. Naturally he and Charles have got issues with each other, but they really need to find a way around them so as to work together to stop Raven, to prevent the ghastly future that Logan has come from. He also does not have a lot of time, seeing as the Sentinels are tracking them in the future, and if they find them there will be a problem.

“All those years wasted fighting each other, Charles.” – Erik Lehnsherr

Trask is having serious getting his Sentinel program approved, and it getting progressively angrier about it, as he perceives mutants to be a terrible threat. Tracking down Raven proves to be a bit of an issue, and nothing about their intervention goes even remotely as planned. Erik has a different idea about saving the future, and attempts to kill Raven after stopping her from killing Trask. Charles is angered, and Logan is losing his tether to this era and really needs to make it back to them. Trask has scraped some of Mystique’s blood off the pavement and is working with Major William Stryker (Josh Helman), but they need more DNA. The world witnessed the bloody fights in detail, and are terrified now that they know mutants exist. President Richard Nixon (Mark Camacho) calls for the execution of the Sentinel program. Mystique needs to recover after having barely escaped Erik’s intentions. Logan, Charles, Erik, and Beast need to find a way to fix what has happened, but they all seem to have other ideas about how they are going to go about it. Logan has to convince Charles to regain his abilities, to make a difference, though Charles seems to have no desire whatsoever of getting back on that track. Charles, meanwhile, is desperately struggling to get through to Raven, to express his apologies, to make things right.

“There is a new enemy out there: mutants. You need a new weapon for this war.” – Boliver Trask

Will Charles be able to salvage things between him and Raven? Will Erik always have the outlook on the world that he does? Will he and Charles find a way to work with each other? Will Logan be able to band them all together on time and have them change the past, to impact the future? Will Charles give up the use of his legs to harness the power of his mind? Will they be able to create an alternative future, one where mutants are not hunted and slaughtered, where they live in freedom? Will Mystique successfully kill Trask?

“Just because someone stumbles and loses their path, doesn’t mean they can’t be saved.” – Professor Charles Xavier

I must say that I was exceptionally impressed with this. This was a fine return to form for the franchise after that awful Wolverine film of last year. Hugh Jackman reprises his role of Wolverine and impressed me endlessly. Then there was the combination of bringing Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart back for their roles as the older Charles and Erik, and crossing that with the younger versions of themselves, portrayed by James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender. It was amazing to see the two separate generations combined in one film. The effects in this film were amazing and definitely assisted with the thrill ride. The dystopian future which the mutants find themselves in really is dreary and depressing. Seeing Charles and Erik united once more was something to see, always being the best of friends but always being on completely opposite sides. The performances were fantastic, and there was plenty of humour considering the serious subject matter, but that never stopped it from being intense. I really, really liked the plane scene, the reasons Erik and Charles both had, it was one hell of a scene. Evan Peters as Quicksilver is something that I really did not see coming. I adore Peters as an actor, he amazes me, and I was sure he was going to do the best with the material that he had. However, I had no idea that the material was going to be so great, and he was truly a showstealer every second he was on screen. The concept of the film was great, and wasn’t too intense to wrap your mind around. Seeing Charles in his confused state as his younger self was a difficult thing to watch. Angry, embittered and sour, McAvoy truly delivered in his role. Fassbender, too, impressed me endlessly as Erik, imprisoned and furious. The tension between the two was quite heavy, and McAvoy and Fassbender truly sold it. Wolverine was funnier in here than he has been recently, though I have no issues with seeing a serious and dramatic Logan, it seems that the fans only want the lighthearted man, cocky and sure of himself. Then there was the whole Sentinel story, which was exceptionally interesting, coming together extremely well. Lawrence delivered another solid performance as Mystique. Definitely worth hauling out your cash for and seeing in theatre, X-Men: Days of Future Past delivered far more than expected, delivering a solid film for the year!

Review: X2 (2003) – Silver Screen Serenade

So when Zoë shared her plans to have an X-Men Blogathon to prepare for the upcoming Days of Future Past, I was totally in. I’d been thinking I ought to do something to get in the spirit, and I think this is just the ticket! Kudos for the awesome idea, Zoë!

When given a choice between the X-Men films to review, I immediately snatched up X2: X-Men United. In my opinion, this is the X-Men film to beat. Let’s talk about why, shall we?

Synopsis: “The X-Men band together to find a mutant assassin who has made an attempt on the President’s life, while the Mutant Academy is attacked by military forces.” –www.imdb.com

Why it’s awesome:

That opening! X2 doesn’t waste any time getting right into some action. I mean, an assassination attempt on the president within the first five minutes? I’m paying attention! And as for the would-be assassin…

• NIGHTCRAWLER IS THE BEST. Seriously, he might be my favorite thing about this film. Played brilliantly by Alan Cumming, Kurt Wagner a.k.a. Nightcrawler is just too freaking cool. His look, his power, his personality—I feel like this film nails it. He looks scary, but he has a heart of gold, and with only a few details, you get a sense of his tortured past. Plus, I love the designs on his skin. “One for every sin,” he claims. Very nice touch.

• Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier. Yes, Professor X is a character we’re introduced to in the first film, but he continues to shine here as the strong, wise, soft-spoken patriarch of the X-Men family.
• Hugh Jackman just…is Wolverine. At this point, I do believe Logan a.k.a. Wolverine has been a bit overexposed (he has a huge role in every X-Men film except First Class, where he’s limited to a brief albeit delightful cameo), but this is the surly tough guy’s second film appearance, and it’s great.

• Ian freakin’ McKellen as Erik Lehnsherr a.k.a. Magneto. So much yes. Aside from Tom Hiddleston’s irresistibly fun Loki, McKellen’s Magneto is my very favorite Marvel villain. He’s wonderfully suave, clever, and brutal, and his complicated “frenemy” relationship with Professor X is brilliantly portrayed. Also, his prison breakout scene is arguably the best moment of the film. Sheer awesomeness.
• Rebecca Romijn as Raven Darkholme a.k.a. Mystique. We don’t know much about her, but what we do know is that she’s sexy, sassy, smart, and an undeniable badass. She has some great moments in this film, but my personal favorite is when she breaks into William Stryker’s facility, then slides through a closing door while flipping her enemies the bird. Win.

• The coolness of Colossus (Daniel Cudmore). We may not know much about him, but man does he look awesome.
• The creepy intensity of William Stryker (Brian Cox). It’s hard for a plain old human villain to measure up to mutants, but Stryker does the job perfectly.
• Bobby’s “coming out” scene. When Bobby Drake a.k.a. Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) leads a group of mutants to his family’s house, he has to confess to them what he really is. The family’s reaction is less than favorable. You can’t help drawing parallels between this and the struggles of the gay community. It’s a smart tie-in to a very relevant social issue.
• The Phoenix teasers. There are a couple of them in this film, and even though Phoenix a.k.a. Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) doesn’t turn out quite like fans had hoped, the hints of power are still pretty great.
• Yuriko Oyama a.k.a. Lady Deathstrike (Kelly Hu). When those adamantium claws sprout from her fingertips and she takes on Wolverine, it’s the best.

That scene near the end where the mutants talk to the president. Everything freezes, it’s dark and stormy, the mutants speak from the shadows…Mr. Prez, you’d better LISTEN!

• In general, I just think the script is really sharp for this one. The dialogue is great, the pacing pretty spot-on, and the story, though ambitious, works well. Kudos, X2!

Clearly, I love this one. But if I have to pick on a few things…

The (few) things that bother me:

I don’t love Jean, Rogue (Anna Paquin), or Storm (Halle Berry), and I hate that because they’re all such potentially awesome characters. The problem is Famke Janssen can’t act her way out of a paper bag, Rogue doesn’t have nearly enough sass and is a little whiny (I blame the writers more than Paquin), and Storm is miscast as well as sans the cool African accent she is supposed to have. I read a list the other day of miscast X-Men where the writer suggested Angela Bassett instead of Berry in the role. Anyone who has seen Bassett in American Horror Story: Coven knows why that idea made me giddy.

BEST. STORM. EVER.

I hate the Logan/Jean/Scott love triangle. Is that a thing in the comics? I hate it. I hate how it makes Scott a.k.a. Cyclops (James Marsden) act toward Logan, I hate how Jean kind of leads Logan on, and I hate how it makes Logan a bit mopey. Do you guys feel the same? I don’t know. Maybe the prevalence of love triangles in, like, every recent book and movie has made me bitter toward them.

make them staaaaahp!

• Stryker’s team breaks into the X-Mansion like it’s child’s play. Isn’t that place supposed to be super duper guarded? I feel like Professor X would’ve put more thought into that.
• John Allerdyce a.k.a. Pyro (Aaron Stanford) is just an annoying psycho. There’s not much done to develop his character, and by the time he abandons the X-Men for Team Magneto, I’m like, “Whatever, bro.” Could not care less. Do we even really need him?
• So if you’ve gotten this far, I’m sure you don’t care about spoilers, but SPOILERS! So Jean heroically sacrifices herself by stepping outside of a jet full of her X-Buddies and powering it up before rushing waters come to drown them. Here’s my question: Why couldn’t homegirl power up the jet from the inside? I guess you could argue that she also has to hold back the waters, but earlier in the film she stopped a missile from inside the jet. I see no reason she couldn’t hold back the water from inside it, too.

GET IN THE JET, YOU DUMB BITCH.

Summary:

I love this film. In my opinion, it’s the best X-Men so far (we’ll see how Days of Future Past stacks up), and it does all the things a good sequel is supposed to do: show us more of the characters we love while introducing a few awesome new ones, thicken the plot and put it on a grander scale, and improve upon and/or equal the previous film in greatness. Check, check, and check. This is one of my favorite superhero films for good reason.

My Rating: 9/10 (Probably an A on my rating system)

Thanks so much for letting me participate, Zoë!  X-Men Blogathon ruuuuuules! 😀

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Thanks a million for participating Cara, this was an awesome review! I would have loved to see Bassett rock the Storm role!

Review: X-Men (2000)

“Why do none of you understand what I’m trying to do? Those people down there – they control our fate and the fate of every other mutant!”
– Magneto

Yes, I know this was something I reviewed a while ago, and I have been threatening to review it from scratch again along with all the films that fall a part of this canon and just never got around to it. Here I am updating it for my X-Men run (finally)!

A new generation of man has emerged, and this generation is being drawn into the public eye more and more, and needs defenders to back it up. This is the generation of the mutants, their genetics altered from the average person, making them irrevocably different and ultimately special. Dr Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) is the public face for the mutants, defending them and attempting to veto ridiculous votes such as registries and acts to segregate the mutants from the rest of the American population. The forerunner against the mutants is Senator Kelly (Bruce Davison), and nothing he learns will sway his stance on the subject.

“Mankind is not evil, just… uninformed.” – Professor Charles Xavier

Marie, a.k.a. Rogue (Anna Paquin) is on the run after almost killing the first boy she ever kissed, and meets up with Logan, a.k.a. Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) at a bar outside a town, pegging him for being different. She sneaks in a lift with him, and he finds her. They are ambushed by a group of mutants, and are saved by another group. Wolverine and Rogue are taken back to an area that they learn is a school for the mutants, established by Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart). Here they have a place where they are looked after, accepted and taught life skills. Being the loner, Wolverine wants out, and is intent on making that happen. He is, however, very taken with Jean Grey, and her boyfriend Scott Summers, a.k.a. Cyclops (James Marsden) is not impressed at all.

Soon they learn that Erik Lehnsherr, a.k.a. Magneto (Ian McKellan), is after Wolverine, and they are sure it has to do with his abilities to heal. He believes that a war is imminent, and has en evil master plan to win no matter the costs. Magneto sends in Mystique (Rebecca Romijn) to capture the senator, and from there his evil plan becomes slowly unveiled. Professor X is convinced that given enough time the normal people will accept the mutants, being very much the idealist. As a realist, Magneto and his troubled past knows that people do not accept that which they do not know, they ostracize it, and make it suffer. He wants to hurry up the genetic mutations in people. Senator Kelly escapes and rushes off to Jean Grey at the mutant academy, not knowing where else to go now that he is one of them, and desperate to survive this. Magneto kidnaps Rogue, and Professor X uses Cerebro to locate her. Suddenly it makes sense to all of them why she would be the one. He is willing to transfer his powers to her briefly to implement what he is too weak to do, and not willing to die for.

“Mutants are not the ones mankind should fear.” – Dr Jean Grey

The X-Men need to gear up and get ready to fight Magneto and his vile plans to save the rest of the world from being wiped out. Magneto has no patience, and also no desire to let people choose their own paths, their own destiny. Wolverine feels he owes Rogue, and is intent on saving her, but will he be in time? The X-Men band together to fight evil, but will they save the girl? Will they be able to save the people?

“If they have anything that can pick up our jet, they deserve to catch us.” – Cyclops

A 7.5/10.  I have enjoyed this movie since I was a child. The first time I watched it I literally finished it, rewound the VHS and started all over again. You know how kids can get? Obsessive, I think, would be the only way to summarize it correctly. So because of that I have a soft spot for it. The effects were not bad for their time, but are a little dubious should you look them over too closely now. The story is alright, but has a few holes, and is slightly rushed, but not to the extent that none of it makes sense or that nothing sinks in. Hugh Jackman is so perfectly cast as the Wolverine, and I don’t think anyone could play it as successfully as he did. I am putting it out there right off the bat so it has been say, I have never been a fan of Scott Summers or the red that makes him Cyclops. I think he is a total chop, and I was not a fan of the casting, though it might be more due to disliking the character than anything else, not so much the actor. Halle Berry really had terrible acting skills, and she is truly not amazing, and doesn’t really bring much to the story. Her character was incredibly weak. Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart rocked their roles (I expected nothing less), and have a great chemistry to show how the friends have turned on one another, though still respect each other. Very well done for that! Every time I see the piece of Magneto in the concentration camps I get to sad. Definitely worth checking out, and a really fun set of films to watch. This is definitely a good entry to the superhero genre. X-Men truly sports a fantastic cast and is very well done and holds up pretty well, even after all this time.