This One's For You, Morph! - An X-Men X-travaganza, part 1
Welcome to a special episode of the Renegade Pop Culture podcast, featuring our take on the X-Men film franchise! Part one has Keona, Jacob, Brock, Josh, and special guest host Millennial Mike from the Exiles Network discussing the finer points of X-Men, X2: X-Men United, X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men: First Class, and Deadpool, so be prepared for a lot of Magneto quotes and criticism of Bryan Singer as we embark on the X-Men X-travaganza! Smash that play button below, and remember… This one’s for you, Morph!
Before we move on to the movies themselves, we do want to mention the sad news regarding Norm Spencer’s passing on August 31, 2020, at the age of 62. Spencer was the definitive voice of Cyclops for many of us who grew up watching the ‘90s X-Men animated series and playing the famous (some might say “infamous”) Capcom 2D fighting games like X-Men: Children of the Atom, X-Men vs. Street Fighter, Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, Marvel vs. Capcom, and Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes. When I read Cyke in an issue of the X-Men comics, I always heard Spencer’s voice in my head. His performance was iconic, and while that certainly isn’t the only role he ever played, I’ll always remember him as that ruby quartz visor-wearin’, eyebeam-shootin’ badass. Rest in peace and love, Mr. Spencer. This one’s for you, Norm!
We also want to take a moment to dedicate our podcasts and articles to the memory of Chadwick Boseman, who was such a talented and skilled performer and actor, and just a wonderful man. He passed away from colon cancer on August 28th. If you would like to donate to colorectal cancer research, please visit this website. Thank you.
One more quick note: it’s clear that Bryan Singer is a troubled individual who has had many people come forward with allegations as to his behind-the-scenes activities, prior to and during the filming of the X-Men film franchise. We here at Renegade Pop Culture always side with the victims of heinous crimes and denounce any wrongdoing that Singer may have done. That said, we are looking at the movies themselves, and we criticize these movies based on their own merits, as they are presented. Thank you for understanding.
Alright, on to the movies… Be prepared for a lot of Magneto impressions, folks. First up, we have Bryan Singer’s original X-Men film, released in 2000. With an olympic-level cast headed up by the great Sir Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier and Sir Ian McKellen as Erik Lensherr (also known as Magneto), the film is considered to be one of the touchstones of the Marvel cinematic era, and, apart from Wesley Snipes’ Blade, is seen as the opening salvo in the golden age of comic book-to-movie adaptations. The principal cast is rounded out with Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Anna Paquin as Rogue, James Marsden as Cyclops, Famke Janssen as Jean Grey, Halle Berry as Storm, Bruce Davison as Sen. Robert Kelly, Rebecca Romijn as Mystique, Ray Park as Toad, and Tyler Mane as Sabretooth. A strong group, to be sure, and while the entire storyline is a bit low-impact, what’s here is a solid foundation for the series going forward. Singer and his writers, both credited and uncredited, had to build a grounded yet comic book-inspired world and introduce a truckload of characters and their motivations. Given the constraints within which the filmmaking team had to work, it’s amazing that the movie turned out as well as it did. It may not be the best of the X-films, but it is a great start, with a truly haunting opening sequence and some decent special effects and production design.
X2: X-Men United follows up on the original’s story with a more personal tale for Wolverine and a threat to the entire team of X-Men, as well as Xavier’s students. The vengeful Col. William Stryker (Brian Cox) leads his team of commandos into the X-Mansion, where they find and kidnap some of the X-Men’s pupils and take them back to Stryker’s lair at the old Alkali Lake/Weapon X Program facility. After trapping and zapping Xavier with some mind control juice and a little illusion power (courtesy of Stryker’s son), Wolverine, Rogue, and the rest of the team join forces with Magneto and Mystique to infiltrate the base and take down Stryker. This movie took the first film’s characters and put them through their paces, while expanding some of the younger cast members’ roles and increasing the amount of action set-pieces and the overall scope of the narrative. It also contains one of the best musical scores in the franchise, courtesy of John Ottman. Generally considered one of the best comic book films of all time, X-Men 2 is certainly one of my personal favorites, and it sets up what would have been an excellent story arc to come, but instead, we got this…
X-Men: The Last Stand is a cautionary tale. It’s what happens when you take an established franchise, replace the director of the first two installments with a lesser filmmaker, and overload the narrative with not just one storyline that deserves its own full movie, but two of them. Oh, and let’s not forget to add a bunch of nameless, faceless tertiary characters who serve as nothing but cannon fodder for the heroes to beat on in the final action set-piece. Don’t get me wrong, there are some bright spots here: Kelsey Grammer is the perfect choice to play a live action version of Beast, just as Ellen Page and Eric Dane are spot-on in their portrayals of Kitty Pryde and Jamie Madrox, respectively. But the narrative is over-crowded, both in terms of characters and the main plot, as the X-Men have to contend with both a government-produced “cure” for the mutant X-gene and the evolution of Jean Grey into the cosmic-empowered Dark Phoenix. They don’t even let her manifest the firebird effect, which is a shame for those of us who love the comics and the ‘90s animated series. On the other hand, John Powell’s score is radiant and dramatic and soars above the movie it’s tied to, in my opinion, and Grammer’s Shakespearean reading of “Oh my stars and garters” was almost the best line reading in the whole movie (apart from Vinnie Jones’ “I’m the Juggernaut, bitch!”). Still, while this isn’t the worst of the franchise, there’s more bad than good here. And speaking of bad…
X-Men Origins: Wolverine is one of the worst films I have ever seen in my life. It not only squanders all of the pathos that had been built up around the character in the first two X-films, but it also fails to adapt either Paul Jenkins and Andy Kubert’s Origin comic series in any meaningful way, and it eschews any of the tragic elements of Barry Windsor-Smith’s iconic Weapon X miniseries in the process. What we’re left with is almost a parody of itself, a meaningless, poorly edited, ugly mess of a film with bad CGI claws, no depth, and a ton of explosions and daft humor. The only good thing about this movie was the casting of Liev Schreiber as Victor/Sabretooth (though they don’t call him that in the movie at all). With a bunch of wasted cameos (like Taylor Kitsch’s Gambit and Ryan Reynolds’ Wade Wilson), inane dialogue, and the worst version of the Weapon X facility escape ever conceived, I’d rather gouge my own eyes out than ever watch this trash-heap again. Luckily, things get better…
X-Men: First Class was directed by Matthew Vaughn and is generally considered to be one of the best films in the franchise. While it wasn’t without a few flaws, it was a return to form for the series and a huge creative boost for the franchise, thanks to Vaughn and an entirely new cast of fresh faces taking the reins. Rather than rehash the first film’s look and feel, Vaughn told the story of a younger Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and Prof. Xavier (James McAvoy), as they took on the first class of X-Men together, along with Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), and CIA agent Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne). They teamed up with the younger Xavier pupils to battle Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), a mutant who could absorb energy at a cellular level, and his minions. Shaw, it turns out, had worked in the Nazi prison camps in World War II (his mutant power kept him from growing old), and was responsible for the death of Magneto’s mother. The movie isn’t relentlessly dark, but it treats the younger Magneto’s pain with the tragic resonance it deserves, and the tale of his friendship with young Xavier is a deep bond between two men which ultimately turns tragic and ends painfully. Unlike Origins: Wolverine, First Class treats its subject matter with respect and reverence. It also has a great musical score and some amazing ‘60s-era production design.
Skipping ahead a bit in the franchise’s release calendar (which was my fault; sorry, I misread the release dates), we talked about Deadpool, one of my favorite movies of all time and definitely my top pick among the X-films. Ryan Reynolds worked overtime to bring us his version of the Merc with the Mouth, and he, along with writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick and director Tim Miller, did not disappoint in the slightest. After being completely misrepresented in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Reynolds and his creative compatriots wanted to deliver a more comic-accurate and wise-cracking version of the character, with his more gruesome appearance and snarky persona intact. Yes, while Reynolds did get to joke around as Wade in Origins, it was clear that the film had other plans for him, but that’s all in the past, and Deadpool 1 is a great, simple action-comedy that even has time to spare for Wade’s romance with Vanessa (the delightful Morena Baccarin) and his interactions with cab driver extraordinaire, Dopinder (a hilarious Karan Soni). I love the fourth-wall breaking humor, and the relentlessly sassy banter between Wade and Vanessa just serves to make them even more endearing as individual characters and as a couple. As a film, Deadpool makes use of its modest budget and delivers great action, amazing humor, and a dash of heartfelt romance. The perfect date movie, as DP would say himself.
Alright, that brings this special edition of the Renegade Pop Culture podcast to a close. This is only part one of our X-Men X-travaganza, so please stay tuned for part two, coming soon. X-tra-large thanks to our x-cellent guest co-host, Millennial Mike! Please visit The Exiles Network website and listen to their uncanny podcast! Thanks to all of you for listening, and please, remember to be like Deadpool and wear your mask! Be kind to each other, and we’ll see you next time!
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