The X-Men Movies--Super or stupid?

[Manic Webb]

Since there's already an X-Men movie thread, I'll just merge this thread into that one.

[color=green]Threads Merged[/color]

[SadClown]

Eventhough it's off-topic, I thought the Spiderman movie wasn't very good.

[Maully]

Not so off-topic, if we compare it to x-men... I didn't like the spiderman movie either, I thought x2 was much, much better. I am also not excited to see spiderman 2 as I will wait in line for x3 probably, very much as I did for x1 and x2

What's up? x-men or spiderman (movies)?

[Brasil]

The main problem I had with X2 (and X-Men for that matter), was that it was an ensemble piece, but really not done well for an ensemble cast.

I'm comparing X2 to The Usual Suspects (both Bryan Singer directed).

Singer came out of the gate with a STELLAR ensemble movie. The Usual Suspects. It is amazing every time I see it. I'm still blown away by every performance. This is due to 2 reasons:

1) The writing. The script, writing, characterizations are spectacular. Each character is fully developed and has loads of depth. There is no extraneous motion. The dialogue is tight, succinct, sharp. There is no wishy-washy emotion.

2) The performances. Kevin Spacey. Benicio Del Toro. Gabriel Byrne. Kevin Pollak. Stephen Baldwin. Those are just the PRINCIPAL players. Their performances are excellent. Passionate, subtle, humorous. Every emotion is conveyed damn near perfectly.

Now, compare The Usual Suspects to X2.

X2...is horribly paled in comparison. I really don't think Singer has what it takes to make a comic book movie. That's evidenced by X2 vs Usual Suspects. They're both ensemble pieces, but Suspects is handled much much better.

Regarding Spiderman vs X2. Look at the directors.

Bryan Singer.

Sam Raimi.

Raimi is considered a filmmaker god by many. He knows how to make a film that connects with the audience. EVIL DEAD!! When you look at Evil Dead, you see comic book aspects in it. The method of presentation matches a comic book flair. He has entertainment down pat.

In Evil Dead, he balances drama with comedy, which he did in Spiderman. There are some very dramatic scenes [spoiler]Uncle Ben dying.[/spoiler] and there are some hilarious moments [spoiler]the entire high school scene is side-splittingly funny, as are the moments when Peter is trying to use his new powers.[/spoiler]

Singer, on the other hand, tries to re-create The Usual Suspects using X-Men. It just doesn't work. It doesn't light my fire. The actors were not used appropriately in any of the X movies. Hugh Jackman was the strongest character of the two movies, but even then he nears campy. Alan Cumming, who is one of my favorite actors ever (his performance in GoldenEye was great), really was not utilized well. X2 tried to do too much, tried to cover too much ground, and thus spread itself too thin, leading to a half-assed, blase, lukewarm movie. I didn't feel for ANY of the characters, except maybe Pyro, cause his performance was very strong.

Simply, Singer does not know the craft as well as Raimi. Spiderman is inherently a better film, because those involved knew exactly what they were doing. Singer is still dancing around the X concept, and I venture to say, he's still unsure of what he wants to do with the series.

In my opinion, Singer peaked with his debut. The Usual Suspects.

[Maully]

I totally agree with you about The Usual Suspects, it's one of my favorite movies, and I never get tired of it. The performance in both xmen movies are pretty weak, in my opinion, they have some amazing actors ( Patrick Stewart, Alan Cummings, Ian McClellan) but those assets aren't used as they should be, I agree. Plus, in comparison to Usual Suspects, the script falls really short, it is not as strong a foundation as the script of Suspects. Cinematically, in X2, the shots are kind of boring and straight on, the camera adds no intrigue. I haven't seen Suspects in a while, but I don't remember it being that way.

Hooray for Sam Raimi!!(except for spider-man) I am sorry, but I didn't really like it. I think that Raimi did some things right in it, though. The use of vibrant, vivid, comic book colors for the first thing. I think I will sit through it again before I open my big mouth, since I haven't seen it since theaters...

[SadClown]

I think that Bryan Singer made one of the biggest mistakes a director can make; assuming that big names will equal a good movie. In reality, any actor, no matter how good, can still suck in a badly written role.

[Brasil]

Definitely, SadClown. Event Horizon is a prime example. It was absolutely horrid and utterly failed even with two very strong players: Sam Neill and Laurence Fishburne.

That's exactly the point. Singer honestly believed that having headliners like Halle Berry, Ian McKellan, Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, and Alan Cumming would carry his movie.

This is a golden rule of cinema. No matter how great an actor may be, they absolutely cannot carry a character that is nothing more than crap on a page.

Stepmom...Gigli (although the acting skills of Affleck and Lopez are questionable)...Planet Of The Apes (remake)...had big name stars and/or big talent, but ultimately fell flat.

This is one reason I regard Spiderman so highly. It features AWESOME actors (Maguire, Defoe, Franco) and the script is top-notch. It is an excellent movie and shows what X2 should have been. There is none of the wishy-washy bleh that X2 had. Spiderman had heart, while X2 just had...an empty chest cavity...Yeah...X2 is basically a cadaver...dead of emotion...dead of feeling...dead of action.

[Semjaza]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Silent [/i]
[B]Yeah,I understand perfectly well why they changed *some* things,but can anyone tell me why Mystique had to be nude. . .?I mean,as far as I know,she's always worn clothes.The only reasonable explanation is that she's naked just to bring in more people,but I'd really like to think there's a more depthful reasoning behind it. . .In addition,why doesn't she talk?I mean,she's got about 10(if *that* many) lines between both movies. . .In the comics,Mystique never had a hard time talking.And she often had her own agenda,apart from Magneto's,whereas in the movie,she's just sort of another one of his lackeys(sp?). . . [/B][/QUOTE]

I'm going to ignore the rest of this thread and go with this for a second.

If you think about it... why would Mystique wear clothes at all? When she's herself, she has no real visible genitalia anyway. So she's just going to shift to a version of herself with clothes? What would be the point? She's already a bizarre looking mutant lol.

If she had real clothes on... they wouldn't go away when she shifted. If she had some tight pink suit on, what would happen if she had to shift into a fat, short man in a suit? When she shifts she takes on the form of the person's clothes as well anyway. The pink suit wouldn't just disappear, it would be on her over everything else in some fashion.

To me that makes more sense like this.

[SadClown]

^^ Speaking of that, in the first movie when she's disguised as Henry Ghirick *sp* she takes a cell phone from Senator Kelly and puts it in her jacket pocket, then shifts into her "normal" self. Where'd the cell phone go?

PosionTongue, I'm glad we can come to a common ground on this. at least, sence we could not on our Aliens discussion. X2, in my opnion, was a lot better than X1 in the sence that the story seemed to flow a little more and the action was a bit better. X1 is just complete guano...

[Rockstar Haruko]

I liked both X-men movies, but I think they could've been a little better. In the second one, there was more talking than action. Or maybe that was in both of them... The powers were cool and the characters were great. So it was SUPER!!