I have to say I had some expectations for this one.
Because I love the X-Men and that Matthew Vaughn (who did a pretty great job on KICK-ASS) was helming it. I mean it's been a while since X-Men 2, which was the last great movie about the characters (please don't mention Wolverine...).
An origina story to the whole thing wasn't the most appealing thing at first, but seeing the Prof X / Magneto relationship evolve had some good potential...
Well I have to say I was disappointed.
What makes this movie annoying is that there is a LOT of things to love there, lots of great ideas, but to me they were undermined by other annoyances.
The positives: McAvoy & Fassbender are great as Professor X and Magneto and their relationship works brilliantly. This is the core of the film, so it was important and I think they nailed it. Strangely, Magneto comes through as quite Wolverine-y (a loner out for revenge), but it works.
The character of Mystique also works, along with Beast, with the 2 characters struggling with their mutation.
Also, Kevin Bacon makes a great Sebastian Shaw, eventhough I felt he was underused.
The setting is also good, mixing up the events wit the cuban missile crisis is a clever turn.
So you have a good, menacing bad guy, a strong set of good guys, good relationships, so what went wrong?
For starters, I felt there was a lack of cool moments. I mean I haven't seen X-Men 2 in ages, but I can remember the opening with Nightcrawler's attack on the president, the attack on the X-Mansion, Pyro's pyrotechnics or Magneto's escape. Those were cool moments.
I didn't find any substantial one there. I mean it's the X-Men we're talking about, they can do awesome things, and the best we get is just Banshee flying around or Magneto lifting a submarine? They can do BETTER!
But even without this, I found there were scenes that just didn't work. The introduction with Magneto's mom's death for example. I just couldn't believe he wouldn't try to kill Shaw in his rage (I found Kevin Bacon's German accent impressive by the way, as were the ones Michael Fassbender put on show!). It didn't make sense to me. And that happened a few times during the movie. And it's such a turn off! I took me out, made me question what was going on and that's something I find deeply annoying.
And it's a shame, because there are plenty of good moments to counter balance those, but added to the lack of real "Wow factor", it just left me dissatisfied.
But I guess that could be just me. Because as I said, there's a lot to love in there. But I guess the whole movie just feels rushed. Like they just wanted to put it out and didn't take time to really think it through. If they had, I'm quite sure that it could have been the best in the series.
It didn't turn out that way however.
So I'd say it's still better than X-Men Last Stand (although this one has a few cool set pieces), but I would classify it as a missed opportunity...
Because I love the X-Men and that Matthew Vaughn (who did a pretty great job on KICK-ASS) was helming it. I mean it's been a while since X-Men 2, which was the last great movie about the characters (please don't mention Wolverine...).
An origina story to the whole thing wasn't the most appealing thing at first, but seeing the Prof X / Magneto relationship evolve had some good potential...
Well I have to say I was disappointed.
What makes this movie annoying is that there is a LOT of things to love there, lots of great ideas, but to me they were undermined by other annoyances.
The positives: McAvoy & Fassbender are great as Professor X and Magneto and their relationship works brilliantly. This is the core of the film, so it was important and I think they nailed it. Strangely, Magneto comes through as quite Wolverine-y (a loner out for revenge), but it works.
The character of Mystique also works, along with Beast, with the 2 characters struggling with their mutation.
Also, Kevin Bacon makes a great Sebastian Shaw, eventhough I felt he was underused.
The setting is also good, mixing up the events wit the cuban missile crisis is a clever turn.
So you have a good, menacing bad guy, a strong set of good guys, good relationships, so what went wrong?
For starters, I felt there was a lack of cool moments. I mean I haven't seen X-Men 2 in ages, but I can remember the opening with Nightcrawler's attack on the president, the attack on the X-Mansion, Pyro's pyrotechnics or Magneto's escape. Those were cool moments.
I didn't find any substantial one there. I mean it's the X-Men we're talking about, they can do awesome things, and the best we get is just Banshee flying around or Magneto lifting a submarine? They can do BETTER!
But even without this, I found there were scenes that just didn't work. The introduction with Magneto's mom's death for example. I just couldn't believe he wouldn't try to kill Shaw in his rage (I found Kevin Bacon's German accent impressive by the way, as were the ones Michael Fassbender put on show!). It didn't make sense to me. And that happened a few times during the movie. And it's such a turn off! I took me out, made me question what was going on and that's something I find deeply annoying.
And it's a shame, because there are plenty of good moments to counter balance those, but added to the lack of real "Wow factor", it just left me dissatisfied.
But I guess that could be just me. Because as I said, there's a lot to love in there. But I guess the whole movie just feels rushed. Like they just wanted to put it out and didn't take time to really think it through. If they had, I'm quite sure that it could have been the best in the series.
It didn't turn out that way however.
So I'd say it's still better than X-Men Last Stand (although this one has a few cool set pieces), but I would classify it as a missed opportunity...
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