The Great Renaissance of the X-Men Movie Franchise ---Part 3---

Logan (2017)

Image via 20th Century Fox

Without Deadpool, Fox would never green-light this project. Without Deadpool, James Mangold would leave this project to dust and be remembered as the guy who barely did Wolverine justice. Without Deadpool, Hugh Jackman and Sir Patrick Stewart would never risked their lives to lose massive amounts of weight to reprise their roles, for the last time. And all of these commitments from everyone paid-off as Logan grossed half a billion dollars worldwide, proving to Fox not only there is a HUGE demand for R-rated films, but people wanted to see a mature story of their beloved fictional character.

My Verdict. - - - 8/10

Image via 20th Century Fox

Remember I mentioned Wolverine is such a cardboard cut-out for almost every movie he's in? Well, guess what, I was proven wrong. They took idea of "immortality can be a curse" and apply that to Wolverine. The guy came off as a grumpy, sad, pathetic old hag who drives a limo for a living. He's always on-edge the whole time not because this secret government agency is trying to detain the remaining mutants roaming around the streets, but because he was scared to lose any more people who he loved and cared about, mainly Charles Xavier. That is such a clever way to make Wolverine vulnerable without taking out his "abilities" like many would do. And after seeing Hugh Jackman playing for 17 years, there's no doubt he is the perfect man to play this Wolverine, particularly for this movie.

It's a sad reality that superhero films, even as mature as this, still gets overlooked as popcorn entertainment when in reality it's a creative retelling of Children of Men. Why do I say this? Charles Xavier totally deserved his Best Supporting Actor. Every time I saw this man in any of the X-Men movies, he emulates leadership, wiseful, and optimism to every situation. I didn't see an actor portraying Xavier, THIS IS the person I'm seeing who I wanted to talk to in my darkest days. Sure he grew to be this impatient grumpy hag, just like his caretaker, but he's still the same wholesome grandfather everyone wishes they had. I'm not saying Hugh Jackman didn't deserved his (in fact I wished at least a nominee), I'm saying Sir. Patrick Stewart needed at least for this one for nailing the character the best way possible for the last time.

Image via 20th Century Fox

I am a little skeptical for the little kid 'cuz "we know how those turned out". But man, the whole movie was just Hugh Jackman and Dafne Keen topping off each other of who's the REAL star of the movie. That alone is worth every...dollar...spent. It's quite rare for a child actor/actress to be as competent as the main hero without coming off as annoying. Would look forward to see more of her future projects.

And..and, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR USING REAL, PRACTICAL CLAWS THIS TIME.

With all the praises given, the movie suffered with another one-dimensional villain who's sole purpose is to provide stakes to our character. I have no idea why they didn't write a new version of William Stryker since the movie dives back to "mutants being experimented on" backstory. There's so many things they could explore with his character further from the 2nd movie. And in my opinion, it would drive the whole Wolverine story to a complete circle. The Wolverine born thanks to Stryker only to be killed by his own creation. But that's nothing to worry about.

Deadpool 2 (2018)

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Go figure what happen here. Nothing much to be said.

My Verdict - - - 6/10

Image via 20th Century Fox

Despite the trailer giving off some "re-hashed" elements from the first movie, I have optimism that Deadpool wouldn't completely subvert our expectations of delivering something new and fresh, similar to how James Gunn did with Guardians 2. Well, turns out, in a positive note, it is a different movie. However, they kept on re-using the same ol' "Look, we are mocking how stupid superheroes are." straight in our faces, with little to no subtlety.

Even now after my second re-watch, I found it harder to recall some scenes that stood out to me. For example, the first film opening was taking a jab on the latest "mannequin challenge" trend, where everything froze as the camera flew through the obstacles. It not only is hilarious because of taking a jab on the current culture, but showed us a few easter eggs about how Ryan Reynolds feeling somewhat ashamed being in the "People's sexiest man alive" magazine and how much he regretted playing Hal Jordan in the past. Just little subtle references like that makes the movie quite unique. There's barely any of that in the opening of Deadpool 2. They simply did parody of the overused stylised 007 opening with the same ol' credits like "Directed by: The guy who killed John Wicks dog." .It would have been hilarious if they haven't done it in the first film.

A lot of missed opportunities that I wished the film took the time to develop. Like making a 15-year old angsty boy your main antagonist is, honestly, a very good idea. And quite frankly, pretty original. Imagine re-using the trope of "I cannot control my powers" but this time, it's really the boy who couldn't control his emotions when being mocked or laughed at. So when he wreak havoc, maybe show him killing innocent lives, we would feel both frustrated and sorry for him. In this way, he would have an arc to take his responsibilities to his own hands and be able to face the consequences. Wouldn't that be more memorable and impactful rather than Deadpool having to come to terms of understanding his struggles and basically do ALL the work for him?

Image via 20th Century Fox

Another one is taking a jab at the X-Men franchise. From the first film, it is established that Deadpool didn't need or wasn't interested of making his own team of misfits. Out of the blue, he's a completely different person here and was so DESPERATE of making his own. Let's take a look at season 2 of the Punisher. He's surely a lone wolf and didn't like to have any sort of backup. But as the story goes along, there are people who actually do care about him and his well-being. So Punisher has to accept that fact by keeping them at arms length just so they both can be safe. In my opinion, the whole film would've been a lot better if they went with a plot similar to this instead of the X-Force established very early on.

As much as this movie didn't "lived up to the hype" to the first film, I can stil say a few good things here and there. The film-making totally excelled the first in terms of budget, set designs, VFX, heck, even this time they finally added color. No longer did it to look like a student film or someone would do as a passion project anymore. Felt like something a REAL Hollywood studio would make.

Image via 20th Century Fox

Ah yes, the character banter was very entertaining like expected. They kind of fixed the issue with T.J Miller's character here as he's less annoying and felt more like someone who needs to be on a team for support. And man, listening to these weirdos argue with one another is honestly enough to sold me for a full ticket price. The writers somehow found a way to make the new characters be on-par with the old ones in terms of their charm and wittyness. Every, single, person, managed to stole a scene or two, pushing the pacing consistently throughout.

That's really as much as I can say about it. I was quite disappointed when I was expecting them to do something new and/or fresh with the superhero tropes, when in fact, they re-create the first film with a different sub-par plot.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019)

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It's 2 months away from 2018, The Walt Disney Company was reported to negotiate a deal with Rupert Murdoch to acquire 21st Century Fox's filmed entertainment. This is the time when Fox was still in production of X-Men Dark Phoenix and The New Mutants. Fox pretty much had no choice since many young audiences didn't really enjoy most of their film properties and they were somewhat losing money. So obviously Fox, Rupert Murdoch, hesitantly signed the documents right before he cried himself in the corner in his full-framed sleek director's office.

This is a terrible situation for both these movies since they were planned to be initially released back in 2018. But since now Disney owned them, they couldn't help but to place their nasty little hands on these productions, resulting in extensive re-shoots and more uncertainties of whether these movies are even worth releasing. At least Dark Phoenix made it's way out of this hiatus in 2019. What about The New Mutants? A more interesting take on the genre of playing it straight as a horror featurette? We don't know.

My Verdict - - - 4/10

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I honestly don't know if I should just wait for The New Mutants to come out so I can complete my X-Men saga review or I can put an end to my review here. And thinking about it again, I don't think it's really worth the wait, isn't it? So let me talk about how much I was impressed and disappointed with the 2nd Dark Phoenix story on the big screen, AGAIN...

First off, I'm giving a sh*t ton of respect to Simon Kimberg of finishing off not only finishing off Singer's saga, but also telling everyone that he's aware of his mistakes from the script down to his directorial skills. Sure, that doesn't change my opinion of the film itself. But people like him should be applauded for taking responsibilities to his own hands, just like an adult. *insert shocked Pikachu face.* So, thank you sir for displaying yourself as a great role model for those people who are aspiring to be in the film industry one day.

With that aside, Dark Phoenix has some of the best scores amongst the entire X-Men saga without a doubt. Heck, I might even consider buying a digital copy or even a Vinyl if I could find one in my area. Every single song was so well orchestrated and totally fits the scene like a glove. Especially the track Reckless. The notes went higher and faster psychologically, similar how he scored Dunkirk's track, Submarine. The notes got so intense I started clenching my fist like I was in for one hell of a roller coaster ride.

Image via 20th Century Fox

I checked who composed this work of art and once I searched the album on Spotify, my whole jaw dropped to the center of the earth. It's Hans, feckin, Zimmer. And in case any one of you didn't know who the hell is this dude, he's responsible of composing your favorite musics from the iconic Pirates of the Carribean theme to the overplayed Inception song Time everyone remembers back in the golden age of Youtube. It's a little strange since I remembered hearing somewhere he wanted to stop working on superhero movies, but upon checking his IMDB, he's scoring for the newest Wonder Woman movie. Like they say, money talks, am I right?

I do seem to noticed they are able to allocate their budget quite well, especially in terms of special effects. Man, was this a real step-up from Apocalypse. Not one scene looked like it was filmed on a soundstage somewhere. Therefore, my suspense of disbelief wasn't affected for the whole 2 hours. A fan favorite would be the the train hijacking scene. My heart was pounding so fast when Magneto was wrecking scraps from the train, throwing them away as one of the cargo exploded, trying to defend himself against these goons no one in the audience really cared about. Thanks to the previous 3 movies of Magneto's character development and Fassbender's amazing performance, once more, totally made the ticket worth every dime.

Almost all the praises I gave are all more towards the technical side of the film. Because they still repeat the problems I had with Apocalypse. Bad dialogue, sub-par performances, mediocre directing, cliche villain and so on. Like I explained myself in my Wolverine review, I would rather make a horrendously bad film that people will still bring up in conversations in the near future than being safe, boring and forgotten withing a short amount of time. Believe me when I say everyone won't remember of ever seeing this, whether they like it or not. And it totally shows from the box office numbers. It's not because everyone knew their pocket money will be sucked by the Mouse, but because the damn thing is a chore to sit through.

Personal Note

Image via Alex Ross and Marvel Comics

There's a lot of other criticisms that I wanted to talk further upon, but I think I've said enough of what I needed to say. The X-Men series, despite being inconsistent, is one of the most unique theme park rides I've ever been on. Down from the bottom of the barrel, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, to the highest gates of heaven, X-Men: Days of Future Past. For every movie they pumped out, I always found something that I can relate myself on a personal note. Whether it is the allegory of discrimination or the positive mindset of "everything is going to be alright". I might never see another franchise that can tackle real-world issues, that are for sure still relevant today, with silly characters everyone dismisses as children's entertainment.

Thank you 20th Century Fox, for giving the green-light to an awesome . Thank you Bryan Singer, for having the balls to lead the world of cinema to an amazing place we've enjoyed today. Thank you Simon Kinberg, despite your many misses for many years, your strikes were what counts in my eyes. And to all the actors who worked their asses off, some for almost 20 years, I'm looking at you Hugh, Mr. Stewart, thank you for making our dreams a reality we can see on the silver screen.