thread for anticipating X-MEN: FIRST CLASS (Fassbender, McAvoy, Bacon, dir. Vaughn), i guess.

http://i53.tinypic.com/o10mci.jpg

matthew vaughn (Layer Cake, Kick-Ass, Stardust) directing prequel-y movie about young xavier (mcavoy) and magneto (fassbender) and kevin bacon, possibly/hopefully set in swinging london; most of the x-men in it are nobodies, for continuity reasons

http://i53.tinypic.com/2iup086.jpg
http://i52.tinypic.com/mcynuv.jpg <-- money shot
http://i56.tinypic.com/2mzd44w.jpg

cumming this summer

forgot the imdb link

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1270798/

plz say Kevin Bacon is playing himself

here's the trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyQb192-CPQ

(hes playing sebastian shaw)

oh that's kind of awesome

two more stills

http://i.imgur.com/viwEL.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/FAgE5.jpg

gonna suck

How does this guy possibly hope to follow in the footsteps of the great Brett Ratner?

They should call this "X-Men: Orange and Teal."

I almost started this thread until I realized that this movie is going to be terrible.

Also the mutant makeup photos here look very uhhhhhhhhh, and January Jones looks like she's modeling for the VS catalog rather than dressed as Emma Frost. I realizing the corset-and-hooker-boots costume that she originally wore in the comics might be distracting, but c'mon, guys.

Eh, ignore those makeup photos. Apparently those images are fakes and Matthew Vaughan is right pissed about it.

Nicholas Hoult looks like the dude equivalent of the sexy librarian in that picture.

guys professor x is bald! he was born bald, never grew hair and remained bald. what a disaster.

He's over 18, right? I hope Chris Hansen is not reading this thread. xp

So Xavier is like a hairless cat?

exactly

It makes sense, those hairless cats always have this knowing look like they are reading your mind.

ACTUALLY losing his hair was a byproduct of his mutation as a teenager

Remember when the first X-Men costumes were leaked out, and people freaked out? But those Singer movies were fine. I like Matthew Vaughan OK, but I can't imagine this bringing anything to the table. They should just aim for a "Secret Wars" finale to all these super-hero movies and get it over with. "The Avengers!" "Spider-Man!" "X-Men!" "Fantastic Four!" Together at last! (They can throw Batman in there, too, just to see if anyone's paying attention).

xpost ha, yeah was just kidding. just that prof x w/ hair is kinda like ... umm wolverine w/o sideburns

I can imagine Kevin Bacon reading the script... "Wait, so I get to be a controlling asshole and perv over the ladies, including January Jones? I'm in!"

well look at that, rose byrne

Nice ascot. xp

http://comicsmedia.ign.com/comics/image/article/627/627277/babes64lastbracket_1122662279-000.jpg

that is the most perplexing bracket ever

like, Fairchild over Jean? really?

FYI, I believe it was the Hottest Female Comic Book Character competition, c. 2005.

I think they have a lot of weird choices there.

I mean, in the context of considering it weird, but still considering it a reasonable thing to rank female comic characters for hotness.

OK, this whole enterprise is fucked.

It was a reader's poll somewhere. Comic book readers who would vote on hottest character=weird.

I love love love Grant Morrison's version of Emma Frost, but I don't expect the movie version to be anything like that.

You know, the "hottest woman" or "hottest actress" thing in real life is still pretty creepy, but with fictional characters, it's a whole new ballgame.

No corset & boots is kinda a deal-breaker for me.

this can't be any lamer than Wolverine

incorrect

Rose Byrne!

awww yeah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrbHykKUfTM

Incongruous soundtrack choice. Should have gone for The Dave Clark Five or something

is that supposed to be a red nightcrawler?

If it's early X-Men, it'd probably be the Vanisher.

it's Azazel

BOOOOOO

They're young, they're hot, they're hip and brooding. They're the Gen-X Men!

lol except no one says "Gen X" anymore

It's a period piece.

Okay, nobody said it back in the 50s and 60s either.

Ah, but don't you see? It's about the roots of Gen X. The roots ... of the Gen-X-Men!

jesus
http://bitcast-a-sm.bitgravity.com/slashfilm/wp/wp-content/images/191430_195749240455540_170700836293714_553712_3837225_o-550x813.jpg

god, i can't stop laughing at that. what the hell is going on!!!! it looks like he's pooping out his face

is that supposed to be a red nightcrawler?

― homeless romantic (CaptainLorax), Thursday, February 10, 2011 11:27 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

If it's early X-Men, it'd probably be the Vanisher.

― w/no hesitation (mh), Friday, February 11, 2011 12:11 AM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it's Azazel

― Princess TamTam, Friday, February 11, 2011 12:12 AM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark

haha

"Erik . . . start the Cerebro . . . "

http://www.causticsodapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/kuato_in_total_recall.jpg

lol

I wanted to respond "what the fuck is an Azazel"

i honestly have zero clue, I just know that's who he is

yay comics

Wikipedia tells me he is Nightcrawler's demon father, and that he was created by Chuck Austen.

I am about 90% sure that is not the angle they will go for in the movie.

don't think jennifer lawrence will be getting an oscar nod for this one

http://i.imgur.com/sQraE.jpg

Looooooooooooooooool

xp lol

lol

there are sooo many good-looking ppl in this movie, like more than the average movie

Well, they are mutants.

do these guys have the charisma of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen?

Fassbender is plenty charismatic. McAvoy i'm not so sure about

if by charismatic, you mean unafraid to pensively crinkle his forehead like a shitty sherlock holmes impression?, then DOES HE EVER!

saw the trailer

p sure the sr-71 blackbird didn't exist in 1962

Well, actually, its precursor did:

The Lockheed A-12, designed for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) by Clarence Johnson at the Lockheed Skunk Works,[9] was the precursor of the SR-71. The A-12's first flight took place at Groom Lake (Area 51), Nevada, on 25 April 1962.

well now! film is going to rule.

For a second there i was worried this film about colourful mutants wasn't going to be completely historically accurate.

Haha, I was just curious myself, so I looked it up.

p sure the sr-71 blackbird didn't exist in 1962

― BIG GERTRUDE aka the steindriver (history mayne), Thursday, March 24, 2011 3:21 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

i feel like the fact that it was *hovering* should be like a bigger thing to object to

i think that's the result of the magnetic pull on the submarine -- but i have no scientific qualifications to speak of

New trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUlkf1gVdK4&feature=player_embedded

I've been watching Wolverine and The X-Men animated series from 2009. I'm actually quite enjoying it. There is a continuous plot and tons of great character appearances. I don't think the original X-Men animated series had a continuous plot other than the occasional "to be continued" continuous subplot episodes.

I think the original animated series did have continuous plot-lines? Granted i haven't seen it since i was a kid but they certainly recreated most of the major comic story-lines. Cracking theme tune anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_X-Men_episodes

The series' first 13 episodes were notable for being possibly the first time ever that an American animated series had a full season of episodes flow one into the next, creating a single continuing narrative, something the series producers fought heavily for.[1] However, starting with season three, most episodes (except for multi-part stories) were shown in random order.

Basically, every season was continuous narrative but they fucked up the broadcast order.

I guess I just don't remember. Stuff I like on Wolverine and The X-Men: Magneto forming Genosha. Magneto's kids. Professor X in the future. The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Wolverine battling The Hulk. A lot of good comic storylines I guess. I like seeing characters like Blob, Domino, Forge, Spiral, Mojo, Shadow King, Wendigo, Psylocke, Juggernaut, X-23 yada yada yada (I guess this show lasted only one season. I'm looking at the wiki)

woah woah woah Kevin Bacon's Sebastian Shaw is a former SS OFFICER???

What is it about Kevin Bacon and playing atypical fascists in '60s period pieces

http://dvdmedia.ign.com/dvd/image/JFK_DIRECTORS_CUT-8.jpg

PS I really want to see this movie

there are sooo many good-looking ppl in this movie, like more than the average movie

Nicholas Hoult doesn't photograph as well when Tom Ford's not involved.

i always have this weird feeling that i like mcavoy and then i look up all the movies ive ever seen him in and they are terrible. this concerns me.

Nicholas Hoult doesn't photograph as well when Tom Ford's not involved.

this is so true. In the wrong light he looks like Zac Efron.

I would write "I would still hit it" but I am afraid of Dateline getting involved.

I want a movie that focuses on how the New York born Charles Xavier starts out Scottish and mutates into Patrick Stewart's stentorian English accent.

i always have this weird feeling that i like mcavoy and then i look up all the movies ive ever seen him in and they are terrible.

he is universally great in everything he's in, though

(that I've seen, anyway)

Forget it, Jake. It's Westchester.

xp

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51%2BznOz98TL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

was kinda shocked to find Bacon plugging this on Letterman, had no idea he'd be in it as he's 20 years older than everybody else.

The best film McAvoy has been in is probably still Regeneration, when he was about 18.

eh i thought he was kind of the worst thing in the last king of scotland, and everything was awful (him included) in wanted and atonement. i was able to capably ignore him in that episode of band of brothers so i guess that was sorta his high point for me

xpost i dont think i know regeneration

it's an adap of a prize-winning Brit WWI novel (by Pat Barker) from the '90s.

he was the salvation of Atonement to me, along w/ 5 mins of Vanessa R.

Agree about Regeneration (fantastic novel series too). His second best: Tumnus the Faun.

He's just hot to look at in the making-of-Jane Austen movie too. I guess it's no surprise to me that his films are mostly shit as he's been working in Hollywood.

eh i thought he was kind of the worst thing in the last king of scotland, and everything was awful (him included) in wanted and atonement. i was able to capably ignore him in that episode of band of brothers so i guess that was sorta his high point for me

The Last King of Scotland pwned and you know I am like the only person aside from my wife who really liked "Wanted"

I LOVE "Wanted" but recognize it is completely ridiculous.

the ridiculousness is what I enjoyed most

basically I love a ridiculous Hollywood action flick, unless it is "Terminator: Salvation" or "Transformers: Stupid Ass Sequel"

what about transformers: stupid ass sequel sequel? are you going to see that?

I will probably see this, but i'm expecting very little. in my head, comic book movies seem really cool and intense and interesting. on screen, they are largely disappointing and dumb. i always want them to be more stupid and kinetic, campier, maybe... like basically i want X-Men: Cliffhanger or The Amazing Spiderman 23: Rumble in the Bronx.

Have you read the comic, Dan? It's even more ridiculous than the movie, though not always in a good way.

(x-post)

what about transformers: stupid ass sequel sequel? are you going to see that?

Only if my wife makes me go. I am done giving Shia TheBeef money of my own volition.

Have you read the comic, Dan? It's even more ridiculous than the movie, though not always in a good way.

I read chunks of it when the graphic novel came out; basically Mark Millar really should work within guidelines/restrictions IMO because I loved his Authority and his Ultimate X-Men really hated everything else of his I've read. (I will say though that it was pretty impressive that they managed to go even further over the top in the comic book than they did in the movie, so grudging props to that.)

Casting MacAvoy rather than Eminem = the best thing they could have possibly done IMO.

shia is like movie kryptonite, huh? i just IMDBed him, and realized i haven't liked a single one of the things he's in. not even partially.

what a disaster for Even Stevens

I liked the first Transformers movie! Mostly because it didn't have a little leg-humping Decepticon or jive-talking Autobots.

I read chunks of it when the graphic novel came out; basically Mark Millar really should work within guidelines/restrictions IMO because I loved his Authority and his Ultimate X-Men really hated everything else of his I've read. (I will say though that it was pretty impressive that they managed to go even further over the top in the comic book than they did in the movie, so grudging props to that.)

Have you read 1985? I was surprised how good that one was; I don't really care for Millar's "edgy" breaking-the-taboos-because-it's-cool regular style at all, but 1985 was basically just an ode to early 80s Marvel comics, with a surprisingly kind and sweet story, and no ultraviolence at all.

The biggest reason I didn't see the second Transformers movie is that I saw the first one, and couldn't believe the second one was worse. It may have had no leg-humping, but it did have giant robots peeing on people and running around hiding in the bushes like a giant robot version of "Three's Company."

(BTW, why do the robots even need to transform? Why advantage is there to being anything but a giant robot?)

governments generally don't launch missiles at random cars

also I haven't read 1985 but that sounds awesome

shia is like movie kryptonite, huh? i just IMDBed him, and realized i haven't liked a single one of the things he's in. not even partially.

Me neither.

hey now i liked constantine, but i dont actually remember him being in it so

he was the sidekick

I saw Constantine recently enough. Didn't like it at all but Shia is definitely the worst part.

actually tbf the more i think of it i just really liked peter stormare chewing scenery as satan and kinda ignored the rest of the movie (which is most of it)

well also Rachel Weisczczszcsz is v. v. pretty

made this so i would stop burbling all over this thread: At least vaguely well-known actors that have never been in anything good ever. FITE

I finished watching Wolverine and the X-Men animated series (in order - great series) and I finished rewatching the first X-Men movie.

My thoughts: Wow, X-Men was cheesey. Maybe partly because it came out in 2000 and because I saw a non-HD version on tv? Maybe some scenes were edited? Toad was lame as a shitwad. In the animated series he was purposely weak and picked on by his own team consisting of Blob, Domino, Avalanche, Quicksilver and Rogue (playing both sides). Rogue was obviously much better than a quiet emo teen. Kitty and Iceman as teens were also done well in the animated series even though Iceman was quite the idiot.

Besides lacking dialouge the X-Men movie had lousy art direction as evidence of too many closeups, ugly single color schemes, stupid-looking mutants jumping/flying special effects and freaking wack ass giant solid colored contacts on some characters, Sabretooth for instance. Sabretooth was the worst looking of the bunch. He had a patchy/wispy beard and a skimpy toned face. And why the hell was he just a lameass stooge for Magneto?

I'll review X-2 and X-3 as I rewatch them tonight and tomorrow (FX channel.. at least these are gonna be in HD).

I'll quit reviewing them if someone feels like I'm making this thread too off-topic.

go for it lorax!!!!!!!!!

the x-men movies are all pretty cheesy, even "x-2" which everyone seems to love. when fanboys were up in arms about x-3 i was like "whuh?" it's not much worse than the singer movies.

i wanna see this new one though.

ive always thought the first X-Men was pretty lame - has production values like a made-for-TNT movie or something.

x-men cartoon was pretty good. i was exposed to a lot of the classic claremont storylines via that show. it had one of the most badass openings ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAkL2-vh2Sk

i liked X2 when it came out, havent seen it since. tried watching X3 when it came on tv once and couldn't handle more than like 20 minutes of it.

and yeah, im kinda pumped for First Class. i wasnt for a while there, but im hearing lots of good things about it.

I want a movie that focuses on how the New York born Charles Xavier starts out Scottish and mutates into Patrick Stewart's stentorian English accent.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, June 1, 2011 11:55 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

what about irish magneto!

The X-Men cartoons > the X-Men movies, although I do think that the movies work well enough within their bubble of canonicity

Just back from seeing First Class, not much more than "ok" in my books. The fundamental problem I had was that they try to cover too much ground in too short a time, so the characters and their relationships have no time to mesh together; at the least Fassbender, McAvoy and Winter's Bone girl are decent actors, but the chemistry is v. sparse.

I was hyped by the trailer and ready to stan for Vaughn as I like his previous films, but the tone in this is all over the place - one minute it's trying for some Austin Powers style swingin' '60s shit, the next they're saving the world. I never believed in Charles and Eriks' friendship either, so the emo stuff that unfurls (bar one nicely played sequence) didn't have any heft to it. A shame.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfmqSOr2-NY

xp - oh, and Lorax, if you thought the first X-Men film was cheesy then this takes it to the next level; dialogue like spun-lead in many sequences and some dreadful effects. Actually, need to downgrade that "ok" to a "meh" the more I think about it.

Shit, i was looking forward to this

Yeah, I had high hopes and early reviews were all good, but it didn't work for me. In X-Men film terms I'd put it *just* ahead of The Last Stand, because that was genuinely bad whereas this feels more like a missed opportunity.

Sometimes I think missed opportunities are worst than genuinely bad, because they smell of compromise, which is rarely well intentioned, rather than outright incompetence, which can still mean well.

Is it better than Wolverine? That was the nadir.

Meh, I thought this one was pretty good on the whole. All I ask of my X-Men movies is that they play the "coming out of the closet" card at least once. That happens here, tho nowhere near as dramatically as it did with Ben Foster's Angel.

>Is it better than Wolverine

Don't know, I could never bring myself to watch it. X3 took all the pep out of me for the previous franchise.

>because they smell of compromise

otm - four listed writers and two further "story by" credits rarely indicate a singular vision at work.

Still waiting for the bottom to drop out here. These numbers are way too good.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/x_men_first_class/#top-critics-numbers

Wolverine I almost have fond memories of now, it was just soooo bad.

Liev Schrieber was so comically miscast it actually made the movie more enjoyable

kind of hated what they did to Deadpool but hey, it's their canon

Still waiting for the bottom to drop out here.

I heard quite an appalled monologue last night from someone whose review is as yet unpublished, so hang on.

Well, it's not that bad, either.

Critics too often afraid to say "meh" imo.

well this was someone who called Black Swan misogynist dreck (hint), so "meh" was not in the cards.

Not much of a blind item, really.

well, I am a nonpro.

This was hilarious (mostly unintentionally). I liked it though, it was fun. Fassbender was good (the Prof X guy pretty good, too). Would watch a "Magneto: Nazi Hunter" movie.

Wayyyyyyy better than Wolverine

yeah the magneto spy movie stuff in the beginning was the best. enjoyed this a lot though i think they tried to do too much for one movie. the you-know-who cameo was freakin great. definitely better than wolfmarine.

"the you-know-who cameo was freakin great."

bill murray does it again!

lol

one beef i had was that the period stuff was really half-assed, aside from xavier saying 'groovy' a couple times. i guess they probably didn't want it to be too austin powers, but the kids felt especially inauthentic.

mystique had a much meatier role than i expected, and jennifer lawrence was really good in the role. most of the scenes that had any emotional heft involved her or magneto. first time i've seen her, understand the hype now.

some of the effects work was pretty bad, but the staging of the fights was mostly good. it was cool to see magneto wearing his proper helmet instead of the stupid streamlined one that mckellen wore in the previous x movies.

i got the impression that they didn't have enough time to do ADR for the whole movie, because magneto spends the last 1/3 of it speaking in an irish accent. it sorta seems like a tiny miracle that this slapped together cash-in actually ended up being a fairly entertaining movie, because the odds sure were against it.

kevin bacon was fun in this. mcavoy and fassbinder both cried multiple times. but they were good too. the beast guy was good. there's a mutant in it i've never heard of ("Darwin") - as soon as i saw him and noticed he was the only black guy in the movie, i knew what his fate would be.

i got the impression that they didn't have enough time to do ADR for the whole movie, because magneto spends the last 1/3 of it speaking in an irish accent.

Magneto started talking like BONO all of a sudden and I felt violated.

Am watching X2 after coming home from watching the First Class. It has not aged so well.

it really hasn't. it's the best of the first three movies but that isn't really saying much!

"the kids felt especially inauthentic."

seriously--that kid who burped sound waves had a modern shaggy haircut!

loved the captions every time they cut to a new location--"COVERT CIA BASE"

Ever since Grant Morrison wrote New X-Men Emma Frost has been my favorite X-Men character, so it was too bad January Jones was so amateurish in this.

loved the captions every time they cut to a new location--"COVERT CIA BASE"

― in no way more ancient than fucking space (latebloomer), Saturday, June 4, 2011 11:44 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

haha, that didn't register with me until after the caption disappeared, and then i spent like 45 seconds wondering whether or not i was supposed to laugh at it or not

g-mo wrote the definitive emma frost imo and every other version can only pale in comparison

This was a load of fun. Maybe the second-best X-Men flick. Just the right balance between camp and seriousness -- you can tell Kevin Bacon had a shitload of fun, and every second he was in that helmet was LOLz, but he never slipped as to how ridiculous he must have found it. Secret Cameo was A+++ and got huge laughs at the theater I was at. I think my wife wants to leave me for Michael Fassbender now.

This was just OK. Had it just been Xavier/Magneto/Mystique + villain it would have been far better (something like that might actually have been their initial plan as it was supposed to be X-Men Origins: Magneto), but of course that's not how these bloody movies work. Wasn't sure why I was expected to give a shit about people we spent 5-6 mins with.

Kinda hard to make a movie w/ Fassbender, McAvoy, and Jennifer Lawrence toplining and have it be unwatchable or anything.

Also, can someone explain to me why CGI has gotten considerably worse lately? This and Thor had lots of crap effects in it. Someone said to me that there's a shortage of top-notch effects houses atm but I'm not sure if that's really the case.

Yeah, that first shot of the Russian ship with the missiles on it was like video-game cutscene level bad.

haha, that didn't register with me until after the caption disappeared, and then i spent like 45 seconds wondering whether or not i was supposed to laugh at it or not

― Princess TamTam, Saturday, June 4, 2011 11:50 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

you were definitely supposed to laugh at this! the same way you were supposed to laugh at an all-white submarine control room that opens up into an all-white mod lounge that opens up into an all-mirrored nuclear reactor room.

Also, Hank McCoy's feet could never have fit in his shoes but I guess that's just nitpicking. Plus, if Brian Cox wasn't interested, they needed someone a lot younger to play Stryker. This actor looked older in the film's 1962 than Cox looked in whatever year X2 was set! Finally, that may be the fattest I've seen Oliver Platt in a long, long time.

i thought this movie was a lot of fun and i had no hopes going in--my gf has wanted to leave me for fassbender for the last three months so that's why i was there.

but they managed to come up with just the right mix of goofy and serious, and i was extremely impressed with mcavoy given how much of it he had to carry. never really liked the guy before this. i couldve gone for an entire movie of him and fassbender hitting strip clubs tbh.

also usually my thing with these movies is i enjoy the setups and character exposition but i hate the last third when they turn into cgi action nonsense. but the climax of this was really good! i was actually mildly excited and didn't really know how it was going to play out!

Given the lack of expensive stars, I assumed a chunk of that $160m budget would be spent on special effects. What else is it going on?

just want to see this cos of january jones. i want her to do a remake of barbarella.

she's pretty bad, but admittedly as written she doesn't even qualify as a "character."

Also, can someone explain to me why CGI has gotten considerably worse lately? This and Thor had lots of crap effects in it. Someone said to me that there's a shortage of top-notch effects houses atm but I'm not sure if that's really the case.

From my understanding of the situation, it is studios not wanting to pay v. much for effects.

In that case, you;d think the budget wouldn't have been so high! The talent must have something to do with it - the effects work in somethng like District 9 is considerably better but it cost something like 1/5 as much.

district 9 was directed by a former f/x guy who knew the ins and outs of that kind of stuff--i think a lot of the time in big hollywood movies they'll just lazily sort of throw cgi around at anything.

I finally watched The Incredible Hulk the other day, which I'd largely avoided at the time because the effects in the trailer looked so abysmal. And the movie actually wasn't half bad. But the effects were even worse than I imagined. Embarrassingly so. Like, they maybe would've been a little more polished had it been a SyFy original movie. I don't recall being put off by the effects in Thor, though.

Asgard looked like a combination of Narnia and sets from The Wiz.

Thor's kind of inherently OTT/campy so it's kind of easier to take the whackass effects. That's kind of why the cheesy effects in the X-Men movies never really bothered me.

kind of

Thor effects didn't bother me at all - didn't even blink when he was fighting ice giants and shit. Just a dude fighting ice giants.

i no longer even pay attention to effects in these kind of movies tbh

Someone should CGI a January Jones who can act.

If you've bought into both the premise and the characters, and the plot moves fluidly, the effects shouldn't affect your enjoyment. That's why old Buck Rogers serials could be enjoyed, despite the crappy costumes and cheesy effects.

There's something about bad CGI, though, that really does take me out of the movie in a way that less-than-stellar analogue effects never did. CGI is a sketchy proposition at the best of times, but at least effects houses are (sometimes) getting better at making it more subtle and seamless. When it's pronounced and bad, it's like... Well, compare Cool World to Roger Rabbit. It's like that.

saw this yesterday evening (it was sold out, so i got tickets to Kung Fu Panda 2 and snuck in), and i must say that i thought it was super garbage-y. the nazi stuff was good, and i liked magneto, but otherwise, the only redeeming part of this was getting to see Nicholas Hoult's gorgeous face, and then he becomes Beast, so it's kind of ruined.

i was sitting next to this gay teenage couple, though (lol, i know), and when Hoult was hesitating to show everyone his mutation, i said "whip it out" and got some guffaws from my row and the rows behind me. if the highlight of a film is me making a snarky remark about it, then i have to say, it's a piece of shit.

all that said, i wasn't expecting anything less, and i only paid $5 to see it with friends, so whatever.

god, the worst part was the whole bit where Xavier kept on saying "i can't feel my legs." it's like great, you made a reference to Doctor Who and a million other movies, can you please just end this shit.

yeah I was half expecting them to cut right back to his face one more time just so he could spell it out a little more clearly for us: "I am now paralyzed from the waist down."

lol X-actly

Didn't enjoy this at all, apart from the "go fuck yourself" bit.

enjoyed this at all

damn fassbender goes the fuck in

Also, can someone explain to me why CGI has gotten considerably worse lately? This and Thor had lots of crap effects in it. Someone said to me that there's a shortage of top-notch effects houses atm but I'm not sure if that's really the case.

― Simon H. Shit (Simon H.), Monday, June 6, 2011 9:34 AM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark

i think it comes down to time and effort. fox decides 'we need an x-men movie coming out in june 2011' and everyone scrambles to get it made. first class was filmed just this past winter! you *can* get great CGI in a cramped timeframe but it costs exponentially more. fox is particularly known for putting directors through the ringer with tight schedules and constant studio notes (no surprise that aronofsky bailed on them). the movie might've just had a tight effects budget that was stretched even further with the movie's reshoots and troubled production.

it also depends on how much the director cares about the effects. some directors have a great eye for detail and conviction about what they want the f/x shots to look like and will push their people to get what they want - and some directors are just happy to pass it off to the computer guys and go with whatever they whip up. Avatar was being worked on down to the wire (at great expense), but cameron's a guy with an incredibly precise vision and isn't going to settle for anyone's second-best effort.

i thought thor mostly looked fine, though the best effect in the movie was the excellent makeup work on colm feore. CGI saturation has gotten so bad that im hungry for anything practical in my blockbusters (which is part of why i really dig nolan lately). even the practical effects in First Class kinda stunk though - mystique and post-transformation beast looked particularly crappy.

one scene in first class that i really loved though was the transformation shot entirely from beast's point of view. i thought that was pretty neat.

rose byrne in her underwear: that's what i call a special effect, am i right fellas

morelike first ASS

i still really want 2 see this but not a single person i know will go see it w/ me

I thought about going tonight but it's already past a good time.

You can go to movies alone, and it is often better than going with other people, trust me.

oh i dont mind seeing certain movies alone but this seems like sort of thing where i dont want my witty commentary getting wasted on the teenagers texting each other in front of me, yknow?

sit in the back, use ilx on phone

the thing about finding a place 'between rage and serenity'... is it me or is that the stupidest line in the movie? like aren't most of us between rage and serenity most of the time?

the one that struck me was when JanJo said something like 'this isnt a war, a war is where both sides have an equal chance of winning'

It's funny how much enjoyed this movie when so many parts of it are so dumb.

yeah I liked this, CAD otm about the climax

I thought it was mostly boring, stupid, and annoying, but not entirely without entertainment value.
January Jones was really terrible.
I thought the cameos were pretty lame.
I did like Fassbender in this.
I think this movie, like many others, suffers from modern expectations regarding length. So there is so much that feels like filler; the simplistic, elementary themes are beaten into the ground, etc.

2hrs 20min? wow that is too long. Should be 1:45 tops

haven't seen this movie, but did you guys discuss the ta-nehisi coates op-ed about it?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/09/opinion/09coates.html?_r=2&hp

Well I can't agree with him that the movie is "narratively lean."

Other than that, op-ed was interesting. I'm sure many responses to it are of the "it's only a movie, lighten up" variety.
I thought it was awkward when somebody said something about slavery and they cut to a reaction shot from the black mutant character.

I thought it was awkward when somebody said something about slavery and they cut to a reaction shot from the black mutant character.

that phenomenon is also known as "life as a black person"

haha waht

I thought it was awkward when somebody said something about slavery and they cut to a reaction shot from the black mutant character.

that phenomenon is also known as "life as a black person"

― chupacabra - a delicious burrito (DJP), Friday, June 24, 2011 2:03 PM (53 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

:( this phenomenon is particularly pronounced in classrooms with far fewer black students in them than white students ime

rmde

why is anyone seeing this movie

xp: oh yes

also fun when your history teacher takes you aside to tell you that he sanitized a story about his racist father's reaction to MLK and that the word used wasn't actually "fool" but "n-gger"

but that's okay, I am the ambassador of all black people; so say the white people I grew up with

lol I haven't seen this movie yet, I just had flashbacks of bitterness at the description of that scene

I only went because my friend insisted.

(btw, one of the fascinating things about Darwin in the comic books is that for a period of time his powers, which evolve his body into whatever it needs to be in order to survive, evolved him into a white dude for a while)

Are you sure people aren't staring at your earring instead

lol I didn't have the earring when this was happening all the time

I never really read the comic. Is Profesor X really supposed to be that young in relation to the others? Because it seemed like he was younger than or nearly as young as characters that he is way older than in the first movie. Does that have to do with the nature of their mutations, or is it just stupid?

Something that always bothers me about the x men is the lack of proportion between the different mutations. It's like, one mutant can control the weather, another mutant just has really weird feet...something about it bugs me for some reason. It just seems like in reality those mutants would have nothing in common in terms of power yet in the world of these movies (and, for all I know, comics) they are relegated to the same ranks and type of being. Am I really off base here (bearing in mind I only saw this and the first X Men and don't read the comic, so I really know nothing)?

I never really read the comic. Is Profesor X really supposed to be that young in relation to the others? Because it seemed like he was younger than or nearly as young as characters that he is way older than in the first movie. Does that have to do with the nature of their mutations, or is it just stupid?

It's just stupid. In the comics, both Professor X and Magneto are a good bit older than the rest of the crew (aside from weirdo age-resistant mutants like Wolverine)

Something that always bothers me about the x men is the lack of proportion between the different mutations. It's like, one mutant can control the weather, another mutant just has really weird feet...something about it bugs me for some reason. It just seems like in reality those mutants would have nothing in common in terms of power yet in the world of these movies (and, for all I know, comics) they are relegated to the same ranks and type of being. Am I really off base here (bearing in mind I only saw this and the first X Men and don't read the comic, so I really know nothing)?

Well, the initial X-Men in the comics were:

Cyclops - shoots uncontrollable force beams from his eyes
Marvel Girl - telekinetic, initially limited telepathy
Beast - superhumanly strong and agile
Angel - has wings
Iceman - can turn into ice and freeze things

...So right there, you have some pretty mundane powers mixed in with Iceman and Marvel Girl, two characters whose powers have ramped up over the course of time to where either of them could take out a mundane army by themselves, plus the power of Cyclops's force beam has gone up exponentially over time as well. Meanwhile, Beast is still just agile and strong and Angel had to be captured and mutated by a madman before he gained any real offensive power. So, this whole disparity in power level goes back to the comics' inception and is kind of beside the point, which is that just having these abilities marked these kids out as targets and the school was about teaching control and coping strategies to all mutants, regardless of physical appearance and power level.

I thought it was awkward when somebody said something about slavery and they cut to a reaction shot from the black mutant character.

― MrDasher, Friday, June 24, 2011 2:02 PM (49 minutes ago) Bookmark

this got one of the biggest laughs in the theater

thanks for posting that article horsehoe. i did find it odd that it was set in the civil rights era and didn't really acknowledge that at all, especially since mlk and malcom x have always been the most common irl reference points for professor x and magneto

one of the more interesting things the movie does is that it finally comes down on the side of malcom x (whereas in previous movies it seemed clear that the filmmakers thought he was an asshole) - xavier is portayed as this sniveling porch mutie, blind to his own privilege. xavier's x-men are a bunch of lantern-jawed white guys, but magneto's crew are body-positive mutants who own their weird appearances

Something that always bothers me about the x men is the lack of proportion between the different mutations. It's like, one mutant can control the weather, another mutant just has really weird feet...something about it bugs me for some reason.

this is one of my favorite things about the property tbh, and i love that there's all these essentially useless mutants. it makes sense when you think about it! some muties win the genetic lottery, some of them are Leech. one of my favorite things about grant morrison's run is that he took those useless mutants seriously as characters (angel salvadore, beak) and examined how they fit in among all the more superhero-y mutants.

Leech is pretty powerful around other mutants, tho

yeah i forgot about that, for some reason i thought his power was just being ugly and sad.

lol

one of my favorite "useless mutants" was Skin; I always thought putting him on Generation X was hilariously cruel ("one guy mimics other ppl's powers, one girl can transform herself into any substance, one girl is super-strong, can fly and is telepathic, one girl launches explosives from her hands... and one dude has six extra square feet of skin on his body")

does he just slap people with it or something

they played him like a budget Plastic Man but it didn't really make sense

Thanks DJP. I kind of get it, I guess. There was always a big disparity between a mutant that is basically super-strong,or can fly, and one who can control metal, freeze things or have mental telepathy but it seems like if limits are placed on those latter things-if, for example, the metal or mind has to be within a certain distance, or size, or if the object to be frozen must be in physical contact with the mutant (and of course I don't know if such limits were ever in place since I have only read one issue of the comic ever) that is still different than something like controlling the weather.
I don't why, maybe it is that specific power of controlling the weather that bugs me for some reason?

Another thing that seemed stupid in the new movie was the idea of this serum that would make them normal in appearance but not affect their powers. Does that even make sense?
Why would Mystique be the one most looking forward to the serum when she could already control her appearance? Was the idea that it would change her "default" appearance so she wouldn't have to make as much effort or something? I get that it was supposed to illustrate an underlying psychology but it still seemed really stupid.

was probably supposed to illustrate that the screenwriter is a moron

well, Storm is one of the most powerful mutants in the Marvel Universe; there aren't that many characters who can match her in terms of sheer power (although funnily enough, two of those characters are Marvel Girl and Iceman; many of their limitations went away as they got older and stronger with their powers, plus Marvel Girl had an encounter with a cosmic entity that basically turned her into a living goddess)

I don't know why I am questioning things in this stupid movie. Why did they even need the idea of the serum to have that conversation? I guess it goes back to the need for filler.

i liked this a lot kept me p entertained throughout rose byrne is basically the prettiest. probably wouldve preferred the movie magneto: nazi hunter but mb that says more about my love of blooddrenched ruthless movie revenge fantasies

there was probably a couple of things wrong w/ every scene in the movie but w/e also jan jones was hilariously apt as emma frost imo

God this was shit

Oh, man, do these actors not sell this the way the Singer actors do. It's like an A movie trapped somewhere in some awful B movie, except that the A movie is also a B movie.

Wow this really gets the hate here. As far as stupid throwaway action movies where a character uses the word "behooves" go, I thought it was more than adequate.

Oh, man, it's just so risible from end to end that the only way to defend it is as better than "stupid throwaway action movies," which is really setting the bar low. All the "groovy" 60s isms, the near across the board incredulously bad acting (save Bacon). The horribly designed sets/make-up/costumes. The non-stop in joke references, which is meta stupid: it's like an origin story for the other three movies, except all the in-jokes and references will mostly resonate only with Marvel heads, who need no origin story hand-holding yet are the only folks who would care about references to characters and plot points.

The spy movie music, Rose Byrne acting like a high school amateur ...

I feel like sometimes you guys expect way too much out of your mindless comic book movies. I paid $2 to see this at a second-run theater and feel like I got perfect value for it.

I thought it was OK although nodding to the "continuity" of the other Fox X-Men films seemed almost like a misstep. I am kind of wondering if there's some rule that comic movies have to either directly or indirectly have Nazis in them now, though.

fwiw, I thought it was better than the last X-Men film by a fair bit, and better than the others at moments.

I'm not sure it's unfair to expect too much, when I consider the first two to be pretty good movies, and the third one and this one to be shitty. I mean, there's a very specific frame of reference: the first two movies.

Gosh, Rose Byrne in every regard here, just totally out of her element and ridiculous from scene one, like she thinks this is another Austin Powers sequel.

This is where we're at: better than the horrible X-Men 3, $2 second run theater value, stupid throwaway action movie ...

With friends like these ...

Magneto: Nazi Hunter would have been soooooo much better.

Gosh, Rose Byrne in every regard here, just totally out of her element and ridiculous from scene one, like she thinks this is another Austin Powers sequel.

Not sure how else you would play a scene where the girl spy has to strip to her underwear to go undercover.

There was a lot of Magneto: Nazi Hunter in this film!

Rose Byrne came off as naive junior agent the whole time, but I thought that was the intent.

I paid $2 to see this at a second-run theater

In NYC this requires a time portal set to 1987.

Ha, no, she came off a super-styling naive junior agent who adds nothing to the intrigue or action, which is what made her so hilarious!

She's like Ramond Burr in Godzilla, just occasionally providing narrative color for those unable to follow the plot and action.

Can't argue with any of that.

I mean, finding the mutants montage, training montage, black guy dies first ...

Gosh.

I'm sure he's not dead and turning into cinders was some sort of adaptation we don't yet understand! At least that will be the case if they make another movie.

Mopey beast getting his feet made fun of 100 times!

I also love how the training sequence - and the costume designing/tailoring sequence, I guess - takes place literally as the Cuban missile crisis is in progress.

You are really spending a lot of time on this.

You might hate this more than my friend hated Thor!

Truth be told, I'm watching it right now, so it's basically live blogging.

Rose Byrne just poked her head out of a window and yelled "Hey! The President's about to make his address!!"

She's like Ramond Burr in Godzilla,

read this as "Raymond Burr as Godzilla"

I'd see that movie.

OMG, Beast! I can't imagine anyone seeing his furry CGI introduction, $2 theatre or no, and reacting with anything less than a good giggle.

Ray Wise! Michael Ironside! Wait a minute, this is a b-movie. My bad.

I quite liked this movie.

Also Jennifer Lawrence, man oh man

I totally enjoyed this. Best since X-Men 2 imo.

Beast looks like the dad in "Teen Wolf:"

http://www.examiner.com/images/blog/EXID15166/images/teen_wolfs_dad.JPG

McAvoy is only two years younger than Fassbender, but Fassbender in this movie always looks like he's babysitting a bunch of kids.

"near across the board incredulously bad acting (save Bacon)"
i heard bacon's german was terrible.
which is a shame because german bacon is fantastic -- wackity smackity doooo!

And I know Fassbender has claimed he used of his Irish accent on purpose, there's really no reason Magneto's accent should be the least bit Irish, let alone as Irish as it is at the end.

There's a great tradition of British theater actors doing ridiculous or entertaining sci-fi/fantasy parts.

is prof x now canonically british because of patrick stewart, or did that predate the singer movies?

Every time I look at this thread title I want to go back in time and somehow make a Fassbinder directed X-Men flick happen.

X-MEN: MAGNETO EATS THE SOUL

Always thought Prof. X was just supposed to have a generally fancy-pants accent, due to his fancy-pants upbringing. But no question Patrick Stewart did a definitive job.

BERLIN ALEX-MENDERPLATZ

lol thank you Phil D. you get my vision

phoenix and her friends

in a year with 13 mutants

I'm actually pretty proud of "Berlin AleX-Menderplatz."

Just saw this. Not particularly good (really, it's not), but it was great to see a continuous stream of nonsense being thrown at the screen just cuz it had the barest modicum of success in another medium. "Let's use this, why not?" A breath of fresh air from other superhero movies, both better and worse ones, just cuz it foregoes the trad. heroic narrative of lone hero, the community from which he always stand apart, the girl, all pretty paint-by-numbers by this point, and at bottom is about changing the status quo rather than affirming it. Maybe the other X-Men movies were like this - I forget.

ALSO: Magneto is right!

i'd say as weak as the characterization is overall, the martin/malcolm fulcrum is rendered better and more palpable here than any of the other movies and i daresay any of the comic stories i remember, (mckellan's air of not actually giving a shit was the right decision obv. but necessarily undercut the very_serious_ideas, in the comics the magneto/x divide became a pretty tired exercise by oh 1972 i'm guessing).

The Magneto/Xavier as King/X allegory didn't happen in the comics until the 1980s, when Chris Claremont decided to make Magneto into a sympathetic character. Before that he was stereotypical villain. And after that it didn't long before Magneto was running the school, while Xavier was in outer space. That, I think, was the true missed opportunity: Claremont could have made Magneto into a charismatic activist leader who manages to get the students behind his "X" ideas. But instead at this point Magneto had mellowed out so much he basically was just another Xavier. Even Morrison's New X-Men, despite hinting at this, never really got to do a "Magneto is right" story, as Morrison wanted to make Magneto a full villain again. So I guess you're right, AFAIK there never has been a properly explored "King/X" story in X-Men, where both sides would have an equal point, instead of Magneto's view always being the wrong one.

yeah i wasn't sure how far that went back, by the time i was reading it was just one of those fallback tropes that made your eyes glaze over (started reading late 80's, went back-issuing into the late 70's byrne stuff) but you also get to the point about the robustness of the argument. it's a matter of setting the table correctly wrt magneto's hardships + rage whereas most stories i'm privy to there's a vague sense of his politics being a (somewhat unconscious) vessel for his innate arrogance/chauvinism, and it's not that the erik of this movie couldn't logically become those other versions of magneto but it's crucial that those early dots are connected for any of it to resonate and this movie does a good job of it.

i do remember magneto's stint leading the x-men, the friction having less to do w/ philosophy than with magneto's past atrocities iirc. professor x in space another boredom inducer i probably tuned out this period pretty bad, morlock massacre is my formative xmen story pretty much, an oasis of action before claremont era winded down and he decided to go all in on the ponderousness.

Interestingly enough, having an ideological divide between two factions is going to be the point of the immediate future of X-Men stories. I'm not sure if it's a sign of the times or of the writers that both sides are militant at this point, it's just a matter of terms they disagree on.

holy christ that IS Kevin Bacon

Yup. He's fantastically cadaverous here. I mean, that's been his thing for the past decade or so, but here he just rocks it.

I know this was covered upthread, but I can't tell if the sartorial mismatches are intentional anachronisms or what. The scene with the mutant kids becoming bros looked like a Williamsburg lounge (Nicholas Hoult's sweater, specs, and malnourished mien were the hints).

i heard bacon's german was terrible.
which is a shame because german bacon is fantastic -- wackity smackity doooo!

― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, September 20, 2011 3:03 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark

lol.

Would watch a "Magneto: Nazi Hunter" movie.

― in no way more ancient than fucking space (latebloomer), Saturday, June 4, 2011 10:12 PM (10 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

man this would have been so much better

not that this wasnt entertaining

loved the mod submarine, bacon owned in this

january jones perfectly cast too

nah, she was crap

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/52/Whitequeenbolton.png/180px-Whitequeenbolton.png

january jones is crap, that character was crap, perfect casting

this is one of my favorite things about the property tbh, and i love that there's all these essentially useless mutants. it makes sense when you think about it! some muties win the genetic lottery, some of them are Leech.

Goddamn, you know how many times I've shouted "can you at least give Cypher a gun or something?!"

BTW, "Magneto: Nazi Hunter" cannot be overemphasized enough.

Just saw this, it was quite entertaining! Lots to hate about this movie but lots to like. It was kind of odd at the end when Professor X is all "Noooo! Don't do it!". You'd think you could get a pass for killing the Nazi who killed your mom.