The New Mutants (2020)

Directed by: Josh Boone

Notable cast: Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, Alice Braga, Charlie Heaton

 

The New Mutants is one of those movies that people thought was cursed. Not in the sense of Poltergeist, but in the “finished but maybe never released” sense. The House Of 1000 Corpses, John Dies At The End, Roger Forman’s Fantastic Four kind of way. Two of those three came out eventually, and as of this week, it’s three out of four. A troubled production, reshoots far after principal photography, and the Disney buyout of Fox were all major factors at play here. None of this has any particular ultimate bearing on the quality of the movie. But any reviewer would be remiss not to mention it. That combined with the roller coaster flying off the rails feeling that is the year 2020 makes this movie a wild release. A theatrical only release when some major markets still aren’t allowing open theaters? (Full disclosure, I live in one such market, and saw this film at a drive-in). But how does it stack up as an adaptation of a beloved series, and more simply as a movie?

 

Dark Phoenix (2019)

Director: Simon Kinberg

Notable cast: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Jessica Chastain, Sophie Turner

As a lifelong comic book nerd, and Marvel zombie specifically, I cannot understate the importance of the Dark Phoenix Saga to the landscape of my youth, especially the animated series’ take. Now, that doesn’t necessarily color my review the way you might think, as I’m also a deep believer in adaptation and some of the hidden beauty that can be drawn out of it. Say what you will about Constantine, for example, as a translation? Not even a little bit close. I mean… damn. They cast Keanu as a Brit. Again. At least he didn’t even try the accent this time, instead, they adapted it. And for my money, one of the finer action films of the aughts. So, what about Dark Phoenix, the deeply delayed swan song for Fox’s X-Men franchise? In a strange way, it serves as a great backdrop for a general post-mortem on the series as a whole. It’s extremely shaky with high highs, and low lows, and is better at the time than you remember it, albeit not necessarily good. There are less absolutely bad films in the franchise than you remember (X3, Origins: Wolverine, and Apocalypse being the only actually irredeemable ones).

Logan (2017)

Director: James Mangold

Notable Cast: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen, Richard E. Grant, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Eriq La Salle, Elise Neal

The X-Men franchise has seen its ups and downs, but it’s only when one of the entries into this almost 20 year franchise takes a risk on something new that it finds itself resonating after the fact. Outside of X2, which remains perhaps the purest and most potent of the basic formula, these chances have paid off. The time setting and new cast in First Class, the time hopping nature and epic tone of Days of Future Past, or even the samurai cinema motifs of The Wolverine have made the franchise worth following even if it occasionally stumbles into some rocky territory of execution (I’m looking at my copy of X-Men: Apocalypse right now.) The latest entry into the series and third for the spin-off franchise to feature Wolverine as the lead character is not only one of those films that takes a chance with its western style inspiration and R-rating, it’s the best that this franchise has seen thus far. Logan is a film that not only entertains in an action film manner and quirky humor that has always come with Wolverine as a character, but its messages of a life time of violence and regret, partnered with a focus on familial drama, and a timely expansion of its X-Men themes that make it piece of cinematic art that will last longer than any of the previous entries. This is not only an X-Men spin off, this is truly a film that encompasses the heart and soul of a character bound for the history books and it’s executed with the precision and artful grace of inspired cinema. Logan is not only the superhero film we all wanted, it’s the superhero film that this genre desperately needed.

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

Director: Bryan Singer

Notable Cast: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar Isaac, Nicholas Hoult, Rose Byrne, Evan Peters, Tye Sheridan, Sophie Turner, Olivia Munn, Lucas Till, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Alexandra Shipp, Josh Helman, Ben Hardy, Lana Condor, Hugh Jackman

Expectations can be a bitch. When a series gets as much critical and fan acclaim as the new “rebooted” X-Men franchise has received, in particular with regard to the previous entry Days of Future Past, it’s only time until one of the entries disappoints and receives the flaming. Enter in X-Men: Apocalypse, the third entry into the latest series featuring a younger X-Men cast, and while it is a disappointment when compared to the previous two it’s hardly worthy of the horrendous (and dare I say, vicious) response from critics that is has received. As it is, Apocalypse is a fine X-Men film filled with plenty of entertaining sequences and fun pieces for audiences even if the film itself is a much more hollow experience compared to the previous two films. It suffers from some of the same issues that have plagued previous X-Men films in the past, but ultimately it moves at such a smooth pace that it never bottoms out the film like it could have.