X-Men - Part 1

 

Despite being mostly up to date on the MCU Marvel movies, several other movies remain that are a part of the Marvel universe (but not the MCU) that I have not yet seen. Most of them were made prior to the development of the MCU, while others were developed during the MCU when other companies held the rights to the franchise, such as Spider-Man and Sony. I've decided to go back and watch the other, non-MCU Marvel movies in order to get a better understanding of the Marvel universe. This is within reason, of course. I probably won't watch any movie that came out before 2000. I reviewed a list of all the Marvel movies, and with a couple of exceptions, most of the movies that came out prior to 2000 looked pretty bad. I have access to around 10 non-MCU movies on Disney+, as well as several other movies that I can DVR from TNT, FX, etc. I may have to rent a couple of the others, which is OK. I decided to start with the X-Men movies. I have access to them on Disney+, and the first one came out in 2000, which is the beginning of my non-MCU timeline.

There are several X-Men movies, not to mention the related Wolverine and Deadpool movies. This is why I decided to split my posts into parts for these movies. Part 1 of the posts consists of the movies X-Men (2000), X2: X-Men United (2003), and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). I had previously seen X-Men and X2, but remembered very little from the movies. I had never seen The Last Stand before so it was new.

To begin with, in true Marvel fashion, the cast in these movies is fantastic. I won't run down the list of actors in these movies (you can always search IMDB yourself), but a couple stood out in my mind as noteworthy. I always remember Rebecca Romijn as the Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, but her role as Mystique reminded me that she has had a fairly successful actor career, including credits on IMDB through 2022. When I originally watched these movies, I had no idea who Anna Paquin was. She jumped on my radar a full 8 years later when she became the star of True Blood.  The other surprise was Kelsey Grammer as Beast. Kelsey Grammer in a Marvel movie...who knew? I don't even have to mention Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, etc. The cast is absolutely stacked. The last person I want to mention is David Hayter, who was one of the writers for the movies. I am most familiar with David from his voice acting of Solid Snake in the Metal Gear Solid games. Snake? Snake!! Seeing his name on the credits made me smile.

X-men and X2 were solid movies. The Last Stand was just OK. The biggest thing all of these movies did was introduce the audience to a combination of cool and not-so cool Marvel characters. Wolverine, Magneto, Professor Xavier, Phoenix, Cyclops, Mystique are all super cool characters. Halle Berry is great, but Storm is kind of a "meh" character to me. Sabertooth, Toad, Nightcrawler, Beast, and several others are just goofy.

While the first two movies were good, I want to focus a bit on the final movie. The Last Stand wasn't great, I'd give it a C rating. However, several important characters met their end in that movie. Patrick Stewart's Prof. X died. Phoenix, who apparently dies at the end of X2, but doesn't, dies at the hands of Wolverine in the Last Stand. She seems very similar to the Scarlet Witch. She is a super powerful character who could cause chaos in the MCU if introduced. Magneto loses his power by receiving 4 injections of the anti-mutant medicine (or does he? The final scene shows him gently using his power to knock over a chess piece.). Mystique is also shot with the anti-mutant medicine, losing her power. Sarah brings a great point - why didn't they use at least one of those injections they used on Magneto on Phoenix, to at least save her? Multiple big name characters either die or loose their power at the end of this movie. It's a rather spectacular ending, one that asks where does the X-Men go from here. There are several subsequent movies, so we will have to watch and see what story they tell!