Okay.. it's time...
Well first, I would like everyone to know that I made soup today and it was a success. Black bean, "Chipotle" (sans Chipotle actually used Red Capsicum... ah... Pepper), and corn soup. Also involved onions and potatoes. And I got compliments. So that was cool. Also made my curry again, which is still missing something, but still pretty good.
I've found that by expecting the worst, movies tend to seem much better than that actually are. I went in with pretty low expectations on this one, excited, but low, yes. Especially when it came to the fact that certain characters were to be involved that would probably be butchered horribly...
Needless to say, the movie was pretty good, but I was disappointed by an unexpected aspect: the computer effects. I just re-watched X1 and X2 in the past week and the effects from those older movies seemed better. And oddly enough most of the bad effects were in the first half of the movie (which was the slow-half, really... they really rushed important stuff, then lingered when they shouldn't have...)
Besides the effects and some lacking plot development in the beginning, the movie picked up about mid-way and started to feel a little like the original 2 X-movies. None of the characters have a completely useless-feel to them like Angel did in X3 (although this movie was jam packed with cameos, like in X3). Some of the characters could have been cut out, but at least their appearance in the film was actually resolved during the final conflict...
I'm kind of conflicted, as I am with everything that revolves around the Wolverine character. The other X movies always seemed like Wolverine movies, and the one that is really about Wolverine did too, only somehow, not as much. It was weird. I can't explain it.
Overall, I liked it, but yeah, I'll like anything X-men. It's a fun movie, definitely has a lot of eye-rollingly awesome scenes (Andrea, I missed your presence to share ridiculous glances with!), but it definitely has development issues.
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Okay, okay, I'm not going to gripe about comic-continuity issues because some things just work better for drama in movies. Like Wolverine and Sabertooth being half-bros, totally not the case in the comics, but makes for really good drama in a movie. What I am going to gripe about is the fact that they really didn't develop it much. Just because they showed them fighting in wars together during the opening credits does not make up for building what could have been an interesting and dynamic familial relationship. This goes into the the whole rushed beginning thing I mentioned. So much lost potential. Also, lost on me was at what point was it suddenly okay to call Wolvey Logan? It was Jimmy or James and suddenly, Logan. No explanation, unless I totally missed something... Okay, that was, besides the corny SF/X the one thing that bugged me.
The Silverfox "happy-life" stuff was okay, but prolonged, BUT I did feel it justified by the ending and her not actually being dead/just a ploy to lure Logan back to become Weapon X. Did not see that one coming, and that pleased me.
One last thing that bugged me - here comes the rant- (but probably will relieve a certain unnamed party who may be reading this entry), is the lack of Ryan Reynolds. I really expected him to be in the movie more than just the beginning (Oh yeah, the whole "special team" scenes could have been stretched out a little longer, and I believe might have been used to solidify that complex Sabey-Wolvey relationship, and show Wolvey getting a bit more teed off about the stuff going on... he just kind of... stood there while everything happened... BLAND I say! Bland..., though I do get the feeling that this could have been chopped up in the final editing, because, I do recall there being a little Stormy in the trailer and they were in Africa... but I digress) I thought it was weird in the beginning when his name was last on the credits, but I understand now. He has like, what? 2 short scenes and only a few witty remarks. Not really enough to set up for the ending, anyway, with Stryker complaining about his yapping, what? again twice, maybe? and then... him being physically "shut up" at the end... (AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... hysteria hits me suddenly... AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA). Ahem.
The movie Deadpool is an interesting alternate-origin that decently fits in with the X-movie universe, but I totally understand why so many people are upset about his characterization as a "pool" of mutant powers/ultimate controlled soldier. If they do branch out into spin-off territory, I can still see the whole cancer thing coming into play as a reason he joins up/volunteers to become Weapon XI, they left it open enough for that, and I really would like to see how they explain how he regrew/reattached his head or whatever (at least his mouth will come back if it regrows... "Wait. Didn't you get your head chopped off?" "I got better!" and he'll lose those eyebeams, maybe, if it does regrow, hahaha, WHY EYEBEAMS? Cyclops is LAME enough?!) Oh, the endless possibilities (Eeek, Just watched that interview w/ RR and he seems rather... ah, guarded about his involvement with the character. He's such a DP fanboy and perfect for the role as he's portrayed in the comics, so I totally understand why he might be upset about this incarnation and the plot choices made... 'Pool is definitely one of a kind and it would be a real shame to let this incarnation screw up chances of seeing an actual 'Pool movie starring RR. Oh, the...insanity...) But then, anything is possible when it comes to Deadpool, so I maintain hope... And I love how you can totally tell the body-differences between Mister Reynolds and his stunt double, hahaha... ahem. I do not stare at Ryan Reynolds beautifully chiseled abs... much... >.>
Sudden urge to binge on Ryan Reynolds movies... must resist...
Things that made me happy:
-DOMY! He was in the movie more than I expected. He had more than two-seconds of hobbity-goodness!
-Gross as he is, Blob! I thought the prosthetic work was better than the CG, and I love to see Kevin Durand suffer...
-Brief, but sort of cute Emma/Scott >>> X-Men First Class PLEASE (and then Jean can come in and screw it up as she tends to do in these movies...) You know that kid who played Scott looked a hell of a lot like a young Jamie Bamber (Apollo from BSG)... eerie.
-Will.i.am as Wraith was pretty cool. It's a shame he wasn't around more. Gotta love teleporters.
Things that made me WTF, mate?!:
-I knew the cameo was going to pop up, but badly CG-ed Patrick Stewart! WAHAHAHA... so WTF...
-Wolverine the Domestic: I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay~! WAHAHAHAHAHA.
-Emma and Silverfox are sisters? And is that doctor their mom? Huh? The family issues in this movie are insane...
-Ever the helicopter scene...
-I think if that many logs fell on a person, or say, even a mutant with an awesome healing factor, they would have been a bit more beat up with quite a few broken bones...
Things that should have happened:
-Despite the movie suddenly becoming better after the adamantium bonding scene (damn, Wolvey's indestructability really is a crutch, isn't it?), that really should have been the climax and reason for Logan's memory loss and not Stryker shooting him in the head. Brian Cox's Stryker had such a demented passion in him that Danny Huston sort of lacked. They really hinted at that being the last thing he remember, sort of, in the first two X-movies. And I think suddenly having razor-sharp claws and weighing about 100lbs heavier would take a little more getting used to. They did the whole awkward Spider-Man scene destroying the bathroom with (VERY FAKE) shiny, new claws, but suddenly he's slicing up tanks and stuff like its all in a days work. No, they should have left it at the bone-claws and then at the end, had him taken against his will and turned into Wolverine as we know and love(/hate). Should have ended more like Empire, less like a soap-opera season finale (though you know they're just setting up for like... 5 more movies,4 of which will be spin offs and only 1 a direct sequel...)
-More development of Sabertooth's bloodlust and Wolverine trying to not be an animal. They kept saying it, but not enough showing. That's a big NO-NO in writing, ESPECIALLY if its a movie script. (I mean, Wolvey gives his line to Silverfox but when do we actually see him doing what he does best?!?!?! WOOD CHOPPING?!) This is one case where dialog is not the answer. This movie seemed relatively mild despite its dealing with darker subjects. They could have done quite a bit more and still pulled a PG-13 rating...
And the thing that surprised me the most:
-GAMBIT
TOTALLY DID NOT EXPECT HIM TO ACTUALLY HAVE A SEMI-DECENT ROLE (even if it was minor). Wasn't exactly what I had hoped for, but was really a pleasant and unexpected turn for him. And Taylor Kitsch totally delivered even if the Cajun accent was lacking (and he totally pulled a, to use another Star Wars metaphor, Han Solo there at the end jumpin' in to save the day, hahaha). Of course Gambit would be the one to have escaped. "Do I owe you money?" < Awesome. And then he flew away.
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So yeah. The good, the bad and the ugly of it all. Oh man, oh man, I love that this movie came out a few days earlier here than in th states. Thats just...bizarre. I can't wait till the DVD comes out, heeheehee... extras.
Now I can go crazy and keep blogging about Sherlock Holmes then Iron Man 2 until those come out. But for now, X-Men movie rants are going to get a break (or at least until some new news arrives or the dvd comes out or something...)
Now, to DLD the Doctor Who easter special. I am such a hidden geek.
-The Captain
PS: And another thing, Bill Murray is cameoing as a zombie in Zombieland >>>AWESOME
PPS/EDIT:
OH YEAH, and HARRY GREGSON-WILLIAMS did the Wolverine Soundtrack.. Epic, right there...
Oh, here's more unfinished MS Paint awesomeness:
YES I'M AWESOME
I've found that by expecting the worst, movies tend to seem much better than that actually are. I went in with pretty low expectations on this one, excited, but low, yes. Especially when it came to the fact that certain characters were to be involved that would probably be butchered horribly...
Needless to say, the movie was pretty good, but I was disappointed by an unexpected aspect: the computer effects. I just re-watched X1 and X2 in the past week and the effects from those older movies seemed better. And oddly enough most of the bad effects were in the first half of the movie (which was the slow-half, really... they really rushed important stuff, then lingered when they shouldn't have...)
Besides the effects and some lacking plot development in the beginning, the movie picked up about mid-way and started to feel a little like the original 2 X-movies. None of the characters have a completely useless-feel to them like Angel did in X3 (although this movie was jam packed with cameos, like in X3). Some of the characters could have been cut out, but at least their appearance in the film was actually resolved during the final conflict...
I'm kind of conflicted, as I am with everything that revolves around the Wolverine character. The other X movies always seemed like Wolverine movies, and the one that is really about Wolverine did too, only somehow, not as much. It was weird. I can't explain it.
Overall, I liked it, but yeah, I'll like anything X-men. It's a fun movie, definitely has a lot of eye-rollingly awesome scenes (Andrea, I missed your presence to share ridiculous glances with!), but it definitely has development issues.
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.
.
.
.
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..
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...
...
.
Okay, okay, I'm not going to gripe about comic-continuity issues because some things just work better for drama in movies. Like Wolverine and Sabertooth being half-bros, totally not the case in the comics, but makes for really good drama in a movie. What I am going to gripe about is the fact that they really didn't develop it much. Just because they showed them fighting in wars together during the opening credits does not make up for building what could have been an interesting and dynamic familial relationship. This goes into the the whole rushed beginning thing I mentioned. So much lost potential. Also, lost on me was at what point was it suddenly okay to call Wolvey Logan? It was Jimmy or James and suddenly, Logan. No explanation, unless I totally missed something... Okay, that was, besides the corny SF/X the one thing that bugged me.
The Silverfox "happy-life" stuff was okay, but prolonged, BUT I did feel it justified by the ending and her not actually being dead/just a ploy to lure Logan back to become Weapon X. Did not see that one coming, and that pleased me.
One last thing that bugged me - here comes the rant- (but probably will relieve a certain unnamed party who may be reading this entry), is the lack of Ryan Reynolds. I really expected him to be in the movie more than just the beginning (Oh yeah, the whole "special team" scenes could have been stretched out a little longer, and I believe might have been used to solidify that complex Sabey-Wolvey relationship, and show Wolvey getting a bit more teed off about the stuff going on... he just kind of... stood there while everything happened... BLAND I say! Bland..., though I do get the feeling that this could have been chopped up in the final editing, because, I do recall there being a little Stormy in the trailer and they were in Africa... but I digress) I thought it was weird in the beginning when his name was last on the credits, but I understand now. He has like, what? 2 short scenes and only a few witty remarks. Not really enough to set up for the ending, anyway, with Stryker complaining about his yapping, what? again twice, maybe? and then... him being physically "shut up" at the end... (AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... hysteria hits me suddenly... AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA). Ahem.
The movie Deadpool is an interesting alternate-origin that decently fits in with the X-movie universe, but I totally understand why so many people are upset about his characterization as a "pool" of mutant powers/ultimate controlled soldier. If they do branch out into spin-off territory, I can still see the whole cancer thing coming into play as a reason he joins up/volunteers to become Weapon XI, they left it open enough for that, and I really would like to see how they explain how he regrew/reattached his head or whatever (at least his mouth will come back if it regrows... "Wait. Didn't you get your head chopped off?" "I got better!" and he'll lose those eyebeams, maybe, if it does regrow, hahaha, WHY EYEBEAMS? Cyclops is LAME enough?!) Oh, the endless possibilities (Eeek, Just watched that interview w/ RR and he seems rather... ah, guarded about his involvement with the character. He's such a DP fanboy and perfect for the role as he's portrayed in the comics, so I totally understand why he might be upset about this incarnation and the plot choices made... 'Pool is definitely one of a kind and it would be a real shame to let this incarnation screw up chances of seeing an actual 'Pool movie starring RR. Oh, the...insanity...) But then, anything is possible when it comes to Deadpool, so I maintain hope... And I love how you can totally tell the body-differences between Mister Reynolds and his stunt double, hahaha... ahem. I do not stare at Ryan Reynolds beautifully chiseled abs... much... >.>
Sudden urge to binge on Ryan Reynolds movies... must resist...
Things that made me happy:
-DOMY! He was in the movie more than I expected. He had more than two-seconds of hobbity-goodness!
-Gross as he is, Blob! I thought the prosthetic work was better than the CG, and I love to see Kevin Durand suffer...
-Brief, but sort of cute Emma/Scott >>> X-Men First Class PLEASE (and then Jean can come in and screw it up as she tends to do in these movies...) You know that kid who played Scott looked a hell of a lot like a young Jamie Bamber (Apollo from BSG)... eerie.
-Will.i.am as Wraith was pretty cool. It's a shame he wasn't around more. Gotta love teleporters.
Things that made me WTF, mate?!:
-I knew the cameo was going to pop up, but badly CG-ed Patrick Stewart! WAHAHAHA... so WTF...
-Wolverine the Domestic: I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay~! WAHAHAHAHAHA.
-Emma and Silverfox are sisters? And is that doctor their mom? Huh? The family issues in this movie are insane...
-Ever the helicopter scene...
-I think if that many logs fell on a person, or say, even a mutant with an awesome healing factor, they would have been a bit more beat up with quite a few broken bones...
Things that should have happened:
-Despite the movie suddenly becoming better after the adamantium bonding scene (damn, Wolvey's indestructability really is a crutch, isn't it?), that really should have been the climax and reason for Logan's memory loss and not Stryker shooting him in the head. Brian Cox's Stryker had such a demented passion in him that Danny Huston sort of lacked. They really hinted at that being the last thing he remember, sort of, in the first two X-movies. And I think suddenly having razor-sharp claws and weighing about 100lbs heavier would take a little more getting used to. They did the whole awkward Spider-Man scene destroying the bathroom with (VERY FAKE) shiny, new claws, but suddenly he's slicing up tanks and stuff like its all in a days work. No, they should have left it at the bone-claws and then at the end, had him taken against his will and turned into Wolverine as we know and love(/hate). Should have ended more like Empire, less like a soap-opera season finale (though you know they're just setting up for like... 5 more movies,4 of which will be spin offs and only 1 a direct sequel...)
-More development of Sabertooth's bloodlust and Wolverine trying to not be an animal. They kept saying it, but not enough showing. That's a big NO-NO in writing, ESPECIALLY if its a movie script. (I mean, Wolvey gives his line to Silverfox but when do we actually see him doing what he does best?!?!?! WOOD CHOPPING?!) This is one case where dialog is not the answer. This movie seemed relatively mild despite its dealing with darker subjects. They could have done quite a bit more and still pulled a PG-13 rating...
And the thing that surprised me the most:
-GAMBIT
TOTALLY DID NOT EXPECT HIM TO ACTUALLY HAVE A SEMI-DECENT ROLE (even if it was minor). Wasn't exactly what I had hoped for, but was really a pleasant and unexpected turn for him. And Taylor Kitsch totally delivered even if the Cajun accent was lacking (and he totally pulled a, to use another Star Wars metaphor, Han Solo there at the end jumpin' in to save the day, hahaha). Of course Gambit would be the one to have escaped. "Do I owe you money?" < Awesome. And then he flew away.
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So yeah. The good, the bad and the ugly of it all. Oh man, oh man, I love that this movie came out a few days earlier here than in th states. Thats just...bizarre. I can't wait till the DVD comes out, heeheehee... extras.
Now I can go crazy and keep blogging about Sherlock Holmes then Iron Man 2 until those come out. But for now, X-Men movie rants are going to get a break (or at least until some new news arrives or the dvd comes out or something...)
Now, to DLD the Doctor Who easter special. I am such a hidden geek.
-The Captain
PS: And another thing, Bill Murray is cameoing as a zombie in Zombieland >>>AWESOME
PPS/EDIT:
OH YEAH, and HARRY GREGSON-WILLIAMS did the Wolverine Soundtrack.. Epic, right there...
Oh, here's more unfinished MS Paint awesomeness:
YES I'M AWESOME