X-Men Movies

You may have noticed I’ve been doing some whole series reviews recently, well, this is the reason… My wife hadn’t seen the majority of the original X-Men movies and the “First Class” set of movies, so we embarked on a journey to watch all of them together. After a lot of movie nights, we finished them and I am ready to talk about each (and also a few movies that are related but not part of the “traditional” set of movies). I also ranked them in a tier list so if that’s your thing I’ll have that at the end!

X-Men

I went into the first movie convinced it would not hold up well. Boy was I wrong. This movie is still a delight to watch with a great plot, fun characters, and an overall theme that still rings true 20 years later. Logan (the Wolverine) is an excellent protagonist, Magneto is an amazing villain, Professor X is the right amount of helpful and frustrating as a leader, and Rogue is the perfect driving force for this film.

The plot centers around the continued attacks by the US government against the mutants. This creates a rift between old friends Magneto and Professor X as they differ on how to handle the situation. When Magneto finds out Rogue (a young teen just now awakening to her powers) is the key to making all people Mutants, the fight begins and we get to see the team in action.

I really enjoyed every X-Men revealed in the original movie, but if I had a complaint, it would be that the cast is a little too small. This is a particularly harsh critique as it was the first movie in the series, but it is really the only complaint I can come up with. Just a really solid first effort to unveil the X-Men to the public!

Rating: 7/10 really enjoyable movie overall and still holds up today.

X2 X-Men United

Now this is how you do a sequel. We add several new characters, introduce some key villains, and up the vibes tremendously. Magneto is in jail for his crimes in the first movie, but as it turns out only he can help to stop the even bigger bad of William Stryker. Stryker is responsible for many of the crimes against mutant kind, and also for making Logan into the weapon he is today.

We get a lot of new character development in this movie between Logan’s change and Magneto willingness to play both sides. Stryker’s plot to wipe out mutant kind (due to his son being a mutant himself) is eventually foiled by Magneto and the X-Men, however Magneto decides to use this opportunity to recruit more mutants to his side.

A lot is going on with this movie, but it delivers on so many interesting story beats. Logan gets to shine a lot in this film while we also see the struggle of whether Magneto or Professor X are right in their methodology. We also see the true power of Professor X as he is the “weapon” Stryker attempts to use to kill all mutants across the world. The story has a lot of complex points, but it never feels unapproachable, and it allows us to set up both the third movie in the original trilogy and several “spin-off” movies.

Rating: 8/10 a fantastic movie, highly recommended.

X-Men: The Last Stand

Most people think this is where the series starts to go downhill, but I’ll spoil my take, I think this movie is great. We finally get to deal with some of the side characters more like Jean Grey. While Jean has been in all the movies so far, she hasn’t really been more than in a love triangle with Scott Summers and Logan (oh yeah, she died in the last movie, I forgot to mention that huh?). Turns out she isn’t dead at all and might be the strongest character in the series.

Jean wakes up from being “dead” as her powers were so strong they kept her alive. She immediately starts “calling out” to Scott and then she accidentally (or maybe on purpose) kills him. Then we find out more about her back story and how Professor X put a mind cage on her to try to keep her true nature in check. When her true nature “the Pheonix” finds out she kills Professor X and joins Magneto.

The X-Men regroup and track them down for a showdown with Magneto’s Brotherhood. In an emotional scene Logan kills Jean to save everyone, and in the midst of all of the chaos, Magneto is hit with the mutant cure, making him “normal.” After all this wraps up, we discover two things of note in the post credit scenes; the cure isn’t permanent, and Professor X transferred his consciousness to someone else and is alive.

A lot happens in this movie which may be a turn off for some, but I think it tells a really great emotional story. Jean is an awesome antagonist and her love triangle turning into a complete tragedy is very fun as a plot device.

Rating: 8/10 not sure why people don’t love this movie, it’s great.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Well, we had to address this one too didn’t we… This movie is, not great. Logan is such an interesting character, but they don’t do a great job capitalizing on that in his first solo film. We learn a lot about Logan’s past with Stryker (remember I said X2 sets up solo films?), and also his brother, but the plot is kinda stale. There’s also a weird rendition of Deadpool played by Ryan Reynolds but the less said about that the better.

Overall, this movie isn’t awful, but it just doesn’t have enough to keep you interested. This movie actually flopped so hard they rethought the next spinoff movie from being Origins: Magneto, to being X-Men: First Class, and for that alone I thank it as that is one of my favorite movies of all time.

Rating: 4/10 worth a watch just so you know what’s going on in later films.

X-Men: First Class

This was what started my wife and I’s rewatch as this is consistently one of my favorite superhero movies of all time. We take a look back at the formation of the original X-Men. With backstory galore, we learn all about where Magneto and Professor X come from, as well as how they became both friends and enemies.

With tons of historical context and plot points related to the cold war, you get both a mini-Marvel history lesson and a great action-packed adventure. Magneto’s tragic backstory runs right up against the excellent life Professor X got to live and leads to tension at the end when Magneto stabs Professor X in the back (kind of literally).

Magneto is, in my opinion, the best rendition of the character I have ever seen. He is emotionally complex, conniving, smart, loyal, and determined to make his view of the world a reality. Pair this with Professor X’s need to be accepted into the world by non-mutants and you have the perfect tension building subplot while they deal with the main villain.

This movie is excellent and a great setup for the younger X-Men movies. Without this movie we wouldn’t get the following movie in the young X-Men series, Days of Future Past, which pretty much everyone agrees is the best movie in the series.

Rating: 9/10 nearly a perfect superhero movie with almost no fluff.

The Wolverine

Now this is how you do a solo Wolverine movie. We finally get to see Logan go on an adventure worthy of his moniker. We learn that he once saved a man from a nuke in WWII, and this man invites him to Japan to offer him a deal, an honorable death.

The adventure teaches Logan a lot about himself and who he feels he is. Throughout the film we see his approach to honor and the man he saved view of honor clash throughout. Eventually we discover the Japanese man is dying and just wants to live forever like Logan. He tries to kill Logan and nearly succeeds but his own granddaughter is his undoing.

I’m not going to pretend that this movie is perfect, but it is so much better than the X-Men Origins: Wolverine film so I will take it!

7/10 leaps and bounds better than the last attempt at a solo Wolverine movie.

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Confusing title aside, this movie is awesome. We are thrust immediately into a world that has largely ended due to events in the past. Magneto and Professor X from the original three movies and several of the original X-Men are fighting the sentinels designed to kill all people with the mutant gene and the only real way to stop them is to send Logan back in time.

In the past Logan has to convince Professor X he isn’t a failure, free Magneto, and stop a plot to murder the president of the United States’ scientist responsible for the sentinel program. We get to finally see a fully realized Quicksilver on the big screen, some great plot interactions again between Professor X and Magneto, and Logan as the real center of the story again. All of this together makes for one of the best and most consistent films in the superhero genre.

9/10 honestly, this is a movie that outdoes all the others in terms of quality.

Deadpool

Not really an X-Men movie, but it was made by Fox and has some X-Men in it so I will count it!

We finally get a correct version of Deadpool played by Ryan Reynolds (as opposed to the monstrosity in X-Men Origins: Wolverine). He’s funny, goofy, a jerk, and badass, everything you want out of Deadpool. His quest to cure his own cancer ends up ruining his life. To put it back on track, he kills everyone involved in ruining it, especially Francis.

Look, I don’t have much to say here as everyone and their mother saw this movie when it came out. It’s good, I have nothing really more to say about it. If somehow you haven’t seen Deadpool, go watch it.

8/10 a great redo of one of the funniest characters in the Marvel comics.

X-Men: Apocalypse

This is where the young X-Men movies go downhill. Apocalypse is a weird comic villain to adapt for a movie and honestly this one falls a little flat. It is cool to see some of the characters from the original trilogy make their way into the movies here like Jean and Scott as well as Storm, but the plot isn’t really exciting, and Apocalypse is a boring villain in my opinion.

This movie also tries to separate Magneto as a person and Magneto as a villain a little too much. Let him be complex and not just a man that is emotional and evil. While this isn’t a bad movie by any means, it is not one I find myself needing to return to.

6/10 was good to watch once, I don’t need to see it again at this point unless I’m doing a full rewatch.

Logan

This one is so hard for me to review. Logan is by all counts, an excellent movie. This is everything you could ever want out of a solo Wolverine movie taken to the extreme. It’s heavy, it’s action packed, it’s dark, and it’s dramatic. Logan is an emotional rollercoaster of a movie and does a lot of good things throughout the whole plot.

Where it loses me a little is that I find that the middle of the movie is a bit dragged out. I think some of the time they spend travelling the country could’ve been sped up a bit. But now that I say that I feel like I’m nitpicking the movie harshly.

The best part of the movie is the ending. What a moment for the series and what a sendoff (sort of) for Wolverine. If you asked me as a fan of Wolverine to give him a proper goodbye I would not do better than this. They did everything right by Logan’s character in the last 30 minutes of the movie and that alone makes this a stellar watch.

8/10 about as close to a 9/10 as possible without being one.

Deadpool 2

Deadpool is back with even more tragedy. He had his happy ending ruined when the girl he loved is killed. Deadpool spends the rest of the movie trying to figure out whether he wants to die or be a hero. In the end, he decides why not both?

This movie is just as funny as the first Deadpool, but the plot just isn’t as strong. Something about the revenge plot in Deadpool 1 felt missing and the addition of Cable felt kind of throw in for little reason. Ultimately, this movie felt like a weaker sequel than expected.

I think the shining light of this movie was still the humor, but without a compelling plot in the background a lot of Deadpool’s antics can be annoying. I don’t think this is a bad movie at all, but it definitely was a little disappointing.

7/10 still good but fell a bit flat.

X-Men: Dark Pheonix

Did you like X-Men: The Last Stand? If you said yes, what if I told you that you could watch it again but worse? That’s right we’re doing Jean Grey as a villain again except we won’t actually make her a villain this time at all. All of the complexity of The Last Stand is gone this time around and traded for a b-tier plot and a redemption arc for Magneto yet again.

There’s nothing objectively wrong with this movie, but it isn’t one I can really recommend unless you like the X-Men series already. Kind of a letdown to end the young X-Men set of movies on this one.

5/10 not the worst thing I’ve seen from a superhero franchise but certainly not my favorite movie.

The New Mutants

Did I say we watched all of the movies? Uhhhhhh… I plead the 5th.

N/A did not watch this one and felt like I didn’t miss out at all so I also will not be watching this in the future.

Deadpool and Wolverine

Deadpool brings back Wolverine from Logan and really just leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. This should be a good movie, but it just isn’t. This movie is just a meh overall. Sure, Hugh Jackman reprising his role as Logan is great, but that’s as far as I got in enjoyment (aside from Chris Evans cameo which was very fun). I don’t think you should skip this movie, but I also don’t think you should watch this movie again ever. A disappointing end to both the Fox X-Men movies and the Fox Deadpool movies as we swing into the full MCU renditions of each series in the new Avengers: Doomsday movie coming soon.

5/10 what should’ve been a great movie fell incredibly flat.

Tier List

As promised, here’s the tier list I made of all the movies. The categories show the same kind of setup as the ratings I gave, but the categories have a little more feeling to them and each movie is in order within the tier list so you can see which movies with the same rating are better than others.