The PURGE: Marvel Comics Presents #49

I still recall purchasing this comic book.  It could not have been more exciting.  My (then) favorite artist drawing my all-time favorite hero and a popularity-juggernaut mutant.  The cover alone was staggering to my teenage brain.  Well balanced, striking, with both characters large and bold against a background of webs, this thing practically leaped out into my hands.

The interiors were equally awe-inspiring.  Honestly, apart from a few issues during the Return of the Sinister Six storyline in Amazing Spider-Man, this might be some of Larsen's best work from this era.  I'm going to spend this entry gushing about the art, so be forewarned.  The story (and the additional stories in the comic) are really secondary to the quality of the artwork put out in the feature.  Briefly, some bad guys have kidnapped a young mutant and it is up to Spidey and Logan to liberate her.




Maybe it's Joe Rubenstein's inks, which are a perfect compliment to Larsen's pencils, or maybe Larsen was just on fire at this point in his career, but in these scant 8 pages are some of the best drawings of Wolverine and Spidey I have seen from this era of comics.  Check out this panel of Wolverine and Spider-Man bursting into action:

Spider-Man's anatomy is absurd, a trademark of Larsen's tenure on the character, but it's a good absurd.  It's dynamic and spider-like, only with half the appendages.  And check out Logan at front.  Sure, that left thigh is kind of crazy, but man, what a splash!  He's mad, he's ready for action, and he's just busted through the ceiling of a seaside warehouse.  This one panel alone tells you this is going to be one hell of a rumble.

Since Marvel Comics Presents is basically Wolverine's comic at this time, the web-head takes a back seat in the action, but he does get one exceptional solo panel that is less exaggerated and more traditional, but no less striking and awesome:

It should be noted that Larsen also wrote this story and honestly handled the webslinger's zany dialogue without overdoing it, or relying on instantly outdated topical humor, something so many writers seem incapable of doing.  But that shot of Spidey above is classic.  As a kid I would have given anything to have drawn a Spider-Man that good.

Again, the real focus here is Larsen's Wolverine.  It doesn't matter whether it's larger action shots like these:

or smaller incidental panels like this one (I apologize for the dreadful lighting):

Larsen really nails the character.  The costume is exaggerated a bit as is the anatomy, but never so much that it becomes the over-stylized mess that permeates the work of artists today, like this:

Sure, Larsen likely opened the door for travesties like the one above (sorry Ramos, you are capable of better work than this, I've seen it), but his work had more restraint and skill.  Those action panels of Logan fighting the claw woman, whose name escapes me, are exciting and dynamic.  I wasn't a huge X-men fan at the time, but work like this got me really excited about the Wolverine character.  Larsen just made him look so cool!

And while we are talking about Erik Larsen art in MCP, check out his amazing inks on the legendary Steve Ditko's pencils from this Human Torch story from MCP #83.  Honestly, this is as good as Ditko art had looked in years.  Larsen manages to add the dynamic touch that Ditko's plush dummy figures need to really pop.

I'm not trying to ding a true legend, I mean the man is responsible for Spider-Man, but his later stuff has trouble holding up to the work of the then-masters like Larsen, Lee, and McFarlane.  Look at that last panel, the close-up of Moth's face.  That is only possible through Larsen's inking skills.

I've always thought Erik Larsen was one of the best, most consistent talents in the industry and looking back at his work in Marvel Comics Presents only confirms that belief.  Needless to say, I'm keeping this run of comics.  Thanks for looking back with me!

Marvel Comics: House of M

As I am making my way through the letter "H" during my comics PURGE, I ran across the House of M limited series from 2005.  I remember being moderately satisfied with it at the time, but ultimately saw it as just another piece of the flawed attempt to resuscitate the floundering House of Ideas. However, upon my second read this weekend, a decade later, my eyes were opened to what is actually a rather good story with some really strong, character defining moments.  Let's take a look:


Just after the turn of the century, Brian Michael Bendis, for all intents and purposes, acquired complete control of the Marvel Universe with the goal of bringing it back from the brink of disaster.  Heroes Reborn/Return had flopped, Spider-Man Chapter One was yet another disaster in the life of that franchise, and the rest of the Marvel U was just all over the place.  Bendis swept into the Marvel offices like a less skeevy Rasputin with a grand plan to save the comics giant from becoming another DC.  His plan centered around completely destabilizing the status quo of most of the signature characters and then filling in the gaps with extremely solid characterization and a lot of "realistic" dialogue.  Whether he was successful or not is really a matter for debate and, at least for me, hinges upon how much you loved the Marvel Universe before about 1995, but either way, Bendis undeniably changed the way Marvel Comics were written, thought about, and executed.

It was also during this time that the "Marvel Way" became synonymous with "write for trade."  And for good reason.  Bendis is the king of the big picture.  His strength is in writing the long story.  His single issue work is extremely hit and miss, with a lot of misses, but when it comes to writing a 6 or 9 part story (or longer in the case of his absolutely riveting run on Daredevil), he is a master.  House of M demonstrates this better than any other series of his I've read thus far.

The story is a bridge between two of Bendis' main events.  The preceding event, Avengers Disassembled, was a huge story that rocked the world's greatest heroes to their core, Marvel-killed* a few major players, and led to the creation of a very different kind of Avengers team.  This event was caused by the Scarlet Witch losing control of her powers after going quite mad.  (*Marvel-killed, of course, means that the character "dies" with the full intention of bringing them back as soon as sales dwindle or fan reaction is negative enough).  House of M was the next step in the plan.  After determining that the Scarlet Witch was the cause of the crisis, all of the major players in the Marvel Universe came together to decide what to do with her.  This sets the stage for issue #1 of the House of M limited series.

The story is a little slow to start with the first four issues slowly establishing the world we are about to play in.  First we see the world in the aftermath of Avengers Disassembled and the major players deciding the fate of Wanda Maximoff.  Then, in a literal flash the world is remade into one where mutants reign supreme.  Magneto is the monarch of a world in which humans are the minority.  One of the interesting side effects is that all of the heroes involved in the Avengers Disassembled event have been given their most cherished desires.  All would be just fine, except that one very important character remembers things the way they were (and are supposed to be).  That character is Wolverine, whose greatest desire was to have complete memory of his past.  Unfortunately, that level of recall also allowed him to remember that things used to be different.  Armed with this knowledge, Logan realizes it is up to him to set things right.  Along the way he encounters another mutant, a new character named Layla Miller, who can awaken the same realization in other people.  Together, they set out to convert the other key players and find a way to reverse the effect of the House of M.

All in all a good premise and a pretty good superhero yarn.  And then we get to issue #5.  Issue #5 firmly plants this story into the Marvel Archive as one of the classics.  In this issue we get the full impact of the consequences of the House of M because it is here that Logan must show Peter Parker that his ideal life is a lie and must come to an end.  Peter does not take it well.  Nor should he.  In the House of Magnus world he has it all.  He's married to Gwen Stacy, Uncle Ben is alive and well, he has a child, and he is famous for being Spider-Man.  He has everything he could ever want and it is all as real as anything could be.  There's no "too good to be true" aspect to his life, it's just his ideal life realized.  So, of course, Logan has to come and literally destroy all of that by having Layla awaken the reality inside him.

Bendis shines in his depiction of Peter's suffering as a result of the loss.  His grief and rage are real and powerful.  From this point forward, the character of Spider-Man should really never be the same.  (sadly, that becomes all too true, but not in a good way)  As a reader and life-long fan of Spider-Man, I can honestly say Peter's turmoil hits home hard.  It is painful to see the character put through these paces and presented with such profound anguish.  But because Bendis is smart and a true character writer, it is also a very satisfying read.

The story goes on as planned with the heroes banding together to right the wrong that created the House of Magnus alternate universe.  I'll not spoil some of the better twists of the story here. Very entertaining and all in all a good superhero plot, but the real strength of the writing is the handling of the characters and their various reactions to learning the truth.  Peter's reaction is the one that really resonates with me, but there is a lot of great character work being done in this series.  When the awakened heroes all get together to plan their attack, Cyclops is laying out the battle plan explaining that there will be three strike teams.  Then Jessica Drew interrupts with the apt question as to whether or not reverting things is even the right thing to do, suggesting that maybe this was meant to happen and is the right thing to have happen.  The heroes all go down that theoretical path with her for about a page and then Cyclops basically says, "are we all done with that?  Good.  There will be three teams..."  It is an incredible moment for that character as well; perhaps one of my favorite Cyclops moments of all time.

There is also a nice moment with Spider-Man and Logan, shortly after Spidey learns the truth, where he emotionally crosses a moral barrier he once held sacred.  I'll let the comic speak for itself here:

If you are a classic Spider-Man fan of any measure, that is a huge moment.  Bendis makes it very easy to get caught up in the moment with Peter.

And then of course, there is the iconic moment at the end of the series where the Scarlet Witch strikes again with her incredible power, this time in reverse, wiping out all mutants except for a tiny handful. This sets the stage for the next big Marvel event.  The Bendis era at Marvel was defined by yearly, mythos-shattering events that constantly rewrote the Marvel status quo.  The only real downfall in the House of M is the lack of a truly satisfying ending. The end of this series is really just a prologue to the next big event as the Marvel Universe deals with the sudden near-extinction of the mutant population and it feels like the story is more of a transition than a fully told tale.  If this story was allowed to have a more complete end, it would easily stand up next to classics like Days of Future Past or the Dark Phoenix Saga, but since the end feels more like a prologue, the denouement of the main plot is a little hollow.

But if you want a good look at how to tell character driven stories in a microcosm, you really cannot do much better than House of M issues #5-8.  Bendis gives a clinic in how to take established characters and put them through their paces.  I am extremely, pleasantly surprised to rediscover this series after nearly dismissing it a decade ago.  There is some tremendous work here if you are a fan of classic Marvel.

Marvel Movie Project #5: X2: X-Men United

And here we are in the Top 5!  And kicking it off with what was the greatest team movie for a very long time!  When X-men came out it was a vanguard.  It broke new ground and made all of the mistakes one might make when blazing a new trail.  X2 was the follow-up that smoothed all of those wrinkles.  In the vein of Empire Strikes Back, X2 captures the essence of great characters in a way the introductory tail cannot.  It puts those great characters through their paces and explores their motivations and desires with a level of depth and care you can only achieve with characters that are already established. And the best part of it all (for nerds), is that this film manages to do that by successfully drawing from powerful source material in the comic books.

One of the best things you can do in storytelling is make the villain of the piece so compelling that you can almost see their side of the story and you find yourself not entirely against them.  X2 nails this.  Mutants as a whole are up against a communal threat in William Stryker, a human who seeks to use his mutant son (no moral ambiguity there) to wipe out all mutants.  The abduction of Charles Xavier to this end forces an extremely uneasy alliance between Magneto and his rag-tag bad of evil mutants and the X-men.  The two divergent teams must work together to free Xavier and stop Stryker's plan.  This leads to many opportunities for tension between Magneto and the X-men and forces you to consider that Magneto is more than just a bad guy who tried to basically do the reverse of Stryker last movie.  The depth and complexity of the character gets careful attention as you realize he is more about protecting his people from those who hate and fear them, than he is about just being evil.  And the best part is that X2 allows this to happen organically and not shove it down your throat.  Smartly done.  Magneto led the X-men in the comics for a time as well (probably several times given Marvel's inability to write fresh stories in the past 20 years...), and it was a powerful story to read.  It is always nice to see that kind of crafty storytelling translated to the 2 hour format.

He said he could help you! Let him! Damn it! It would be so badass!

Because the people behind X2 learned from the first film, there is also a healthy Wolverine sub-plot that pits him against the man who made him (Stryker) and his newest, deadliest toy, Lady Deathstrike.  Thus, we gets lots more Wolverine action and as you all know, I could watch Hugh Jackman be a badass all day.  But the Logan subplot is smart too, and it doesn't try to steal the show, it just hums along adding meat to an already delicious story.   The showdown between Logan and Deathstrike is as epic as anything in the comics.

And I haven't even mentioned Nightcrawler yet!  Kurt Wagner is as rich and complex a character as you might want.  To be able to introduce him and use him as an obvious plot device, and still make him a funny and sympathetic character proves that X2 is one of the most carefully written movies on our list.  And creepiest, watch closely during the part where they go to rescue the children, Nightcrawler is actually in the room BEFORE he teleports in.  Look in the shadows behind the children just before he teleports in, he's already THERE!  CREEPY!

The only weak part of this movie for me was Stryker.  He was compelling as the mastermind of the plan, but he was kind of flat as the main enemy.  His son is a wheelchair bound headcase, so there's not much threat there either.  But if it means a smart story rife with moral ambiguity and deep characters, I'll take a meek bad guy.  To be honest, The Incredible Hulk would have been #1 on this list (maybe) if it had taken the meeker villain approach.  X2 features the kind of story that doesn't want a big Hollywood beat 'em up ending.  We don't need a literal monster to fight here, because Stryker, his hate and his plan are evil enough. I just wish Stryker himself were a bit more interesting.

All in all mild critique for what is otherwise a smart, action-packed sequel that learns all of the lessons from its ground-breaking predecessor. X2 is definitely top 5 material.

Aimee's Take:

First, allow me to apologize for the tardiness of this article--Stan and I welcomed baby boy into the Frankfurter family at the end of September, and it's been quite a little while since I had a few minutes to string together somewhat coherent thoughts while at a keyboard. As you can see, based upon the previous sentence, I'm not quite back into the swing of things yet. 

X2. Whew, ok, let me start by saying this is probably in my personal top 5 for sure. It's certainly my favorite of the first series X-Men movies (eat that Wolverine). 

What can I say? I love pretty much everything about it. I love the cooperative aspect between the X-Men and the Brotherhood; I love Magneto's escape from the plastic prison; I love the Weapon X sequence... but most of all I love how it's a relatively small story that has large implications. What they're working to stop is the annihilation of all mutants/then humans, but it's not a doomsday device--it's the mind and Cerebro with which we play. In other words, the antagonists exploit Professor X's own equipment. Very refreshing. 

I don't mind Stryker as much as my loving husband. I think he seems like the right kind of bloated old asshole who has allowed prejudice and personal tragedy to fester. I can easily see why he has spent years grinding an ax. I think he's pretty much the perfect threat.

But who are we kidding? The best part of the movie is the opening Nightcrawler sequence. Actually, I think Nightcrawler is the best thing about this movie (and considering it's mostly about Wolverine, that's saying something.)

And, the second best part of this movie is the sequence where the mansion is evacuated and Wolverine is a freakin' badass.

You tell me this doesn't belong in the top 5. Seriously. Yeah, I know, I know, Captain America, blah blah blah. It sucked, get over it. Maybe Winter Soldier will be better.

Marvel Movie Project #7: X-men: Last Stand

Everyone hates this movie except me and I have only found out about this recently.  I don't get it.  X-men 3 isn't The Avengers, but it also isn't Fantastic Four and while I realize there is a sea of difference between the two, I struggle to find what's not to like here. (Aimee will help us out there)  I mean, this movie pretty much has it all:  more fun with characters I like, the balls to kill off three very prominent characters, new/interesting villains, old/interesting villains, a fairly straightforward plot, the Beast says "oh my stars and garters" and it works!, and big climactic final battle that rivals some of the great X-men showdowns in the comics!

X-men 3 is a logical and necessary conclusion to X-2, so it is never going to stand on its own as a great film, but as team movies go I think it is pretty strong.  Sure, the Angel storyline is almost completely superfluous, but it is also very forgettable.  I think the balance is better here than it was in X-men, which, while being a decent ensemble piece, felt like Wolverine's debutant ball.  By the time we get to X-men 3, the characters are all fully developed and we are allowed to enjoy them being put to the test.  Storm in particular shines in this film where before Halle Berry seemed more content to play Catwoman.  Kelsey Grammar is an unexpectedly compelling Beast, and Rebecca Romijn gets a surprising twist in Mystique story arc.  And, of course, Ellen Page captures Kitty Pryde dead-on.

There is a lot to like in X-men 3 and a lot of lessons have been learned.  Gone are the days of the World Peace Festivals and Doomsday machines.  Instead we get a plot that, while condensed, is straight from the pages of the comic books.  We get internal strife within the X-men as characters follow their natural story arcs and disagree on what is best for the future of the team.  We get plenty of hard-hitting action without having to concoct a lot of goofy reasons for it.  Comic book nerds also get lots of nuggets to feast upon with cameos by Jamie Madrox the Multiple Man and Psylocke and much needed screen time for the under-used Colossus.  Not to mention the awesome "Days of Future Past" Danger Room sequence.

With all of these great things going on, I find it hard to find major fault anywhere in this film.  For me it is just a fun action-romp with great X-men characters in a world that has been firmly established.  Does it have problems?  Sure.  But they are not big enough for me to get in a snit over and they certainly do not diminish my enjoyment of this film.  There are two (three if you count The Avengers) other team films ahead of this one on the list, but X-men 3 earns its #7 spot by learning from the mistakes of other team films, particularly X-men, and succeeding in delivering a blockbuster-type experience.

Aimee's Take:

I really don't like Angel, I think he's stupid. 

I really don't care for the "mutant cure" premise.

I think there are altogether too many premises in this movie.

But, here's the good news. It's mostly ok. The film manages to execute a lot of interesting things and represent characters, in general, much better than the first installment. It's a good movie. It has a lot going on, though--so you have to pay attention.

I'm biased. I saw this movie and did not like it at all in the theater. I had no idea where it was building and no patience for any pay off. I was pissed that it took a long time to get there, too.

Here's the thing, though, the second viewing changed things for me. Once the burden of navigating the plot was off my shoulders, it became much easier to sit back and enjoy the movie. Do I think it's the best out there? No. Is it better than much of the stuff that exists lower on the list? Yes. Is it better than, for example Spider-Man? I'm not as sure. I think it's better than the first X-Men.

I think this makes everything ok.

I lobbied pretty hard for this movie to be lower on the list. Stan wanted it higher. In order to keep X3 sufficiently low, I had to relinquish my stranglehold on the #1 spot. I think it was ultimately worth it; this movie is good but not great and should take a lower spot compared to what comes later on this list. And the #1 spot was almost a coinflip anyway...

 

Marvel Movie Project #9: X-men

That's right, another one from the early days that still manages to hold up, even in the face of far superior super-hero team movies like The Avengers.  X-men has obvious signs of being an early super-hero movie: there is the improbably world peace summit or whatever, there is the giant doomsday device that makes mutants via a whirling gyroscope, and there is inevitable battle atop a national landmark.  All entirely unnecessary, but not unexpected in a film that breaks ground the way X-men does.

If you overlook the goofy "Hollywood" crap, what you find underneath is a movie with a lot of heart that gets its base characters pretty much exactly right, and tells an adventure story that is fun to watch.  With a simple adventure story, there is plenty of time to focus on getting those characters right and satisfying the nerd contingent while also keeping things light enough for those who actually get out and date.

Speaking of getting characters right, Hugh Jackman.  Much like Snipes and Blade, I will accept NO ONE ELSE in the role of Wolverine.  Jackman nails the character right out of the gate and once he is introduced to the story, he is the reason we watch.  Look, Patrick Stewart is incredible as Professor X and Gandalf is compelling as Magneto (more so in the second film).  Cyclops, Jean, Rogue and Iceman are all great, but Jackman is so likeable as Logan that what is intended to be a team film borders on being a Wolverine film (and better one than the actual Wolverine film...)  Rebecca Romijn is also a breakout in this film, laying some nice groundwork for her future roles in the next two X-films.

Despite having a fairly standard plot, the storytelling is also smartly done here.  The story starts following Rogue, transitions to Logan and then opens up once we get to the school.  We are given two characters to relate to and to introduce us to the bigger world that the story takes place in.  It is also nice that the film has a sense of humor about itself that is allowed to manifest naturally through Logan's character ("what do they call you? Wheels?").  This keeps the gloomy plot from getting bogged down in itself and running us all into the river.

Like Blade, X-men is a product of the dawning of a new era in comic book movies.  It has its stumbling points, but it also has its successes and those successes greatly outweigh the "blockbuster syndrome" that plagues so many films of this genre.  It features enough geek moments for us comic book fans, but does not do so to the exclusion of a general audience.

Aimee's Take:

I'm not as taken with this film through the lens of time, but it's still a very serviceable X-Men vehicle. It suffers from all the problems of a major "introductory" film (i.e. "Hey, look at all these characters! This is what they do!") and suffers from some odd choices on the part of the direction/acting (Storm's inconsistent accent comes to mind.)

Still, it manages to capture the essential flavors of all the characters presented. Stan is quite correct; Hugh Jackman kills it as Wolverine and I'll accept no substitutes. It's not his fault that the stand-alone movie sucked. I think Cyclops is a douche here, but he is in the comics so no harm done. Magneto is compellingly cardboard here, doing typical super villain type stuff, but failing to delve much deeper. It's ok, though, there are more movies to go into with these characters and they improve. Oh, do they improve.

I think the ridiculous "world peace togetherness" bullshit is what kills the overall greatness of the film. A number of earlier comic book efforts are guilty of this, and I continue to hate seeing it. The over-the-top Hollywood ending is a miserable thing to saddle a movie with, and sadly, this isn't the last we see of it. Not by a long shot.

While not, to me, as satisfying as our last entry, Punisher: War Zone, this movie packs an overall higher quality of storytelling, depth of character and production value. When you add in a little top-notch casting and characterization, X-Men manages to present a solid, fun ride that is ultimately quite worthy of the Top Ten.

Marvel Movie Project: #16 X-men Origins Wolverine

Hope you enjoyed The Avengers as much as we did!  Now back to the count up!

Hugh Jackman is the perfect Wolverine. He really is.  There is a Clint Eastwood thing he has that forces me to have a borderline man-crush on him. (borderline because I'm a Clooney man)  Because of this, I cannot hate any movie where Hugh Jackman plays Wolverine (at least not yet, there is still rumor of a sequel...).  Unfortunately, this movie didn't feature a solo Wolverine story where he wanders around being a badass and maybe fighting a marquee foe like Sabretooth, nor does the movie do a simple compelling adaptation of the Barry Windsor-Smith classic "Weapon X" story from Marvel Comics Presents.  Instead we get a mish-mash of the semi-classic-but-tells-too-much Origin and the classic, but poorly interpreted Larry Hama run from the Wolverine comic.  And any time you get a mish-mash, things are bound to go wrong.

The primary problem in this film is the Hollywood Effect.  Anytime a film gets any kind of budget and aspirations of being a blockbuster, it starts making very bad, very over the top choices.  Big explosions, ridiculous vehicles and weapons, unnecessary characters, and confusing casting choices start to show up all over the place.  We'll see this a lot in the movies that are coming up and Wolverine kicks that off in grand fashion.

What starts with a lot of real promise, telling the mysterious, century spanning history of one of Marvel's franchise characters descends into a orgasm of mindless explosions, absurd fight sequences, even more useless action, and a complete absence of depth or story.

Things are going along pretty well until right after the scene with Gambit (a much awaited character that is completely wasted in this film).  Up to that point we get that rambling solo story that the movie wants to be.  We get Wolverine haunted by his past which is rapidly catching up to him in a very bad way.  The members of Team X featured in the film are pretty fun, particularly Wraith and Silver Fox.  Sabretooth is over the top from the start and has nowhere to go after that.  I've never been a particular fan of Liev Schreiber, but I'm not convinced he was given much to do in this script.  Silver Fox is actually very compelling, but again, given little to do.  Instead we get lots and lots of fan favorite Ryan Reynolds as Marvel's most overrated and overused character, Deadpool.

For those of you not familiar, Deadpool was a product of the 1990's much like Urkel and Dan "the Whopper Man" Cortese (yeah, I went there).  He was a slightly off-kilter, wise-mouthed assassin.  For all intents and purposes, he was an evil Spider-man in terms of personality.  Even the costumes looked similar...

That's even a Spider-man pose!  Feh!

However, somewhere down the line, a Marvel writer decided that Deadpool wasn't crazy enough and chose to have his insanity break the fourth wall, let DP become self-aware and do direct audience address.  This was a cute gimmick for a minute and in the hands of the right writer, even clever.  Unfortunately instead this opened Pandora's Box and DP became a cliche of a caricature of a meme (before there were memes).  The result was rampant over-exposure and an inflated sense of popularity.  If it weren't for this, you wouldn't even see Deadpool in this film.  And yet, somehow it seems fitting that overrated Ryan Reynolds is cast in the role of Marvel's least valuable asset. You cannot fault Reynolds, much like Keannu Reeves, he has only one card up his sleeve and he plays it at every turn.  Sadly, neither he, nor Deadpool, belong in this movie.

By the time we are subjected to near lethal doses of Deadpool, the film is heading toward critical mass and any hope of subtle character work or meaning is rapidly being drowned out by big explosions and fights atop cooling towers and every other kind of recycled action movie device you can name.  When Deadpool's head finally rolls to a stop in the rubble, you are praying for death or the end of the film. (the end teaser even hints at a possible Deadpool spinoff which we are all celebrating the absence of)

The Hollywood Effect kills Wolverine.  It starts with so much promise and then crashes and burns like there is no tomorrow.  You should probably see this movie for Hugh Jackman's Wolverine and for the good stuff that happens early on, but after the Gambit fight in the alley, go watch something else, anything else.  Go see The Avengers again.

Aimee's Take: 

Luckily for you all, this is the MARVEL movie ranking--not DC. Why, you ask? Because that means this is the very last time I will be railing against the Ryan Reynolds smart-ass machine. Like the hubs above, I absolutely detest both Deadpool and Ryan Reynolds, and I am happy to report that because he took care of it pretty well, I can keep my Ryan Reynolds bashing to a minimum. 

Instead, I think I'm going to focus on the best of this movie. Wolverine. 

Not a fan of bone claws, but whatever. The movie should really just start without an "origin" reaching that far back and skip straight to Weapon X. Since the movie chooses to be muddled and confused on the whole Weapon X thing, it should probably skip that and just have Wolverine ride a motorcycle through Canada being a devil-may-care general badass, fighting Sabertooth and smoking cigars. He should say "bub" a few times. 

We kind of get that. Kind of. And that's the backbone of the film. Wolverine jumps at a helicopter. Wolverine rides away from an explosion. Wolverine uses his claws. These are the things we came to see.

Now, people like me who love Gambit are very happy to see him finally brought into the franchise. People like me who love Gambit are also pretty disappointed to see the type of film into which he's been brought. His role makes only a little sense with the negligible story. Still, he is Gambit, and he does all the things I want to see Gambit do, except you know, have character.

I'm not comfortable with the additional "cameos" we get, either. Cyclops is unnecessary, and Professor X is egregious. His appearance, in particular, is senseless. I'm not sure how old he's supposed to be here, because I'm never totally sure when the film is meant to take place. I kind of get that it's supposed to be... maybe? the 1970s, but frankly once we leave the WWII era, it is difficult to catch the markers. I hate not having a sense of place. Especially since this is supposed to tie together with the other X-Men films, characters like Professor X and Stryker should correlate very well to their later counterparts. They don't. Heck, I don't think Wolverine is all that consistant. But he's Wolverine.

And that's where I leave it. There's just enough Wolverine to enjoy in this film to make it squarely "middle of the road" fare. As a matter of fact, in our list, Wolverine marks the "beginning of the middle". This movie earns its place. One of the first that we ranked, Wolverine consistently stayed in the middle until better movies finally pushed it down a few ranks. 

It's enjoyable. To a point. That's all you can ask of such a thin premise.