X-Men The Last Stand (2006) Review

Time: 104 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence
Cast:
Hugh Jackman as Logan/Wolverine
Halle Berry as Ororo Munroe/Storm
Ian McKellen as Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto
Famke Janssen as Jean Grey/Phoenix/Dark Phoenix
Anna Paquin as Marie/Rogue
Kelsey Grammer as Dr. Hank McCoy/Beast
James Marsden as Scott Summers/Cyclops
Rebecca Romijn as Raven Darkhölme/Mystique
Shawn Ashmore as Bobby Drake/Iceman
Aaron Stanford as John Allerdyce/Pyro
Vinnie Jones as Cain Marko/Juggernaut
Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier/Professor X
Director: Brett Ratner

The discovery of a cure for mutations leads to a turning point for Mutants (Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, Anna Paquin, Rebecca Romijn, Kelsey Grammer). They may now choose to give up their powers and become fully human or retain their uniqueness and remain isolated. War looms between the followers of Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), who preaches tolerance, and those of Magneto (Ian McKellen), who advocates survival of the fittest.

X Men: The Last Stand has gotten the reputation of being the worst X Men movie and I think that’s a little ridiculous (X-Men: Origins Wolverine was clearly much worse). But even if it is one of the worse X-Men movies, it’s still not as bad as many others are making it out to be. The main flaw was aspects of the story and direction, it could’ve been so much more and Bryan Singer’s absence can be definitely noticed. However I still think there’s still enough aspects that make it an above average movie.

One thing that this film does is raise the stakes, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. An example of the latter is when the film does kill off characters, I’ve noticed a lot of complaints are aimed towards those moments. While I didn’t feel anything when these deaths happened (which is probably a flaw in the X Men movies as a whole), these deaths felt unnecessary. I guess it was because Fox thought that this would be the last X Men movie, so they tried to raise the stakes. But it felt so forced and unnecessary. A big complaint that many had was the execution of the Phoenix storyline, as I haven’t read the comics I don’t really know the differences. So I can’t really comment on that. I will say that I thought it was fine but it didn’t reach its fullest potential. The final act of the movie is a big mutants against mutants fight and I personally thought that was enjoyable to see.

The cast was again good in their role, with Hugh Jackman of course stealing the show. Some of the additions to the cast were great, for example I loved what they did with Kelsey Grammer’s Beast. One flaw that I have acknowledged was the fact that so many new mutants are introduced and nothing is done with them. Vinnie Jones for example plays the Juggernaut, he was really entertaining (in a funny way, not in a badass way) in his 2 scenes but didn’t add anything. Ben Foster’s Angel didn’t do much either, his character was in the first scene of the movie but he’s only in a few scenes.

The special effects are as usual good, they are on the same level as the other X Men movies. Even if you don’t like the movie, there’s no denying that there are many visually great moments. One example is in the final act involving the Golden Gate Bridge. The final action scenes was great and after seeing small groups of mutants fighting other groups of mutants (or in the case of X2, human soldiers) it felt so exciting and refreshing to see a great mutant on mutant war.

I don’t really get a whole lot of the hate for X Men 3. Sure it doesn’t hold up to the previous movies but it still holds up as a decent movie. The action is still good, the actors do reasonably well and I liked aspects of the direction in the story. The main flaw is in the story, there are so many parts of the movie that could’ve been improved. I felt like Brett Ratner might’ve been the main flaw, Bryan Singer skipped this movie for Superman Returns (great choice by the way), and given Ratner’s track record, it’s easy to see why this movie would fail. The Last Stand is by no means a great movie but it isn’t a bad movie either.

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The Loft (2015) Review

Time: 108 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence, Sexual Violence, Drug Use, Offensive Language and Sex Scenes
Cast:
Karl Urban as Vincent Stevens
James Marsden as Chris Vanowen
Wentworth Miller as Luke Seacord
Eric Stonestreet as Marty Landry
Matthias Schoenaerts as Philip Williams
Rhona Mitra as Allison Vanowen
Rachael Taylor as Ann Morris
Isabel Lucas as Sarah Deakins
Director: Erik Van Looy

For five men (Karl Urban, James Marsden, Wentworth Miller, Eric Stonestreet, Matthias Schoenaerts), the opportunity to share a penthouse in the city — in which to carry on extramarital affairs — is a dream come true, until the dead body of an unknown woman turns up. Realizing that her killer must be one of their group, the men are gripped by paranoia as each one suspects another. Friendships are tested, loyalties are questioned, and marriages crumble while fear and suspicion run rampant.

The Loft had a good Hitchcockian premise and great cast with actors like Karl Urban and James Marsden being a part of the movie. The cast couldn’t however rise above the terrible material that they had to work with. The plot holes, the uninteresting story and just the overall script let every aspect of the film down. There are glimpses of a potentially good film at times but for the most part this movie fails on every level. The Loft isn’t one of the worst films I’ve ever seen but it is definitely a bad movie.

Hands down the worst thing about this movie is the script. First of all: the characters, not only is there a lack of likable characters, the main characters are so despicable, and to make it worse, we’re supposed to care about what’s happening to them and it’s so hard to when we not only don’t care about them, we want bad things to happen to them. They aren’t even written that interestingly. Another problem is the pacing, it was so slow in many scenes of the movie. This film has a non-linear way of telling its story, flashing back to relevant parts that happened in the past, however these flashbacks are so long and the relevant information takes up only small parts of those flashbacks, so it just gets boring in these scenes. Also the film shoves so many plot twists, to the point where the film becomes so convoluted and doesn’t make sense. It’s one of those mystery stories that after watching it, you begin to notice plenty of plot holes and inconsistencies.

This movie had a great cast with Karl Urban, James Marsden, Wentworth Miller and many others. I can tell that they are trying to give good performances and they have moments where they could show off their talent but they have horrible characterisation, dialogue and are playing completely unlikable characters, so they aren’t given much to work with. The blame shouldn’t really fall upon them.

The direction is fine for the most part but there are times when the director makes it overly stylistic. Sometimes out of nowhere he uses awkward close ups, tilted camera angles and pans, for no reason at all. It felt really awkward and distracting but this only happened a few times and for the most part this film looked fine.

The Loft had so much potential to be a great film with its premise and its talented cast but for whatever reason, that didn’t come across on screen. The script had so many plot holes, the pacing was off, just everything was let down by the script. The funny thing is that this movie is a remake of a Belgian film called Loft (2008) which was apparently great. Guess what both films had? The same director, Erik Van Looy. He did an American remake of his own film. It’s strange that A. he would remake his own movie, and B. he didn’t get it right. The Loft wasn’t an unbearable movie but I don’t think it’s worth watching.

Unfinished Business (2015) Review

Time: 91 Minutes
Age Rating: Offensive Language, Sexual References, Nudity and Drug Use
Cast:
Vince Vaughn as Daniel “Dan” Trunkman
Tom Wilkinson as Timothy McWinters
Dave Franco as Mike Pancake
Sienna Miller as Charlene “Chuck” Portnoy
Nick Frost as Bill Whilmsley
James Marsden as Jim Spinch
Director: Ken Scott

Tired of playing second-fiddle to his obnoxious boss (Sienna Miller), businessman Dan Trunkman (Vince Vaughn) quits and forms his own competing mineral sales firm. He takes a retiring associate (Tom Wilkinson) and a dim-witted sales applicant (Dave Franco) with him. After a year and a half of struggle, a promising deal is in sight — then promptly folds, thanks to Dan’s ex-boss. Determined to save the deal, Dan and company fly to Germany, where a series of outrageous obstacles awaits.

The two biggest sins that a comedy can commit is to be unfunny and boring. Unfinished Business is one of those films which unfortunately does both of them and this movie really was even worse than it should’ve been. Despite a talented cast and a good writer this movie fails on pretty much every level. It’s not funny, it’s not smart, so many jokes feel forced and almost every joke is so easy. There really isn’t any reason to watch this movie.

As you could probably tell by now that the jokes didn’t work and weren’t funny at all. There were times where the jokes were so forced and at times cringe worthy. For example James Franco’s character’s last name is Pancake, that’s the level of comedy that this movie is at. It doesn’t help that some of the scenes and scenarios were created just to make a joke which as you can imagine, misses. Another bad aspect is that the whole film felt boring. The entire movie surrounded Vince Vaughn making some deal and that’s pretty much the whole movie, with countless scenes added and stretched out to pad the runtime so that it was at least 90 minutes. Also Unfinished Business felt like an unfinished film, there are scenes that don’t fit in with each other. For example this movie starts off with Vince Vaughn having an argument with his boss before leaving and it felt like there was supposed to be a scene beforehand, so from the get go the scenes in the movie starting feeling out of place. It’s hard to see how this movie had a script this bad from Steve Conrad, the writer of The Pursuit of Happiness.

Vince Vaughn is really just playing Vince Vaughn again. He’s fine in the role (even though he doesn’t produce any forms of laughs) and actually comes out the best out of the main cast, that’s not saying a lot though. It’s not just Vince Vaughn who isn’t funny though, because Tom Wilkinson doesn’t give a good performance either, which is a real shame seeing as he’s one of the best actors we have working in the business today. Dave Franco is a good actor and can be good and very funny in movies like 21 Jump Street and Bad Neighbours. With that said, Dave Franco’s character in this movie is honestly one of the dumbest characters I’ve seen in a movie. I know he’s supposed to be stupid but it really wasn’t done right and it was a chore to watch his character do dumb things, making it even harder to watch the movie. All of these people are talented but none of them come out looking good on any level.

The worst thing about this movie is that it’s really a time waster. This movie fails as a comedy, but it’s not like with Raising Arizona where I could just claim that it’s not my style for comedy. I don’t know what group of people would find this movie funny. Not one joke hit in the entire movie, for me it is one of the worst ‘comedies’ I’ve seen (though I haven’t seen Disaster Movie, nor do I ever want to). It wasted a good cast and there’s really no reason to watch it. Unfinished Business was one of the worst films of 2015.

X2: X Men United (2003) Review

Time: 134 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence
Cast:
Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier/Professor X
Hugh Jackman as Logan/Wolverine
Ian McKellen as Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto
Halle Berry as Ororo Munroe/Storm
Famke Janssen as Dr. Jean Grey
James Marsden as Scott Summers/Cyclops
Rebecca Romijn as Raven Darkholme/Mystique
Brian Cox as Col. William Stryker
Alan Cumming as Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler
Bruce Davison as Sen. Robert Kelly
Shawn Ashmore as Bobby Drake/Iceman
Aaron Stanford as John Allerdyce/Pyro
Kelly Hu as Yuriko Oyama/Lady Deathstrike
Anna Paquin as Marie/Rogue
Director: Bryan Singer

After the events on Liberty Island, everyone at Xavier’s (Patrick Stewart) School for Gifted Youngsters is settling in. Magneto (Ian McKellen) is locked up in a plastic cell, Rogue (Anna Paquin) and Bobby Drake (Shawn Ashmore) have finally gotten together, and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) has set off to find his origins. But it won’t stay quiet for long. After a mutant attack on the President, everyone starts to fear any type of mutant. William Stryker (Brian Cox), who plans to stop all mutants, takes over the school, causing Wolverine and his team of mutants to go into hiding. Stryker has managed to capture Xavier and will use him to create another version of Cerebro. Wolverine and the team must now team up with their enemy, Magneto, to stop Stryker before it’s too late.

X Men was a pretty good movie and was one of the movies that brought back the superhero genre. Director Bryan Singer returns to deliver an even better X Men movie. With more characters, more development of the characters and a plot which isn’t just a rehash of the original, X Men 2 proves to be even better than the original. It’s still not the best X Men movie but it is the best of the original trilogy.

I really liked the aspect of the X Men teaming up with Magneto, it would be so easy just to have them as enemies for the sequel but this time around it gives us something different. I also liked the pacing better here, while I did like the previous X Men, after watching it again I noticed that the pacing was a little slower, now that the characters are (mostly) established I think Singer could afford to have a faster pace. This also meant that more of the characters could be developed (at least a little bit). Once of the main criticisms of the first film was that aside from some characters (such as Wolverine, Rogue and Magneto) most of the characters were underdeveloped. Although I can’t call all of them fully developed (Especially Cyclops and Mystique) the film at least showed more aspects of them.

All the actors from the previous movie return and once again are good in their roles, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, and the rest of the cast are really good but Hugh Jackman as usual steals the show as Wolverine, it’s hard imagining anyone else in his role. Brian Cox I thought did a pretty good job as the main villain, who has a lot of history with Wolverine. Alan Cumming Nightcrawler was a nice addition to the X Men, I’m actually surprised that he didn’t return for the sequel. As I said before, more of the characters are given more depth and I started to like them more, with the exception of Cyclops who doesn’t show up a lot in the movie.

The action scenes once again are well filmed and there are much more of them as there is much more going on in the story. Highlights of the film for me were the opening scenes with Nightcrawler and the fight scenes between Wolverine and Lady Deathstrike at the end of the movie. The soundtrack again was really good and added to the movie.

X Men 2 is for me a better movie than the original X Men. That film was a good set up to the X Men, while X Men 2 was a great X Men movie. It’s still not the best X Men movie but it’s the best X Men film of the original trilogy. It has the best action scenes, it has the best story and it used the characters the best. It’s not a perfect movie, looking back at it not all of the characters are fully developed but it is an improvement over the first film.

X-Men (2000)

Time: 104 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence
Cast:
Hugh Jackman as Logan/Wolverine
Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier
Ian McKellen as Eric Lensherr/Magneto
Famke Janssen as Jean Grey
James Marsden as Scott Summers/Cyclops
Halle Berry as Ororo Munroe/Storm
Anna Paquin as Rogue/Marie
Tyler Mane as Sabretooth
Ray Park as Toad
Rebecca Romijn as Mystique
Bruce Davison as Senator Kelly
Director: Bryan Singer

Unique power-possessing mutants live in a world where their kind is hated by humans. Two mutants emerge: Logan (Hugh Jackman), a powerful and aggressive mutant with no past, no memories, and a girl, Rogue (Anna Paquin). Their quests for identities eventually land them in the sights of the fellow mutants and former friends, Erik Lehnsherr, a.k.a. Magneto (Ian McKellan), and Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart). Xavier wants a peaceful means of stopping the hatred toward mutants, while Magneto seeks to even things out with a machine that would speed up the mutation process in all humans. Xavier brings together a special group of mutants called “X-Men” to stop him.

Superhero movies were very successful (and are still successful today) but in the 90s, superhero movies have started going down the drain, with movies like Batman and Robin, The Phantom and many others failing miserably. In the early 2000s though, some superhero movies started to become good and helped bring the genre back to praise. X-Men is one of these movies that helped the superhero genre do this and although I wouldn’t put it among my top 10 best superhero movies, it is still a decent movie on its own.

Unlike some of the other comic book movies at the time, X-Men manages to be grounded in reality; the only parts that you have to really suspend your disbelief are that all these mutations could lead to super powers. The story is quite simple but it is effective. I do feel that apart from some characters like Wolverine, Rouge and Magneto, there weren’t a lot of characters that had a lot of personality or depth; this is particular with the villains (with the exception of Magneto).

The standout performance in this movie is Hugh Jackman; he manages to bring out so much of his character. Patrick Stewart is also well cast as the wise Professor X and makes his lines convincing. Anna Paquin plays Rogue, a mutant who can’t touch a human being without harming them and she is quite good in the role; I know that a lot of people don’t share the same opinion as I have heard that she’s not like how she is in the comics. Ian McKellen was really good as Magneto, he’s one of those villain characters you can understand why they do what they are doing; he seemed human. Apart from these actors, the others do pretty well in their roles with what they got, however like I said, a lot of these characters don’t have much personality traits, especially the villains. Mystique was great in her fighting and transformation scenes, Sabretooth was a brute that didn’t really say anything and Toad, I still wonder why he was chosen as one of Magneto’s henchmen, he seemed the wrong choice. They looked good on screen and in action scenes but I can’t think of any personality trait that these characters showed; their personalities are set to ‘Villain Henchmen’ mode.

The special effects were pretty good and were well used to show the abilities of the mutants. The action was also well filmed, particularly with the fight scenes, which the film had quite a lot of. The soundtrack by John Ottman was pretty good, if not as memorable as some other scores for other superhero movies.

X-Men isn’t the best superhero movie ever made but it is an enjoyable movie to watch. In any case, it deserves recognition for being some of the movies that brought back the superhero movies in the early 2000s. Bryan Singer successfully brought the X-Men to the big screen the best way possible. It is worth checking out if you haven’t seen it already.