1. What would X-Men movie be without the original cast? I know for sure this new outing is a prequel to the X-Men saga. The origin of X-Men so the cast would consist of mutants when they were younger. Still, i was expecting younger Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Jean Grey, with possible addition of few more mutants. Maybe my favorite, Gambit... the original X-Men team as seen on TV and read on comic books.
2. X-Men, The Last Stand was a total bummer! They messed up the story big time, totally re-wrote X-Men and came up with their own stupid story to the dismay of many X-Men followers. They killed Cyclops who is actually the leader of the pack. They reduced Jean Grey/Phoenix into a state of catatonia who did nothing but followed where Magneto went. Stripped off Rogue of her powers totally opposite with that in comic books. Depowered Mystique tooThey even killed Professor X. Every die hard X-Men fan just wanted to crucify the makers of the Last Stand.
But X-Men is X-Men and it's good to see my favorite characters of 15 plus years come to life... At least onscreen. So last night i went to see the movie. It was surprisingly good. It totally redeemed what The Last Stand movie has destroyed. The first half was the most interesting part as it introduced us to Magneto's and Professor X's origins. We also had the understanding why Mystique was with Magneto in the original X-Men movies . And how Hank McCoy became Beast.
The story has few contradictions with the other X-Men movies, including that of X-Men Wolverine, [i.e., in Origins: Wolverine, Emma Frost was still young as one of those captured by Stryker's force. So how come in First Class which was shot in the 60's Frost is a grown up adult? And how did she end up being on the bad side?] The choice of mutants wasnt also very smart. Although it was interesting to see Cyclops' brother, Havok onscreen, i'm still wondering how he got on the team since he is more with the X-Factor team, not the X-Men...
One thing that's always irked me about the X-Men films is that there are always a few characters that seem to have absolutely no introduction or development of any kind. For example, that this red-faced almost devil-like baddie who can teleport and beat the snot out of any innocent bystanders in the process. I didn't even know his name was Azazel until I looked it up online. The same could be said for another villain who could make tornadoes appear at his leisure. His look seemed a bit out of place and, again, he was another character i had to look up online to learn his name was Riptide. With so many X-Men characters in comic books, not even a die hard fan can know them all... A little background would have been nice. For the kids in the movie, they did pretty well setting up each character from their recruitment to when they first get the chance to leap into action. In that way, it felt like the first film. It also was nice to see Charles out of his iconic wheelchair and involved more in the action.
Despite the flaws, the movie fared really well. The story was well written and more consistent. As an action movie, it will give you your time and money's worth... Plus, if you've seen the x-men cartoon on tv in the 90's, you would notice that the color of the x-men uniform [blue and yellow] matches the color of the teams' uniform on tv. That, i really appreciated from the movie.
Like the other X-Men and Batman movies, i am so going to watch this movie twice in the theaters. What? Im a mutant freak...
