Review #1,202: 'Logan' (2017)

For the past 17 years, Hugh Jackman has played X-Man Wolverine nine times. It was the role that made him a star, and he's thanked Fox for having faith in him by sticking by the character regardless of how bad the franchise became. But at the age of 49, Jackman has decided to hang up his claws and trim the sideburns, taking a pay-cut in order to give the character the final send-off he truly deserves. He and director James Mangold, who joined forces to make stand-alone entry The Wolverine in 2013 only to see the studio step in and butcher the final edit, have persuaded Fox to go with an R rating. Whether this is down to the huge success of the wonderfully foul-mouthed Deadpool in 2016 or Fox feeling they owe the actor for his loyalty down the years, the results are pretty astonishing. With Logan, the camera no longer cuts away when Wolverine slices and dices, but captures his animalistic ferocity in all its bloody, decapitating glory.

Logan is a brutal, angry movie, and more than warrants its 'hard' R rating. It's no gimmick, nor is it a cash-in on Deadpool's success. Superhero movies don't need to follow the Marvel formula of good, clean, family-friendly fun, nor DC's preference for muted colours and CGI-overkill, world-threatening set-pieces. In fact, Logan doesn't feel much like a superhero movie at all. Here, the former cage-fighting, time-travelling X-Man (although it isn't entirely clear where the story fits into Fox's ever-confusing timeline) is an old man, dying of some mysterious illness and battling alcoholism and depression. He is bearded, grey, and wrinkling, and his torso covered in grisly scars from some unspoken former battles. When he uses his claws, his knuckles seep with puss. We're in 2029, and all but three mutants are dead. We don't know why, but Logan is intent on living out his remaining days looking after a senile Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) with clairvoyant mutant Caliban (Stephen Merchant), working as an Uber limo driver to fund the medicine required to keep Charles' dangerous telepathic seizures in check.

People start to look for Logan. Gabriela Lopez (Elizabeth Rodriguez), a nurse working for corporation Alkali-Transigen, wants him to transport both her and an eleven year girl named Laura (Dafne Keen) to a place in North Dakota called 'Eden'. Logan is also questioned by Transigen's chief of security Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook), a cybernetically-enhanced thug who seems to be searching for the little girl. When Gabriela turns up dead and Laura ends up in his care, Logan is forced to take Charles on a road trip to escape Pierce and his Reavers, and to seek out the mysterious Eden. Caliban is abducted by Transigen head Dr. Zander Rice (Richard E. Grant), who forces the albino to use his powers to track down the fleeing mutants and take back Laura. It is revealed that the young girl is one of many mutants experimented on by Rice in the hope of turning them into weapons, and that she possesses the same adamantium claws as Logan.

For a character who has seen and done pretty much everything over the past 17 years, it feels a fitting time to draw the curtains. Knowing that another run-of-the-mill superhero adventure wouldn't do the mutant justice, Mangold has done what no other studio movie has done before and portrays the superhero at the ends of his days, trying to bury the past while haunted by his deeds. While Logan does throw in a couple of exciting - and utterly brutal - set-pieces, this is an incredibly sombre experience. It's about getting old, loneliness, and rediscovering a reason to live. Jackman has never been better, and Keen is a real find. Their shared scenes are touching and often hilarious, and with the presence of the ever-reliable Stewart, the trio form an amusingly dysfunctional family unit. While there is an issue with a bland villain who brings back memories of that horrific climax in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), this is a damn near-perfect last hurrah for a character who comic book fans have been hoping would fully unleash his berserker rage for years. Farewell then, Logan aka Wolverine, until the inevitable reboot.


Directed by: James Mangold
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Richard E. Grant, Eriq La Salle
Country: USA/Canada/Australia

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,196: 'The Prestige' (2006)

Easily taking the crown of best magician-based movie of 2006 - swamping the distinctly wonder-less and barely remembered The Illusionist - Christopher Nolan's The Prestige is a cinematic sleight-of-hand; an enigma of a movie that is both a puzzle-box of misdirection and an engrossing tale of two warring magicians. When I first saw Nolan's fifth feature (and his second working with his brother and occasional writing partner Jonathan), its 'big reveal' seemed obvious to me early on in the third act, so when the grand revelations came at the climax, I was left feeling somewhat underwhelmed. In the years since, The Prestige has emerged as a firm favourite amongst Nolanites, so I was eager to re-visit it without the added pressure of trying to navigate through the film's many smokes and mirrors. Without this on my back, I could only sit back and admire a true craftsman at work, even though the narrative pushes the boundaries of credibility.

In 1890s London, two apprentice magicians from two vastly different backgrounds work for Milton (real-life magician Ricky Jay), assisting in a nightly trick involving a glamorous assistant and a tank of water. Hugh Jackman is Robert Angier, a handsome, charismatic American from a privileged background. Christian Bale plays Alfred Borden, a rough Cockney and magic purist. While Angier knows how to get an audience excited and keep them entertained, Borden is a sullen stage presence, choosing to challenge his audience rather than dazzle them. The real brains behind it all is Cutter (Michael Caine), the craftsman and adviser who builds all the apparatus and devices required for the increasingly elaborate tricks. After a Milton performance goes fatally wrong, Angier and Borden begin a personal and professional rivalry that will play out over the years. They sabotage each other's shows, steal secrets, and try to perfect the ultimate magic trick: The Transported Man.

Cutter explains the three-step theory on what makes a great illusion. There's the pledge (the set-up), the turn (the moment that grabs the audience's attention), and the prestige (the pay-off, when whatever has been disappeared is brought back again). It's what separates a jaw-dropping, head-scratching moment from a cheap card trick, and is precisely what separates the The Prestige from The Illusionist. Nolan truly understands the mechanics behind the prestige, after all, he toyed with our expectations and our perception of time with Memento. He wraps The Prestige up in a cloak of mystery, employing time-jumps and subtle camera tricks to keep the audience constantly engaged in trying to piece everything together. Nearly everything is key to unlocking the film's secrets, even the seemingly routine sub-plots involving Borden's wife (played by Rebecca Hall) and glamorous new assistant Olivia (Scarlett Johansson struggling with an English accent).

The inclusion of David Bowie's Nikola Tesla and Angier's quest to convince the engineer and physicist to build him a machine required to pull off the ultimate trick may be a step too far for some viewers. Tesla's involvement stretches science into the supernatural, and clashes with the grounded world built up until this point. But Bowie is terrific, and the frequent presence of Thomas Edison's goons offers some historical context, as well as an allegory for the obsessive rivalry between the two central characters. Jackman is very good at switching between hero and anti-hero, his hands increasingly dirtied trying to outmanoeuvre his rival, and while Bale can add Borden to his list of grating accents, he wins our sympathies despite the coldest of demeanours. Caine, Nolan's go-to exposition tool, also provides reliable support as the fatherly voice of reason, However, the real stars are the brothers Nolan, who arguably lay all their cards on the table in the opening scenes, for anybody paying close attention. But pay attention or not, you'll be swept up either way.


Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall, David Bowie, Andy Serkis, Piper Perabo
Country: USA/UK

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #883: 'Chappie' (2015)

Ever since South African director Neill Blomkamp's breakthrough District 9 (2009), great things have been expected. Although I personally believe his debut to be somewhat overrated, paying homage to great sci-fi movies perhaps once too often, it was certainly a breath of fresh air with it's parable of apartheid South Africa and its unconventional anti-hero. His follow-up, 2013's Elysium, was underwhelming, but it was making a point somewhere amidst it's kinky cybernetics and gaping plot-holes. His latest, Chappie, is an improvement, but Blomkamp again fails to live up to wunderkind label.

Set in a near-future Johannesburg, the streets are policed by a super-efficient robot force, causing crime rates to plunge and sending criminals scampering whenever they rear their metallic faces. Created by the not-so-shady corporation Tetravaal, headed by an underused Sigourney Weaver, employee and engineering prodigy Deon (Dev Patel) manages to create artificial intelligence and steals a damaged robot headed for the scrap heap to experiment with. However, on his way home he is kidnapped by a group of local gangsters - Ninja, Yo-Landi and Yankie (The Walking Dead's Jose Pablo Cantillo) - who force Deon to programme the droid to help them with a heist that will pay-off a angry kingpin.

And so Chappie is born; a robot who must learn everything like a child, albeit at a far advanced speed, and who not only possesses the ability to think and talk, but to create. Yo-Landi plays the role of mother, encouraging Chappie to express himself with art, but Ninja wants to turn him into the ultimate gangster - pimp-roll, bling and casual nose-wipe to end sentences included. But fellow Tetravaal employee Vincent (Hugh Jackman), an ex-solider jealous of Deon's accomplishments, has other ideas, attempting to sabotage Chappie at every turn in order to get his own inferior hulking droid greenlit by the company and sent out into the streets.

Chappie received an unfair panning from the critics and underperformed at the box-office. Yet there's plenty to be enjoyed in the film's occasional eccentric streaks, namely in the casting of Ninja and Yo-Landi, members of South African rap group Die Antwoord. They can't act for shit, but are at least an interesting alternative to the usual science-fiction stock characters, helping make their ridiculous persona's somewhat likeable. Chappie himself, played by Blomkamp regular Sharlto Copley in motion-capture, has been compared to Jar-Jar Binks in some reviews and comments I've read. While he is sometimes slightly grating, his childish naivety is endearing, and invites sympathy when he is routinely abused and manipulated by the few people around him.

Yet Blomkamp seems to struggle with coming up with an original narrative. His films always seem to end up with the hero facing off against some one-note and extremely angry bad guy, pumped up by machinery or a big-ass weapon, and its no different here. It feels like Jackman's character was thrown into the mix for no other reason than to give Chappie a nemesis. Jackman himself, demonstrating one of cinema's all-time horrendous mullets, doesn't convince either. The privatisation of the police and the positive and negatives of tampering with A.I., as well as the struggles of parenthood, are crammed in and rushed over without really answering any of the many questions it poses. As a piece of entertainment, it provides all the thrills and spills required, but any deeper meditations tend to fall flat.


Directed by: Neill Blomkamp
Starring: Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Ninja, Yo-Landi Visser, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Hugh Jackman, Sigourney Weaver
Country: USA/Mexico

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #796: 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' (2014)

After Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class (2011) injected a bit of life back into the X-Men franchise, any further instalments faced the headache of what to do with a bunch of fantastic actors playing the same characters decades apart. Inspired by the 1981 Uncanny X-Men comic of the same name, Days of Future Past switches between a nightmarish, dystopian future overrun by giant sentinels, and the boogie nights of the 1970's. We get the best of both worlds, and thankfully, in his seventh appearance over the course of 14 years as his most recognisable character, Hugh Jackman's Wolverine inhabits them both.

After narrowly escaping a sentinel attack in the near-future, a band of mutants including the returning Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) and Kitty Pride (Ellen Page) meet up with Wolverine, Professor X (Patrick Stewart), Magento (Ian McKellen), Storm (Halle Berry) et al to hatch a plan before the next inevitable attack. Kitty transfers the mind of Wolverine back to 1973, where a young Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) is soon to assassinate Dr. Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), setting off a chain of events that could result in the apocalypse. The only problem is, the young Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) is depressed and mansion-bound, still struggling to deal with his powers and the loss of the use of his legs. They also need to help of Magneto (Michael Fassbender), who is imprisoned in a plastic cell for allegedly assassinating John F. Kennedy.

For all it's time-travelling gobbledegook, Days of Future Past doesn't spend too much time trying to explain the mechanics behind it. Like Rian Johnson's mind-bending Looper (2012), it recognises the folly in attempting to spell it out for you. When you look at it under a microscope, time-travel makes little sense in movies as it is, so it's best to accept what you're seeing and move on. McAvoy's Xavier even dismisses Wolverine's ramblings as 'future-shite'. This frees up more time in an already packed movie to concentrate on the damaged Xavier, brought to life by another fantastic performance from McAvoy. If First Class was Magneto's origins, this is Professor X's, showing a scared, conflicted and broken man and how he became the father to mutants he is when embodied by Patrick Stewart.

Of all the many mutants on show, some are not given as much time as their name would suggest. Storm, Anna Paquin's Rogue, and most notably, Ian McKellen's Magneto are somewhat left out to dry, while Nicholas Hoult's Beast, Kitty Pride, and a first appearance for Evan Peters' Quicksilver, are more prominent, and thrive in their larger roles. Trask, a rather fascinating villain thanks to the performance of Dinklage, is left undeveloped. We glimpse into his mind and ambitions, but there's little clarity given to his motivation. But with a film this packed with characters, it would take four hours or more to explore them all, and some inspired set-pieces pepper the film at the points where you start to think the plot will make your head explode. The (possibly) plot-hole laden climax aside, it seems like the franchise is as good as it was at the end of X2 (2003), seemingly serving to delete all the poor decisions made in returning director Bryan Singer's absence. Now, the wait for X-Men: Apocalypse.


Directed by: Bryan Singer
Starring: Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Peter Dinklage, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Ellen Page
Country: USA/UK

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #749: 'Prisoners' (2013)

For all those concerned that Denis Villeneuve, director of art-house pieces Polytechnique (2009) and the Oscar-nominated Incendies (2010), has sold out on his trip to the U.S., then rest assured, Prisoners is a suitably grim, adult and metaphor-laden drama which just happens to be anchored by two Hollywood A-or-there-about-listers. Beginning with an almost unbearably tense opening hour or so, Prisoners soon dissolves into a formulaic thriller, abandoning the near-unbearable tension of the opening hour and packing the film with foot-chases and repetitive torture-porn, finding itself too caught up in tying all the many loose ends together for it all to make sense.

Whilst attending a Thanksgiving dinner, the daughters of Keller (Hugh Jackman) and Grace Dover (Mario Bello), and their neighbours Franklin (Terrence Howard) and Nancy Birch (Viola Davis), go missing. The only clue is a mysterious RV parked outside moments before the abduction, which is quickly found by Detecive Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) in a car park with an apparently stricken Alex Jones (Paul Dano) inside. After Alex is quickly released due to a lack of evidence, Keller is furious and unconvinced, abducting him and taking him to an abandoned former home in order to instigate his own method of interrogation.

Boasting Oscar-nominated cinematography by long-time Coen Brothers collaborator Roger Deakins, this is one of the finest looking mainstream thrillers in years. Drenched in grey, the miserable colour palette drapes the film in a feeling of foreboding dread. It brings to mind the beautiful and superior thriller Zodiac (2007), only without the period setting. It drags - and it does drag - on for 2 and a half hours, and the film is so lacking in humour that any realism the film was striving for suffers. It also stars Hugh Jackman, possibly the most effortlessly likeable actor working today, and watching him bang on the wall shouting "where is my daughter!?" - a line that should have been retired after Taken (2008) - is silly and unconvincing. The film takes itself so seriously that it almost becomes a parody of itself.

Gyllenhaal as Loki, however, is outstanding, and is a character I wish the film focused more on. With neck tattoos, a strange, buttoned-up (with no tie) appearance, slick-back hair, and blinking tic, it hints at a more interesting character than the film fully allows to develop. The film is more interested in not-so-subtle War on Terror parallels and comments on post-9/11 vigilantism, that sadly struggles to keep a hold of it's ever-widening plot and multiple plot strands, over-reaching itself constantly with scenes of stoic uber-seriousness. But it's splendidly filmed, and beautifully performed by Gyllenhaal, Dano and Melissa Leo (playing Alex's mother), which could have done with some heavier editing and less self-importance.


Directed by: Denis Villeneuve
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo, Paul Dano
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #748: 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine' (2009)

It was only a matter of time before most people's favourite X-Man, Logan a.k.a. Wolverine, got his own stand-alone movie. After Brett Ratner's atrocious X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) almost killed the franchise in it's tracks, 2009 was the perfect time for not so much a re-boot, but a fresh take, employing the Oscar-winning director of 2005's wonderful Tsotsi, Gavin Hood, to tackle the indestructible mutant's origin story. The result is an ugly mess of meaningless CGI, repetitive fights, corny dialogue and an over-abundance of dull supporting mutants.

After taking an extended holiday following the events of William Stryker's (Danny Huston) violent Team X mission in Africa, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is happily living as a shirtless lumberjack in Canada with his beautiful girlfriend Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins). His estranged brother, Victor a.k.a. Sabretooth (Liev Schreiber), seems to be picking off members of Team X, so Wolverine is approached by Stryker to help with the problem. At first he declines, but when he finds Kayla's bloodied body in the forest bearing the marks of Victor, he joins Stryker who implants the alien metal adamantium into his body.

Origin stories are always difficult, and only Iron Man (2008) seems to have dodged the problem of making the creation of the superhero more interesting than what they can do with their newly-found powers. Origins takes the approach of practically ignoring it completely. We have a brief scene at the start with Logan and Victor as kids, and then a montage of the brothers fighting in the American Civil War, World War II and Vietnam. Within minutes, we have skipped well over 100 years of Wolverine's life (it appears he was born around 1840). It's main focus is the rivalry between Logan and Victor, and Schreiber snarls his way through some dodgy lines and somehow manages to come through unscathed.

Truth is, Origins has more in common with the previous X-Men films than any other superhero kick-start film, filling scenes with forgettable mutants such as Agent Zero (Daniel Henney), Fred Dukes a.k.a. The Blob (Kevin Durand), John Wraith (Will.i.am) and Chris Bradley a.k.a. Bolt (Dominic Monaghan). I would have happily paid extra to see more of Gambit (Taylor Kitsch), who was no doubt added to appease fans but is criminally ignored once he shows his face, and Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds), whose story arc left me dumbfounded at the missed opportunity. Because of this, Wolverine is almost left out to dry. Normally, Jackman's charisma shines through, but here he just scowls.

All in all, this is no better or worse than those recent comic-book hero disasters Ghost Rider (2007) and Jonah Hex (2010). The first two X-Men films, directed by Bryan Singer, were really quite good, but the franchise (at this point) had become nothing more than a wad of money thrown at the screen in the hope that the crash-bang-wallop action scenes would keep the audience distracted enough to not realise what they are watching is a large pile of crap. Schreiber at least keeps things lively, and Hood is wise enough to keep things well below the two hour mark. But that is scant praise indeed, and the best thing about the film is that the sight of Wolverine chopping wood brings to mind Monty Python's Lumberjack Song.


Directed by: Gavin Hood
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston, Lynn Collins, Will.i.am, Kevin Durand, Daniel Henney, Dominic Monaghan, Taylor Kitsch, Ryan Reynolds
Country: USA/UK

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #746: 'X-Men: The Last Stand' (2006)

Back in 2006, it seemed like Brett Ratner's third instalment of the X-Men saga was a textbook way to kill a lucrative franchise. The Last Stand kept the satirical undertones of the previous two, and even introduced some new, interesting ones. It also had the biggest set-pieces yet, climaxing in a mutant brawl on Alcatraz that pits the saga's big bad Magneto (Ian McKellen) and his army of cronies against an earnest and inexperienced X-Men led by Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Storm (Halle Berry). However, gone was the love injected into the franchise by Bryan Singer, and gone was any form of coherency and care. But it seems that The Last Stand was not the franchise-killer many envisioned, and, now that Days of Future Past (2014) has apparently eradicated it from the time-line, it is little but a dark blip in an overall successful series of movies.

Horrified by the announcement of a new mutant 'cure', developed from a power-draining mutant child named Jimmy (Cameron Bright), Magneto reforms his Brotherhood of Mutants and sets out kill the boy. Sensing trouble brewing, Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) enlists the help of former student and current Secretary of Mutant Affairs for the U.S. Cabinet Dr. Hank McCoy (Kelsey Grammer), also known as Beast. After disappearing at the end of the previous film, Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) resurfaces but re-born as the Phoenix, a mutant fuelled by rage and unbelievable power. When Xavier fails to subdue her mind, Jean allies herself with Magneto, whose army is growing steadily stronger.

The X-Men movies have always succeeded in channelling larger issues such as segregation and racism through the eternal battle between mutants and humans, and if The Last Stand is successful at anything at all, it's in bringing to mind the many differences people are born with, and how these 'afflictions' damage their ability to fit into regular society. Naturally, the issue will divide those affected into those who have fully accepted and embrace how they were born, and those who are eager to slot nicely into the mainstream. The cure offered in the movie also comes with a choice. Magneto sees this as an affront to mutants, who he feels are the next natural step in evolution. Yet Rogue (Anna Paquin), cursed with being unable to come into human contact with anyone, sees it as a way to finally end her pain.

But this is not enough to save The Last Stand from being a complete mess. The two previous movies managed to keep enough of a hold on it's massive ensemble to still tell a decent story. The Last Stand introduces a ridiculous amount of new mutants, from the impressive but little-seen Angel (Ben Foster), whose screen-time betrays his position on the poster, to the ridiculous abomination that is Juggernaut (Vinnie Jones), a wafer-thin villain whose induces cringing every time he opens his mouth. The plot is little more than a way to get the goodies fighting the baddies, and lazy plot-holes and inexplicable tactics on both sides riddle what is an incredibly dull and simplistic climax.

The development of Jean Grey into Phoenix, one of the key X-Men plot threads beloved to fans, admittedly allows for the odd visually spectacular set-piece, but on the whole is a massive let-down. Janssen is perfectly fine in the role, convincing as a seductive yet extremely dangerous mutant capable of God-like powers, but is seriously underwritten. And it's this aspect that really sums up The Last Stand - careless, scattershot, and insulting to its loyal fans. It seems to care far more about how much money the movie can put into it's wallet than creating anything of artistic merit. As said before, the film is such a mess that Bryan Singer had to find a way to quite rightly delete it from the X-Men timeline, and that sums up this pap better than I could ever dream of.


Directed by: Brett Ratner
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Famke Janssen, Kelsey Grammer, James Marsden, Rebecca Romijn, Anna Paquin
Country: Canada/USA/UK

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #744: 'X2' (2003)

Seemingly using the first film to practice big-budget movie-making, Bryan Singer followed the mediocre X-Men (2000) with X2 (one of many dodgy titles attributed to the film), a balls-out, mutant mash-up full of genuine characters focus, an intriguing storyline, and set-pieces worthy of the money it earned. In fact, the opening scene, which depicts newcomer Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming), a mutant with a forked tail and the ability to teleport, attack a small army of helpless government agents to get through to the President, blows anything the first film had to offer right out of the water.

With mutant antagonist Magneto (Ian McKellen) imprisoned in a plastic cell, Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) is focusing his time on helping the maturing students at his school for gifted youngsters. He has sent Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) to Alkali Lake, in the hope of helping him discover more about his past, but he finds nothing but an abandoned military base. After the attack on the President, government operative William Stryker (Brian Cox) leads an attack on the unsuspecting Xavier's school, capturing Xavier and Cyclops (James Marsden) in order to strengthen his mysterious plans.

The plot summary is as compressed as can be, as, like the first film, X2 has a lot of big personalities with big, special powers with their own individual stories to tell to cram into a two-hour film. Although there are mutants with far more interesting powers and greater physical potential, the focus remains on the fan-favourite Wolverine. It's Jackman's enigmatic performance that makes him so easily likeable, and he is finally allowed to roam free here. There are no soft fights where nobody dies as in X-Men; Wolverine massacres many of Stryker's men during the attack on the school. When he first drives his claws into an agent who makes the mistake of firing on him, it is the first of many air-punching moments throughout the film.

It's hard to fathom a threat that could actually make a dent in a race of people with such unbelievable powers, so Stryker, a man with no liking for mutants but a fascination with harnessing their powers, has found a way to subdue them. Seeing a mutant like Magneto so helpless is oddly affecting, so, after his spectacular prison break-out, he becomes a sort of anti-hero, doing the kind of dirty work Xavier would not lower himself to. But ultimately, it's the Xavier-Magneto good vs. evil fight that remains the most fascinating, and even with Stryker playing the main villain, Magneto is far from forgotten and has plans to bend Stryker's actions to his own personal gain.

It's a shame then that X2 marks the high-point of the series. There is now a remarkable 7 instalments set in the X-universe, and although X-Men: First Class (2011) injected some life back in the series, and hopes are high for the new X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), none have come close to the kind of energy and invention of this. Though you could complain about the lack of a coherent narrative, and that some of the minor characters are left out to dry, X2 is a near-perfect superhero movie, and is still Marvel's greatest achievement. And with almost 15 years of men in tights and capes, that is high praise indeed.


Directed by: Bryan Singer
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Brian Cox, Anna Paquin, Rebecca Romijn, Alan Cumming
Country: Canada/USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #743: 'X-Men' (2000)

It's hard to believe that back in 2000, Marvel's first crack at creating a superhero universe on the big screen, X-Men, was a near perfect summer movie. 14 years on, and the cracks are as clear as day in Bryan Singer's hesitant and rather tame blockbuster. Don't get me wrong, X-Men still has plenty to enjoy, but the meatier, more confident recent efforts such as Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy and Marvel's own Iron Man (2008) and Thor (2011), as well as the vastly superior sequel two years later, form a rather large shadow over Professor X and his pupils' first outing.

In the near future, evolution has taken a huge leap forward, creating 'mutants' - humans with special powers and abilities that defy anything science has seen before. Tensions between humans and mutants is at an all-time high, with the idea of mutant cataloguing being passed around by Senator Kelly (Bruce Davison), despite the efforts of telepaths Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Jean Grey (Famke Janssen). Mutant Magneto (Ian McKellen), a Holocaust survivor with the ability to control anything magnetic, has different ideas, and plans to induce mutation on world leaders gathering on Ellis Island.

As the machine, powered by magnetics, could easily kill him, Magneto seeks Rogue (Anna Paquin), a young girl with the ability to temporarily steal a mutant's power. Having just met Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), a beast of a man with a skeleton covered in an indestructible metal, which he can shoot out like claws, and an uncanny healing ability, Rogue's abduction fails and is foiled by Storm (Halle Berry) and Cyclops (James Marsden). They end up in Professor Xavier's school for gifted children, where Wolverine learns about mutant struggle and falls in love with the powerful Jean Grey.

With a film this packed with personalities and powers, it's only natural that it loses it's grip on a lot of its characters. Sensibly, the main focus is on Wolverine, who has always been the most interesting X-Man, and is perfectly played by Jackman, a performance that made him a huge star. The rest of the characters, with the exception of Professor X and Magneto, do little but fall flat. They either suffer because their powers aren't particularly interesting, or spend the duration of the film using what little dialogue they have to explain who they are and what they can do. The movie also has one of the worst lines in cinema history, uttered by Storm. You'll know it when you hear it.

For all its lack of ambition and absence of any real set-pieces, X-Men is still the first of its kind. Refusing to give in to the idea of comic books being light, colourful and mainly for kids (which was still the general idea back in 2000), the opening scene depicting a young Magneto in a concentration camp ensures this is something that should be taken seriously, yet still enjoyed. Singer grew in confidence and made X2 two years later, which is still considered by myself and many others to be one of the best superhero movies ever made. X2 showed that the vast ensemble can be given room to breathe, and had the set-pieces to match, and in hindsight, makes X-Men a much tamer, yet still very entertaining, animal.


Directed by: Bryan Singer
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Halle Berry, Anna Paquin, Bruce Davison, Rebecca Romijn
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #676: 'The Wolverine' (2013)

After one failed origin story with the dismal X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), Hugh Jackman's short-tempered Logan AKA Wolverine is given another chance at a stand alone movie. With the X-Men movies generally hit-and-miss, mainly due to an over-abundance of mutants, director James Mangold has taken the story into unfamiliar territory. There's no army of mutants baddies for the mutton-chopped hero to slice apart, nor is he held back and forced into the background by his fellow X-Men. The Wolverine takes us and Wolverine to a different continent entirely, only to find he even has enemies in Japan.

Tortured by the death of Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), Logan (Hugh Jackman) is long-haired and bearded and hiding out in Yukon, Canada. After an incident in a local bar, he is befriended by the samurai sword-wielding Yukio (Rila Fukushima) who has been sent by an old friend to recruit Wolverine. The old friend is Yashida (Hal Yamanouchi), a Japanese soldier rescued by Logan during the bombing of Nagasaki in 1945. Yashida is on the verge of death, and in his search for elongating his life, wants to transfer Logan's healing abilities into his own body. When Logan refuses, Yashida passes the following day, only for the funeral to be attacked by yakuza gangsters looking to kidnap Yashida's granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto) and heir to his billion-dollar company.

It's a flimsy plot to say the least, and not one that successful, multi-million dollar blockbusters are founded on. And here lies the biggest problem for The Wolverine, as although a change of pace and setting is always welcome, there's not much happening on screen for Logan to sink his claws into. The decision to move the action to the neon-lit Japan is an interesting one, but doesn't seem to serve any other purpose than to allow for some admittedly gorgeous-looking set-pieces, and to introduce a giant samurai robot for Logan to bash around. Lightly comic scenes of cultural differences are amusing, but seem out of place considering that Logan is repeatedly told he is a ronin, a samurai without a master.

With Logan seemingly invinsible, The Wolverine does the thing that most superhero movies do nowadays which is to strip him of his powers. With Batman battered and imprisoned in The Dark Knight Rises (2012) and Tony Stark without his army of metallic suits in Iron Man 3 (2013), here Wolverine's healing abilities are drained by villain The Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova), who infects his body with a parasite. This is successful in making a more reluctant, damaged hero, and therefore adding dimensions to his character, but (as sexy as she is), Viper is a pretty thin and non-threatening baddie, and resembles Uma Thurman's Posion Ivy from Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin (1997) too much to be taken seriously.

However, Jackman is as compelling as ever in the role, which is the sole reason that there is still life in Wolverine's stand-alone franchise. This is now his sixth film, in a role he has played for 13 years, and this is probably his most dynamic performance. The Wolverine is heavily flawed, but manages to be a minor success thanks to Jackman's ferocity and more concentration on the hero everyone came to see. There's also a nice little tie-in at the end to the upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past, adding yet another weave into Marvel's ever-expanding universe. But, with a weak climax and a strangely thin storyline, I would be surprised if The Wolverine lingers for very long in many people's minds.


Directed by: James Mangold
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Tao Okamoto, Rila Fukushima, Hiroyuki Sanada, Svetlana Khodchenkova, Famke Janssen
Country: Australia/USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie