Logan (2017) Trailer # 1 - Review and Reaction

The first trailer for the (supposedly) final Wolverine movie, Logan is here.

After directing The Wolverine, James Mangold returns to the director's chair. In addition to the series regulars (Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart), we have a few newcomers: Richard E. Grant as Dr. Zander Rice a.k.a Mister Sinister, Boyd Holbrook as Donald Pierce and Stephen Merchant as Caliban (a younger version was played by Tómas Lemarquis in X-Men: Apocalypse).

Check out the trailer below:

The trailer comes as self-serious. Gone is the humor and wit that Hugh Jackman displayed in the X-Men movie: X-Men: Days of Future Past. Appropriately, the trailer is set to the song “Hurt” covered by Johnny Cash in 2002.

Patrick Stewart appears as an aged Charles Xavier. This is what I have understood so far about the movie: It is an apocalypse-type scenario and mutants are being hunted down. Logan has advanced in terms of age and there is a female clone (X-23) in the fray.

As usual, it is upto Logan to save the world of mutants. This time, the bad guy is Mister Sinister. I am not an expert on X-Men mythology. I have not read the comics and my only exposure is via the two animated series: X-Men and X-Men Evolution apart from the movies.

From what I have seen so far, Mister Sinister would make an interesting villain, given his skill sets. Plus, hopefully we won't get Magneto lifting bridges, cars etc...

Another good thing about the movie's trailer: At least there is no Jennifer Lawrence. It would be nice if Rebecca Romijn makes at least a cameo appearance as an aged Mystique.

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Image Sources: Donners' Company, Marvel Entertainment, TSG Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

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X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Recap and Review

This post discusses the movie in detail. Readers who wish to avoid plot spoilers are recommended to skip the rest of the post.

The movie opens in a futuristic world, where mutants and the humans who support them are systemically eliminated by mutant hunting robots called Sentinels. Most of the mutants have been captured/killed.

We get a measure of the Sentinel's effectiveness when they attack a bunch of mutants. Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page), Blink (Bingbing Fan), Colossus (Daniel Cudmore), Sunspot (Adan Canto), Warpath (Booboo Stewart), Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) and Bishop (Omar Sy) are no match for their nemeses. The sentinels adapt quickly to their opponent's powers and easily subdue them.

As Kitty explains to Professor X (Patrick Stewart), Magneto (Ian McKellen), Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Storm (Halle Berry), her ability to transport a fellow mutant's consciousness back in time helps avoid these attacks.

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Professor Xavier decides that the only way to prevent this grim future is to stop Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from assassinating Dr Boliver Trask (Peter Dinklage), the scientist who developed Sentinels. This 1973 incident sparked the outrage against mutants. Mystique is captured shortly thereafter and her unique shapeshifting abilities are used to make the Sentinels a highly adaptable and undefeatable mutant killers.

Wolverine volunteers to be the time traveler due to his healing abilities. Wolverine enlists the help of the younger versions of Professor Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr, played by James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender respectively.

The younger Charles has since lost his way after the incidents in X-Men: First Class. Hank McAvoy/Beast (Nicholas Hoult) has devised a solution that helps Charles walk, but in return suppresses his mutant powers.

Magneto is being held in a prison stronghold under the Pentagon, after being implicated in JFK's assassination. Quicksilver/Pietro Maximoff (Evan Peters) helps release Magneto in a dazzling rescue mission.

The rest of the movie deals with the group's attempts to stop Mystique from her single-minded mission to kill Trask. The climax alternates between the aforementioned event in 1973 and the future, where the Sentinels have tracked down the mutants.

Bryan Singer returns to the comic book franchise, he started way back in 2000. He has always focussed on the analogy between X-Men and the persecuted sections of human society. This time, he also highlights the fact that we are what we make of ourselves. Our lives are dictated by the choices we make.

As finely executed the action scenes are and the humor is enjoyable, this crucial message is the best aspect of X-Men: Days of Future Past.

Another enjoyable aspect is the number of nods to the previous movies (X-Men, X2: X-Men United, X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men: First Class). It is quite understandable that X-Men Origins: Wolverine was completely ignored.

The movie has a large ensemble cast (even by the usual Bryan Singer's X-Men movie standards).

To Singer's credit, he does an excellent job. Each character and actor gets their fair share of the limelight. Obviously, not all of them get the same amount of screentime. Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Anna Paquin, Shawn Ashmore as well as the newly introduced set of mutants are more like extended cameos.

I liked the teamwork between Storm and Ian McKellen's Magneto in the climax. It was a rare collaboration and an epic one at that.

Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence get a lion's share of the screen time. Hugh Jackman provides most of the humor through his one-liners. His work as Logan in this movie is a return to form, as seen in the first two X-Men movies (also directed by Singer, no coincidence I am sure).

Jennifer Lawrence is adequate as Mystique. I personally prefer the Rebecca Romijn version. Rebecca made Mystique the classic femme fatale and a genuine menace. Jennifer does not have the same impact in her performance.

James McAvoy gives a poignant turn as the mentally tortured Charles Xavier. Like the previous movie, he has the more underplayed role (compared to Fassbender's Magneto) and he continues to make a great Prof X.

Equally good but criminally underused is Evan Peters as Quicksilver. As noted in other reviews, his rescue of Magneto is quite possibly the best scene in the movie - superbly conceptualized and executed. Evan's performance is amusing and hilarious. It is a shame that he is written off so quickly. Hope we will see more of him in the upcoming sequel: X-Men: Apocalypse.

All said and done, the movie belongs to Michael Fassbender (at least in my humble opinion). He is magnificent as Magneto and takes the movie to a whole different class (no pun intended) by his sheer presence.

Fassbender's Magneto goes berserk in the climax and this will be a feast for any fan of the Master of Magnetism.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of Peter Dinklage's portrayal of the movie's main antagonist, Dr. Boliver Trask. The movie does not present a clear explanation for Trask's drive to develop the Sentinels to get rid of mutants.

In X2: X-Men United, William Stryker had similar ambitions, but at least Brian Cox managed to leave an impression in the role. Interestingly, a younger version of William Stryker is played by Josh Helman in this movie. He is kind of a right hand man to Dinklage's Trask and is equally lifeless in the role, just maintaining a smug/angry expression throughout.

There are also cameos by James Marsden (Cyclops), Famke Janssen (Jean Grey), Kelsey Grammer (Beast) and Anna Paquin (Rogue) in the closing scene, as Wolverine wakes up in the X-Mansion.

The latest X-Men movie shares its name with the 1981 storyline, written by Chris Claremont and John Bryne. There are significant differences between the two. In the original story, Kitty Pryde travels back in time to stop the assassination of Senator Robert Kelly (played by Bruce Davison in the 2000 movie X-Men) by Mystique and her Brotherhood of Mutants. In the movie, Wolverine is sent back by Kitty to stop Mystique from killing Dr Boliver Trask.

Though the movie gets chatty and slows down considerably at some points, the climax and Fassbender's performance make up for these lapses.

Highly recommended for fans of Michael Fassbender/Magneto.

PS: Do not miss the post credits teaser for the sequel: X-Men: Apocalypse. The scene shows a group of people chanting “En Sabah Nur” and worshipping a hooded figure as he assembles a huge pyramid using the powers of telekinesis. The mysterious figure is revealed to be a grey skinned young man. Also seen in the background are the four Horsemen of Apocalypse.

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Movie Review: The Wolverine (2013)

This is a spoiler heavy review. Readers who wish to avoid plot details are recommended to skip the review.

The movie opens with the nuclear bomb attack on Japan in 1945. Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is a Prisoner of War (POW). Just as the bomb is about to be dropped, Logan is released by a Japanese soldier, Yashida (Ken Yamamura), who in turn is saved from the deadly blast by Logan.

Cut to the present. Logan is living in the woods and has recurring flashbacks of his one true love, the deceased Jean Grey (Famke Janssen). The only other living being, Logan has any connection with is a big, lumbering Grizzly Bear. The latter becomes the target of some hunters and Logan is forced to put him out of his misery.

Logan's encounter with the hunters at a local bar is interrupted by Yukio (Rila Fukushima). She works for an aging Yashida (Hal Yamanouchi), who wishes to see Logan one last time. Logan reluctantly travels to Japan to honor his friend's last wish.

Logan soon finds himself in the midst of an ongoing plot to kill Yashida's granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto). This leads to the centerpiece of the movie - a chase sequence that starts at Yashida's funeral, continues on the streets and ends with Logan taking on assassins atop a speeding bullet train.

A wounded Logan discovers that he is losing his healing powers and faces the prospects of being mortally wounded. There are a few other supporting characters - Harada (Will Yun Lee) an archer, Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova), a mutant with the ability to inject poison and Mariko's father Shingen (Hiroyuki Sanada).

The movie climax involves Logan facing off against Silver Samurai. The movie's version of Silver Samurai is a hulking robot, operated by Yashida.

This is an out and out Hugh Jackman movie. There are a number of shots of Hugh's immensely ripped body. In his sixth outing as Wolverine/Logan (counting his cameo in X-Men: First Class), Hugh has the role down pat. This time, he fleshes out his signature role more, thanks to the loss of his self-healing ability.

Most of the remaining cast members are stereotypes - the young sidekick, the damsel in distress, the evil businessman and a few more. Don't miss out the excellent promo for X-Men: Days of Future Past in a mid-credits scene.

Pros

1. Hugh Jackman's performance
2. Very much a personal story - No threats of world wide apocalypse or scenes of city wide destruction .

Cons

1. Badly staged action sequences
2. Convoluted climax
3. Lack of chemistry between Hugh Jackman's Logan and Tao Okamoto's Mariko
4. Jean Grey's flashback scenes

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Recommended to fans of Hugh Jackman/Wolverine. Click here to read all my posts related to Marvel Comics.

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X-Men: Days of Future Past - Trask Industries Viral Commercial

We get our first look at the Sentinels in this viral commercial for X-Men: Days of Future Past, upcoming superhero movie from Bryan Singer.

Bryan Singer returns to the comic book franchise, he started way back in 2000. The movie has a large ensemble cast (even by the usual Bryan Singer's X-Men movie standards). The cast of the original X-Men movie series (Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Anna Paquin, Halle Berry, Ellen Page, Shawn Ashmore, Daniel Cudmore) comes together with the cast of X-Men: First Class (Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult) to make this movie the must watch movie event of Summer 2014.

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Michael Fassbender as Magneto in X-Men: First Class

Erik Lehnsherr AKA Magneto happens to be my most Marvel character of all time and Michael Fassbender makes a great Erik/Magneto. Both these factors combined makes this my all time favorite X-Men movie.

After X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), there were reports of 2 separate movies in development: one based on Wolverine and the other focused on the Master of Magnetism.

I was quite interested in the latter and while the resulting movie is called X-Men: First Class, it is quite obvious that the movie was originally intended to focus only on Magneto.

The movie starts with the first scene of X-Men (2000) featuring a young Erik being separated from his parents in a concentration camp in the 1940s. The officer-in-charge notices the young Erik's mutant powers on display and decides to exploit the same. The officer kills Erik's mother to force the boy to display his mutant powers and succeeds in permanently scarring the boy's psyche with vengeance and hatred towards mankind.

In upstate NY, young Charles Xavier takes in fellow mutant Raven Darkholme AKA Mystique into his manor and they grow up together.

The movie picks up later with a grown up Erik tracking down his mother's killer, who now calls himself Sebastian Shaw. Played by Kevin Bacon in the vein of a 60s Bond movie villain, Shaw oozes pure evil. His mutant power is to absorb energy and use it to increase his own physical attributes to finally overpower his opponent. He is assisted by Emma Frost, Azazel and Riptide.

Erik joins forces with Xavier and his band of fellow mutants (Beast, Darwin, Havoc, Banshee and Mystique), as they counter Shaw’s plans to start a nuclear war.

Competently directed by Matthew Vaughn, the movie erases the bad taste left  in the mouth by X-Men: The Last Stand. The presence of Bryan Singer as producer no doubt helped.

Nicholas Hoult and Jennifer Lawrence are great as Beast and Mystique respectively. Other mutants with the possible exception of Banshee and Havoc leave no impression, mainly due to the lack of character development.

James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender share great chemistry as Professor Xavier and Magneto

James McAvoy is a great foil as Xavier. He is a suave ladies man and does not mind using his formidable mutant powers to make an impression. McAvoy radiates the calm demeanor and wisdom that will eventually make him the mentor for X-Men. He makes for a believable younger version of Patrick Stewart’s Prof X. McAvoy and Fassbender share a great chemistry as the two men who will eventually part ways, as their ideologies differ radically about the peaceful co-existence of mutants and non-mutants.

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Ian McKellen is one of the most accomplished actors and always excels in his work, whether he plays Gandalf the Grey/White or the Master of Magnetism. It is a great tribute to Michael Fassbender that he puts his own stamp as Magneto, despite the inevitable comparisons to McKellen.

Fassbender has a very magnetic screen presence (no pun intended) and exudes immense on-screen charisma as he puts his mutant powers to display, especially in the climax. The scene with Prof X where he learns to control his rage is a textbook example of Fassbender's thespian skills.

Michael Fassbender as Magneto

Fassbender single-handedly makes this movie a must-watch for Magneto Fans and/or X-men fans.

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