Like I've talked earlier, over the past couple weeks as a lead-up to Deadpool/Apocalypse, I've re-watched all the X-Men movies in chronological order (time) in order to gain a new unbiased perspective on them. Shoot, it has been over 10 years since I've seen some of them and nostalgia can really mess with perception, so I wanted to throw that all out. With that said, I just finished up my adventure by finally seeing Deadpool last night, and as promised, here is my new rankings of all the films.
1. X-2: X-Men United - When I think of an X-Men movie, this is the movie I think of. Great acting, great storyline, and probably contains maybe my two favorite X-Men action sequences ever (Nightcrawler in White House, Wolverine going berserk on a Swat team in the Mansion). Lastly, after this movie, Nightcrawler became my favorite X-Men character ever.
2. X-Men: Days of Future Past - Most genius way ever to not only reboot a franchise/storyline, but also honor the old cast of actors while still passing the baton off to the new group characters. Great action, great acting, great cinematography (Opening scene and Quicksilver scene), and great creativity in fitting everything together. Literally is one of those "we are giving you everything we've got" movie. Personally, I absolute hate everything about the 70s time period, but I still liked this movie a lot, so that says something.
3. The Wolverine - While this may be higher than many will rank this movie, I just loved the creativity in the new setting. The colors, the actors and the cinematography was all great. I thought this was Wolverine at his best. On the down side, I never really got into the Silver Samurai robot at the end, so I liked the first 2/3 of the movie better than the last 1/3.
4. Deadpool - I know many people are going crazy for this and would rank it higher than me, but this type of movie is just never going to be my cup of tea and that's okay. Due to many things, I'm just not a raunchy comedy type of guy. However, I do appreciate good film making, and from a creativity film-making standpoint of producing something new and fun out of a simple origin story, there is a lot of brilliance behind this movie that I respect, especially on such a low budget. So, while it isn't my type of movie, I've still got to rank it as a good movie.
5. X-Men: First Class - Good new origin story of Magneto and Charles and great new casting of characters moving forward. I liked this movie, but just didn't have anything I loved. Deep down though, i just hate everything that has to do with the 60s or 70s, so that inevitably probably worked against this movie. Still liked it though.
6. X-Men - This was the surprising one due to past built-up nastalgia, but this movie really felt super dated and fell flat for me. There is very little action and what there was wasn't good. You could really tell they were working with a low budget. Even the acting was amazingly bad from what I remembered (kids are easy to entertain). Nevertheless, I've got to respect how this kicked off the X-Men movie franchise, and even more so, really kicked-off and pioneered what we know today as the modern super-hero movie. It really was the first, so props.
7. X-Men: The Last Stand - Truthfully, I didn't hate this movie as much as other people did. I thought the acting was decent, the action was decent (very CGI based), but the story-line was its main flaw. The thing just ruined and killed off too many characters, almost like a very last movie of an entire franchise does. Regardless, I still didn't mind this film overall and was entertained.
8. X-Men Origins: Wolverine - Not much good to talk about here, but it was remotely entertaining, mostly because it had Wolverine in it. Bad storytelling, bad cinematography, bad action sequences (was at the height of ridiculously bad CGI-orgie over-the-top action sequences), and terrible use of characters, particularly Deadpool. This is a prime example of what straying too far from the source material gets you.
Well, there you go. For fun though as a comparison, here is the Rotten Tomatoes rankings to compare mine against. As you can see, I stray some from these, but not terribly far.
Rotten Tomatoes Rankings:
1. X-Men: Days of Future Past - Rating: 7.6 (91% liked)
2. X-2: X-Men United - Rating: 7.5 (86% liked)
3. X-Men: First Class - Rating: 7.4 (87% liked)
4. X-Men - 7.1 (81% liked)
5. Deadpool - 6.9 (83% liked)
6. The Wolverine - 6.3 (70% liked)
7. X-Men: The Last Stand - 5.9 (58% liked)
8. X-Men Origins: 5.1 (38% liked)
What does everyone else think? Feel free to post your rankings.
1. X-2: X-Men United - When I think of an X-Men movie, this is the movie I think of. Great acting, great storyline, and probably contains maybe my two favorite X-Men action sequences ever (Nightcrawler in White House, Wolverine going berserk on a Swat team in the Mansion). Lastly, after this movie, Nightcrawler became my favorite X-Men character ever.
2. X-Men: Days of Future Past - Most genius way ever to not only reboot a franchise/storyline, but also honor the old cast of actors while still passing the baton off to the new group characters. Great action, great acting, great cinematography (Opening scene and Quicksilver scene), and great creativity in fitting everything together. Literally is one of those "we are giving you everything we've got" movie. Personally, I absolute hate everything about the 70s time period, but I still liked this movie a lot, so that says something.
3. The Wolverine - While this may be higher than many will rank this movie, I just loved the creativity in the new setting. The colors, the actors and the cinematography was all great. I thought this was Wolverine at his best. On the down side, I never really got into the Silver Samurai robot at the end, so I liked the first 2/3 of the movie better than the last 1/3.
4. Deadpool - I know many people are going crazy for this and would rank it higher than me, but this type of movie is just never going to be my cup of tea and that's okay. Due to many things, I'm just not a raunchy comedy type of guy. However, I do appreciate good film making, and from a creativity film-making standpoint of producing something new and fun out of a simple origin story, there is a lot of brilliance behind this movie that I respect, especially on such a low budget. So, while it isn't my type of movie, I've still got to rank it as a good movie.
5. X-Men: First Class - Good new origin story of Magneto and Charles and great new casting of characters moving forward. I liked this movie, but just didn't have anything I loved. Deep down though, i just hate everything that has to do with the 60s or 70s, so that inevitably probably worked against this movie. Still liked it though.
6. X-Men - This was the surprising one due to past built-up nastalgia, but this movie really felt super dated and fell flat for me. There is very little action and what there was wasn't good. You could really tell they were working with a low budget. Even the acting was amazingly bad from what I remembered (kids are easy to entertain). Nevertheless, I've got to respect how this kicked off the X-Men movie franchise, and even more so, really kicked-off and pioneered what we know today as the modern super-hero movie. It really was the first, so props.
7. X-Men: The Last Stand - Truthfully, I didn't hate this movie as much as other people did. I thought the acting was decent, the action was decent (very CGI based), but the story-line was its main flaw. The thing just ruined and killed off too many characters, almost like a very last movie of an entire franchise does. Regardless, I still didn't mind this film overall and was entertained.
8. X-Men Origins: Wolverine - Not much good to talk about here, but it was remotely entertaining, mostly because it had Wolverine in it. Bad storytelling, bad cinematography, bad action sequences (was at the height of ridiculously bad CGI-orgie over-the-top action sequences), and terrible use of characters, particularly Deadpool. This is a prime example of what straying too far from the source material gets you.
Well, there you go. For fun though as a comparison, here is the Rotten Tomatoes rankings to compare mine against. As you can see, I stray some from these, but not terribly far.
Rotten Tomatoes Rankings:
1. X-Men: Days of Future Past - Rating: 7.6 (91% liked)
2. X-2: X-Men United - Rating: 7.5 (86% liked)
3. X-Men: First Class - Rating: 7.4 (87% liked)
4. X-Men - 7.1 (81% liked)
5. Deadpool - 6.9 (83% liked)
6. The Wolverine - 6.3 (70% liked)
7. X-Men: The Last Stand - 5.9 (58% liked)
8. X-Men Origins: 5.1 (38% liked)
What does everyone else think? Feel free to post your rankings.
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