This movie gets off to a weird but interesting start, with cool but confusing action scenes played out by low quality young actors.
As the movie continues, the confusing weirdness continues along with lots of hot-headed drama and a bit of cool action, right through till the end. It’s too drama heavy for my taste, but still it’s not a bad movie – I’d rate it Bang Average along with all the other X-Men and Wolverine movies to date since they all have a similar mix of pros & cons. Just enough good stuff to pique our interest, but not enough to thoroughly entertain and make it frequently rewatchable. It’s worth watching as part of a marathon of viewing all the X-Men movies in order of release date, but I’d avoid watching it as a standalone movie on its own merit outside of the wider saga since it provides valuable context for understanding what remains a weird & unclear movie even with that context.
Unlike previous X-Men and Wolverine movies, this one features a good amount of screentime from both the younger generation and the older generation of Professor X and Magneto, although the younger generation gets a slightly priority here.
Hugh Jackman plays Logan / Wolverine as usual. James McAvoy plays the younger Professor X, and Patrick Stewart plays the older Professor X. Michael Fassbender plays the younger Magneto, and Ian McKellen plays the older Magneto. Jennifer Lawrence plays Mystique who has a very vital role in this movie.
Peter Dinklage plays arguably the main antagonist, Dr Trask, although the real enemies to the X-Men are the Sentinels he creates to hunt down and kill all mutants, and movie revolves more around the team stopping Mystique from killing him since it’s his death that gets his Sentinel program funded so Wolverine went back in time to stop her from killing him in order to prevent the extinction of all X-Men and mutants in the future.
Halle Berry gets a little screentime as Storm, and Famke Janssen gets even less screentime as Jean Grey. Nicholas Hoult gets a fair amount of screentime as Beast, although his character was not particularly vital to the plot. There were a few other characters from the usual squad too, but the important core characters have already been mentioned.
The movie ends on a happy note, with disaster averted and everyone alive – even Jean Grey and Scott Summers who were both killed off in previous movies. Then at the end of the closing credits there was what seemed to be a little teaser scene – indeed it was a sneak preview of X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) and it looks quite captivating.
There’s a lot of drama in this movie, and some decent action, and some intriguing aspects to the plot. Overall I rate it Bang Average on a par with the last couple of X-Men movies.
This movie is centred around the non-mutants (in this movie called ‘humans’ for some odd reason as if being a mutated human is equal to being a non-human) having found a mutant who has the ability to strip powers from any mutant who goes near him. From this ability, a ‘cure’ has been made, delivered in needle format. Magneto and friends team up against the ‘humans’, with the core team of X-Men trying to prevent a war. And the key concept that really defines this movie, aside from the ‘cure’ and Magneto’s antics, is Jean Grey coming back from the dead and having unlocked her Class 5 powers making her more powerful than anyone else – she even kills Professor X although that’s because she has a split personality between malevolent and benevolent sides, due to Professor X having repressed her powers for everyone’s protection since she was a child. Eventually, Magneto’s crew wage a siege on Alcatraz where the ‘cure’ is being made, but Magneto gets hit with the ‘cure’, then just as things are about to end amicably, the military fire on Jean Grey and this makes her angry, which is a big problem – only Logan can stop her by appealing to her heart before stabbing and killing her. What kind of culture is this movie trying to nurture with behaviour like this?
The cast is pretty much the same as usual, with Hugh Jackman playing Logan aka Wolverine, Ian McKellen playing Eric Lehnsherr aka Magneto, Patrick Stewart playing Professor Charles Xavier, Famke Janssen playing Jean Grey aka Phoenix, Halle Berry playing Ororo Munroe aka Storm, Anna Paquin playing Marie aka Rogue, James Marsden playing Scott Summers aka Cyclops, Rebecca Romijn playing Raven Darkholme aka Mystique, Shawn Ashmore as Bobby Drake aka Ice Man, Aaron Stanford as John Allerdyce aka Pyro, as well Daniel Cudmore as Peter Rasputin aka Colossus the metal man who always seems missing from the main set of credits for some odd reason.
Plus we get to see a lot more of Kelsey Grammar playing Dr Henry ‘Hank’ McCoy aka Beast, who’s involved in politics with the humans. And we get to see a bit more of Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde who can phase through walls, floors and ceilings, or people – anything really.
We also get the odd interesting new character, such as Vinnie Jones playing Juggernaut who can walk through walls and anything else – he is an unstoppable object when on the move. And Ben Foster plays a mutant with large wings like a bird, called Angel, and his father runs the lab that developed the ‘cure’, and his father wants to ‘cure’ him, but he escapes, then comes back in the end to save his father’s life, using his unique abilities.
Speaking of Ben Foster, the LGBT theme is a bit over the top in this movie, with men dressing up in women’s clothes too, and even calling themselves girls. It’s a bit weird, but that’s Hollywood for you – sometimes they can’t help themselves, and sometimes it seems like a key driver that helped get the movie sponsored.
Sequels
Now that we’ve completed the early trilogy, since Xavier died in this one, the following X-Men movies go off on a tangent to focus on the story of Logan / Wolverine, and simultaneously a few prequel general X-Men movies are made. So there’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), then X-Men First Class (2011) and it alternates back and forth between Wolverine movies and prequel movies, with releases in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, and then there’s Dark Phoenix in 2019 which very much resembles Captain Marvel from the same year (strong lead female with energy powers). By this time, Jean Grey (aka Phoenix) had been re-cast and is now played by Sophie Turner, the star of Dark Phoenix – the same Class 5 mutant that should have stole the show in X-Men 3: The Last Stand but her role as the most powerful mutant ever wasn’t properly capitalised on and most of the marketing placed more emphasis on Halle Berry (Storm) who was a big star at the time since she played the main Bond girl in Die Another Day (2002) and took the lead role in Catwoman (2004). Dare I say, there’s also been a recent X-Men spinoff in the form of the Deadpool trilogy starring Ryan Reynolds, which features Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. I’m not a big fan of that toilet humour genre myself though, so I’m not recommending those Deadpool movies – just mentioning it for completeness.
This movie gets off to a better, much quicker start than the first X-Men movie, as an angry mutant storms the White House.
It’s nice to see the concepts of the school and of Cerebro being expanded upon early in this movie too, after being briefly established in the last movie but not very much capitalised on.
The action builds up to really interesting crescendo after the half hour mark, when Stryker invades the mutants’s school after Magneto’s tip-off, with only Logan and a few kids to hold down the fort against swat team style special forces operatives pouring in from helicopters. And the action gets even more interesting when Magneto makes his escape from his plastic prison, before the one hour mark.
The action in the back-end of the movie is a bit less intriguing, and a lot more chaotic with plenty of tense moments. This is a classic example of how more action doesn’t necessarily equate to a better action movie. While the quality of the first hour was on a part to be Above Average, the less pleasant second half brings down the overall rating to Bang Average in my opinion. There’s a pretty cool scene around the 2 hour mark though, as Xavier has a little word with the POTUS while making time stand still for everyone else in his office.
The cast is much the same as the last movie, with Hugh Jackman playing Logan aka the Wolverine, Patrick Stewart playing Professor Charles Xavier, Ian McKellen playing Magneto, Halle Berry as Ororo Munroe aka Storm, Famke Janssen as Jean Grey, James Marsden as Scott Summers aka Cyclops, Anna Paquin as Rogue, Rebecca Romijn as Raven Darkholme aka Mystique, Brian Cox as William Stryker, Alan Cumming as Kurt Wagner aka Nightcrawler, Aaron Stanford as Pyro, Shawn Ashmore as Ice Man, and a few more interesting characters besides them, but that covers the extended core cast pretty well already.
The distressing opening scene that builds the backstory of this movie’s main antagonist (Magneto) consists of little more than screaming, crying and white noise sound effects. Not a good start for those who prefer smoother action hero movies while trying to steer clear of horror and unpleasant drama genres. Fortunately, this only lasts a few minutes, and then the drama scenes become increasingly interesting until we see Logan (aka the Wolverine) in an old-school no-holds-barred cage fight around 10 minutes in. That scene is still full of white noise though – not particularly pleasant on the ears. Someone needs a word with the atmospherics director, else at least the head of sound.
The real top-tier action begins at 13 minutes in, as the losing cage fighter suspects Logan of being a mutant, then tries to stab him in the back, at which point Logan then reveals his hidden weapons and his true colours.
By the end of the first hour, we’ve had a good dose of action, the sci-fi plot is quite intriguing and the drama scenes are generally quite interesting for an action movie fan. The miserable gritty stuff from early on seems well behind us now, thankfully.
Core Cast & Characters
All the main characters were quite well established in the first hour, including all the main members of the X-Men team led by Professor Charles Xavier aka Professor X, a powerful mind-reading & mind-controlling telepath played well by Patrick Stewart (perhaps best known as Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek), as well as the main antagonist (Magneto, a powerful telekinetic of metal, played equally well by Ian McKellen who looks a bit like Ron Paul), and his main accomplices.
The movie mainly follows the life of Logan aka the Wolverine, played very well by Hugh Jackman. Among his fellow X-Men, are Ororo Munroe aka Storm who has weather-control powers like wind, thunder & lighting, while occasionally displaying glowing eyes like Thor and is played adequately by Halle Berry; as well as Famke Janssen (with vibes of Jennifer Garner from Marvel’s Elektra, or Gal Gadot from DC’s Wonder Woman) who is also a telepath (called Doctor Jean Grey) but has not yet learnt to fully control and harness her powers. There’s also Cyclops who shoots a laser beam from his eye and is played adequately by James Marsden. Logan also befriends a girl called Rogue who has the ability to take people’s powers from them, and is played adequately by Anna Paquin. On the baddies’ team there’s Sabretooth who’s like a stronger but slower version of the Wolverine and is played adequately by Tyler Mane (behind heavy mask & makeup); as well as a weird shapeshifting unclothed blue woman with reptilian scales called Mystique played by Rebecca Romijn, and an equally weird leaping long-tongued creature called Toad played by Ray Park.
The X-Men vs The Avengers
This whole setup of so many people with different superpowers in one movie, reminds me of the more recent Avengers movies by Marvel, although I have to say, everyone seems a lot better co-ordinated in the X-Men movies. This is probably mostly due to there being a single clear leader in Xavier who everyone generally trusts & respects, but it may also be partly due to there being a different intention behind the script.
In the Avengers movies, Captain America tries to take the leadership role but he’s clearly one of the weaker Avengers, or at least somewhere in the middle, so it doesn’t really work, and Iron Man tends to steal the show every time although it should probably be Thor since his scenes are generally the best and he’s a practically indestructible deity, as opposed to a feeble man in a suit or an enhanced man with a shield.
But they have to downplay Thor’s abilities and role to prevent him overshadowing the other Avengers since they’re all pretty feeble in comparison. Even in his own movies he’s frequently stripped of his powers to make his dilemmas credible. I mean Thor alone is not much less powerful than Thor with all the Avengers by his side, considering how he sometimes mows down entire fields full of alien warriors with his lightning powers and his practically unstoppable weapons, so people like Captain America and Black Widow and Hawkeye by his side can’t really add much value on the battlefield unless Thor’s role & powers are heavily downplayed while the others are massively overplayed. Guys like the Hulk and Iron Man and the Scarlet Witch seem powerful enough to add value to Thor’s team, but even their powers are typically downplayed in order to allow the weaker Avengers to still look good. Why not just bunch the best ones together to form a better version of the Avengers? Because it doesn’t suit the agendas. They need Captain America as their front man at all costs, it seems, even if he’s the least interesting of all and is feeble in comparison to the likes of Iron Man, Hulk and Thor.
The second hour
The second hour of X-Men continues with a lot of scene setting still. There appears to be a lack of direction to this movie – the introduction phase seems hard to move past. But eventually we switch into a serious battle which merges into the final action scene. These final action scenes certainly have plenty of time to be delivered diligently – they’re well built, not rushed at all, and the mild drama scenes that finish off the movie are pretty well poised and well delivered too. But as a result of going from a prolonged bout of scene setting, straight into the semi-final and final action scenes, it seems like we’re missing a layer or two in the middle somewhere. This movie seems a bit one dimensional for this reason. Fortunately, it can be treated as the first movie of many in the X-Men movie series, and this is kind of its saving grace, turning it from a movie that’s too short, missing plot development in the middle, to a movie that can be treated as just the first chapter of a well developed story – not dissimilar to an old comicbook in this respect. Nevertheless, when rating this as a standalone movie, I have to acknowledge its lack of plot direction and lack of development in the middle. While the team is well coordinated, and the sides are well opposed, and the scene setting was decent, and the ending was cute and nicely multi-layered, it seems Xavier was out of action for the most part, offering no leadership of any kind in the second half of the movie. His powers are massively under-utilised and the heroes seem short of a mission, aim or direction. For these reasons I have to rate this movie just OK, but if these things were corrected it could have been rated several levels higher.
The school setup, with kids having superpowers being trained in a secret school for mutants, could have been a bigger factor in this movie too, adding plenty of value to the script, but that could have caused the main characters to lose screen time, or made the movie inappropriately long. So I don’t blame them for keeping this aspect of the plot quite simple and untapped into. Still, if I remember correctly, this school setup becomes a big thing in at least one of the future movies in the X-Men movie series, so the opportunity’s not totally wasted.
Sequels and Spin-Offs
If you enjoyed X-Men (2000) and wish to watch its immediate sequels next, check out X2 (2003) then X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) to complete the initial trilogy from the noughties.
After that, you may wish to move on to watching the spin-off Wolverine trilogy (released 2009, 2013, 2017) alongside watching the four X-Men prequels (released 2011, 2014, 2016, 2019). Since they have inter-splicing release dates they’re probably all worth watching in one long list in order of release date rather than separating them into Wolverine spin-offs and X-Men prequels.
Following all of that, you may wish to move onto the Deadpool trilogy (released 2016, 2018, 2024) where Hugh Jackman also features as Wolverine. Or if Ryan Reynolds’ toilet humour is not your cup of tea, you may wish to swerve all the Deadpool movies. Perhaps instead move on to the Fantastic Four movies from the noughties (released 2005 & 2007) starring Jessica Alba, if you haven’t already seen them recently, since they’re also based on Marvel Comics, and just like the original X-Men trilogy, were also released prior to the beginning of the modern Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) by Marvel Studios, Phase One of which officially began with Iron Man (2008) then The Incredible Hulk (2008).
There’s also been a recent Horror genre spin-off from the X-Men movie series, called The New Mutants (2020), but that’s the wrong genre for this website and for me personally, so I’ll be swerving it. It appears to lack strong cast members anyway.
This is the last of Pierce Brosnan‘s four James Bond movies, and the one which made the production team conclude that something needs to change. I don’t disagree that something needed to change, but they changed it in totally the wrong direction for my taste. I can’t stand Daniel Craig personally. Brosnan makes a great Bond compared to him. Still, the mass market of soppy drama fans seem to approve of Craig, even if they are a totally new audience and the loyal niche market of slick action hero movie fans who tolerated Brosnan in the hopes of someone better coming soon have become completely disenchanted by the whole Bond brand now.
Die Another Day gets off to a poor start, with an awful attempt at remixing two classic Bond tunes into one piece of deafening noise within the first 30 seconds of this movie. This sets the tone for the rest of the movie, since the musical direction is pretty wack throughout.
This leads straight into an extravagant surfing scene that’s hard to understand the context of until it’s all over. This makes a change from the popular ski chase scenes, such as the one that opened one of Roger Moore’s best movies, The Spy Who Loved Me. I’m not saying there’s anything terribly wrong with not knowing what’s going on until an action scene is over, but it’s a bit unusual for a Bond movie, and probably not the best idea for this genre. We can’t even see anyone’s faces while they’re surfing, so it could be anyone (although obviously Brosnan didn’t get his feet wet in the filming of that scene). I guess we’re just expected to admire the surfing for a minute while waiting patiently to find out who it is and why they’re doing it. There’s a much better surfing scene 90 minutes in, as Bond escapes an avalanche designed to kill him, and rides the tsunami wave that follows.
Fortunately, this soon turns into some interesting scenes, as James steals a suitcase full of diamonds and impersonates the previous owner, pretending to be an arms dealer in North Korea. James’s disguise is unsuccessful, so he attempts to escape, wrecking a bunch of hovercrafts and seemingly killing the general’s son, so he gets taken in for waterboarding & interrogation. General Moon is played adequately by Kenneth Tsang, his son (Colonel Moon) was played alright by Will Yun Lee, his son’s main assistant (Zao) who Bond goes after once released (since his freedom was traded for Zao’s) was played alright by Rick Yune.
Then we get the theme tune by Madonna, who also takes a on minor role in this movie (as a fencing instructor called Verity). It’s not the best James Bond theme tune by any means, but is certainly one of the catchiest. It’s basically just a cheap uncultured pop song that’s liable to stick in your head sometimes, especially if you’re a James Bond fan, and I dare say that makes it about equal to Madonna’s best work.
We meet a few good characters in the first half an hour, then we meet the main woman in this movie – Halle Berry. She immediately spends the night with James and their romantic scenes are quite classless, inkeeping with the poor humour throughout the Brosnan era of James Bond. The following and preceding scenes are not bad though. A lot of fuss was made on TV around the time of this movie coming out, about the appearance of Halle Berry as she comes out the water and meets James Bond for the first time. Don’t get me wrong, she’s not unattractive – she’s above average for a Bond girl, and not terribly far from the best of them – but the only reason she swings her hips so wildly is to compensate for the lack of natural width in her hips which would roll plenty within her natural unexaggerated stride if there were really anything to rave about.
Brosnan is also noticeably carrying a belly in this movie, while looking generally worse for wear due to his age and his untoned physique – I’m guessing this contributed to him being let go in favour of Daniel Craig who was younger and trained hard to achieve a good physique even though his personality is nothing like what Bond should be. Brosnan’s demeanour is a bit closer to the mark, in how it’s not the polar opposite of what we want, but it’s a bit dead & dry still – far from ideal for this role.
A third of the way in, as James enters Zao’s new lair, we see a rotating mirrored wall, probably inspired by Bruce Lee’s Enter The Dragon from 1973, much like the similar set in Roger Moore’s The Man With The Golden Gun in 1974 – since that one came out just one year after Enter The Dragon, the similarities are clearly far from coincidental.
The swordfighting scene was pretty good, after James joins the fencing club and meets Madonna’s character Verity agrees to a challenge from the main man in the club which starts off quite sporting with all the kit then comes lethal with real swords and no protection. It’s quite obvious sometimes where the stuntmen fill in for Pierce Brosnan though, as the faster scenes are very fast with his back to the camera then become terribly laboured when we see his face. This reflects his lack of real swordfighting ability of course, and probably also his lack of general martial arts acumen and even athletic capability.
Half way in, we get better acquainted with the second Bond girl in this movie – Miranda Frost played by Rosamund Pike (who also played the main baddie’s wife in Jack Reacher), who we briefly met earlier at the fencing club where Madonna’s character (Verity, the instructor) said Miranda was the most talented fencer in the club. Rosamund Pike has to be one of the least attractive Bond girls of all time, although due to her very prominent jawline I’m sure she appeals very much to certain types of people. To call her a tomboy would be an understatement. She also has a very bland demeanour and a face full of whitewashed makeup which creates a certain style that probably matches the role she’s playing quite well, however unappealing it may be. Having said that, she does make an interesting contrast with Halle Berry.
James’s car in this movie goes a level beyond any Bond car before, by being completely invisible. He can even sit inside it, and watch things happen around him, with people nearby being oblivious to his presence.
We know a James Bond villain loves a satellite weapon, and this movie’s villain is no different. The main villain, on the brains side, is Sir Gustav Graves, played alright by Toby Stephens, and he has a satellite that he uses to shine light on certain parts of the world, which can be used to assist agriculture in poor countries, but it can also be used as a deadly heat gun. According to the plot, Gustav Graves is actually Colonel Moon after a DNA changing operation.
Stylistically, Catwoman (2004) is like a cross between Batman (in core concept) and Dark Angel (down to the same kinds of superpowered stunts and musical effects).
Halle Berry stars as the Catwoman superhero in this movie. She’s in her late 30s here – somewhat past her prime physically, but still only a couple of years since she played the role of a Bond girl alongside Pierce Brosnan in Die Another Day (2002). Her acting is pretty good here too. She makes a convincing feline furry.
The supporting cast is pretty good too.
Sharon Stone stars as the main supervillain after killing her husband and framing it on Catwoman towards the back end of the movie. Sharon’s in her mid 40s here – far from being in her physical prime but she does a good job of acting nevertheless.
Lambert Wilson does alright as the main antagonist through most of the movie, until he gets out-done by his estranged wife played by Sharon Stone.
Benjamin Bratt plays the detective who unwittingly gets romantically involved with Catwoman before eventually arresting her. He does a good job in his role here. He has a bit of a Mark Dacascos vibe.
It’s also good to see Byron Mann playing a minor role as a security guard (with half a conscience) for the baddies – his face gets around a lot in action hero movies of this era. His colleague Michael Massee (the guy who shot & killed Brandon Lee (Bruce Lee’s only son) on the set of The Crow with a real gun & bullet and pretended it was an accident) performed adequately as a security guard for the baddies here too. Brandon was killed because he was finally persuaded to investigate his father’s murder (which was also officially ruled an accident) – of course Hollywood couldn’t allow that.
Overall, considering the density of adrenaline-packed creative scenes vs the less entertaining slower drama scenes, and considering the general quality of cast, plot, script & action at work here, I rate Catwoman (2004) to be a Decent movie – a level better than just OK. Not quite on a par with the very best female-led action hero movies out there, like Wonder Woman, Colombiana and Ghost In The Shell, but it’s only one level shy of those movies, from the perspective of a smooth action hero movie connoisseur who isn’t so fond of slow or gritty drama.
