Theme: Mutants

Mortal Kombat (2021) – Lewis Tan

Mortal Kombat (2021)

This movie gets off to a dark, gritty start that’s quite hard to watch; but this may be a necessary evil to build up towards what happens later in the movie. It’s definitely focused more on the gritty side, than the coolness, compared to the original, but it makes use of modern sound and visual effects for a deeper impact than the original movie from 1995 which was very cool but lacked seriousness, depth & grounding. This movie has a generally higher quality of production than the original, even if a less cool plot, and it has a higher quality of acting generally, even if the characters are less funky. Overall there’s a much more serious tone this time round, but that doesn’t mean it lacks cool effects, it’s just very careful and conservative with their use, and makes a real statement any time the special effects come out.

Throughout the first half hour this movie’s plot develops nicely – it gets increasingly intriguing and you end up kind of hooked. By 25 minutes in, things have become quite clear – we can see who the star of the show is, and some of the other main characters, and what general direction the movie is taking.

45 mins in, things get a bit dark & depressing again. The dark patches continue to be mixed in with uplifting elements for a good half an hour until everyone fights and the lead character’s powers come out for the first time, which is closely followed by the same thing happening to his comrade Jax, then things start to get quite exciting again. The lead character in this movie is not Liu kang this time, although he is a major supporting character here. The lead character this time round is Cole Young (played quite well by Lewis Tan) – a descendant of Scorpion whose entire bloodline was thought to be killed by Sub-Zero but one baby remained, looked after by Raiden, then Scorpion came back from the dead to help his descendant defeat Sub-Zero in the 90th minute, helping to create an epic final battle.

The cast is comprised of a mix between strong, weak and mediocre actors. Strong actors here, aside from Lewis Tan in the lead role, include Joe Taslim playing Sub-Zero very well, and Hiroyuki Sanada playing Scorpion quite well too. Josh Lawson also does a decent job as Kano, and Mehcad Brooks is not bad in the role of Jax.

Raiden (leader of the good guys), Shang Tsung (leader of the bad guys), Liu Kang (good guy) and Sonya Blade (good girl) are all key characters here too, but their respective actors didn’t impress me. Random stuntmen could have probably done their jobs just as good if not better.

Considering its strengths and highs, I’m going to rate this movie generously, scoring it Pretty Good, which puts it a couple of levels above the original – a serious accomplishment. Now imagine if the four key characters listed above had much stronger actors playing those roles – I’d have to rate it even better, and it would be pretty close to the level of the best action movies ever made.

Logan (2017) – Hugh Jackman and Dafne Keen

Although the opening scene is pretty cool, with Logan defending his limo from a gang of thieves, this movie still gets off to a depressing start as Logan is getting old, struggling to move around and even bring his claws out, and is babysitting Professor X who’s gone a bit mad and feels trapped and keeps getting pinned down and put to sleep with injections. There are signs of something a little more interesting brewing, but it takes a while to come round.

A little over 20 minutes in, and finally the plot is heading somewhere interesting.

This vibe of mixing the odd cool scene with an excessive amount of long slow gritty depressing patches generally defines this movie. It could easily be developed and condensed into a more concise, exciting movie for action hero movie fans – as it stands, it’s a bit lost between genres.

It takes until 2 hours in – when there’s less than 20 minutes left of the movie (including time for closing credits), for Logan to actually start looking like a serious force to be reckoned with, no longer acting crippled by his old age and injuries, due to the fact he’s just taken a dangerously high amount of repair serum. This scene resembles a scene near the end of the movie Blade, when Blade drank the blood of his doctor girlfriend, after escaping and needing to bring himself back to good health fast. In both cases the main protagonist became a temporarily super-charged version of their former self, at a time when they were disabled by their condition but needed to put up a good fight asap. Blade also took a serum throughout his movie, but that was a weak alternative to the real blood he drank before the final battle.

Hugh Jackman stars in this movie as both Logan (the main protagonist) and X-24 (the final boss antagonist, who looks just like Logan but is cleaner shaven).

Charles Xavier is played by Patrick Stewart – he dies half way through the movie – killed by X-24.

Laura is played by Dafne Keen – she’s a child who has the same abilities as Logan and X-24 (long claws and quick healing).

What’s next?

Next up – if you’re following the X-Men movie saga in order of release date, including all the spin-offs that fall within its cinematic universe such as the Wolverine trilogy and the Deadpool movies – next up is Dark Phoenix (2019) which has a lot in common with Captain Marvel which was released in the same year, except Dark Phoenix falls within the X-Men universe and Captain Marvel falls within the Avengers universe (commonly called the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) but I’m not a fan of that name since both the X-Men universe and the Avengers universe are based on Marvel Comics). We’ve already seen the power of Jean Grey in X-Men Apocalypse (2016) as well as other X-Men movies prior to that where Jean Grey was played by a different actress (Famke Janssen), but none of those movies were really dedicated to her like Dark Phoenix is, so if you’re a fan of the Jean Grey character, especially the version played by Sophie Turner from X-Men: Apocalypse, be sure to check out the Dark Phoenix movie next, although it’s not nearly as good as X-Men: Apocalypse in my opinion.

Dark Phoenix (2019) – Sophie Turner

After a 10 minute warm-up, giving a bit of a backstory, an exciting early development occurs where the X-Men are persuaded by the POTUS to take an unsafe outer-space voyage in their own plane to investigate and rescue the crew of a mysteriously stopped shuttle mission where all communications strangely died.

After this, the movie dwindles into one big gritty drama fest with very little action. Massively underplaying the potential of the movie based on the awesome core concept that’s scarcely even a significant factor in the minute-by-minute script of this movie.

Quite a contrast with X-Men: Apocalyse, which builds up nicely and ends on a high – this movie attempts to start on a high then forgets all about it and bores us with way too much cheap emotional stuff. Then when there is action, it’s generally good X-Men fighting other good X-Men without thinking too much about it. What on earth kind of mindset is this movie trying to fester in our children? A lack of thought process, a lack of cohesive mindset, and a tendency to fight violently with good friends for the pettiest of reasons, it seems.

Arguably the best scene of the movie comes 90 minutes in, when the X-Men team finally decide to work together against the aliens, after the humans finally decide to let the captive X-Men free after most of their men have been killed by the aliens. I guess that’s the silver lining to the dark grey cloud that pretty much covers this entire movie. This scene then morphs into the grand finale battle between Jean Grey (played by Sophie Turner these days) and the leader of the aliens, after a bit of an emo-fest of a telepathic chat between Grey and Xavier. The grand finale battle itself is a bit of a girl-power fest too – it even goes so far as to debate the power of being emotional. I would have liked to see some better tai chi postures, to add a touch of realism to the fight scenes which are all about projecting energy, which to the trained eye look quite silly due to being full of typical rookie mistakes like bending the hand back too far when doing a pushing action which to the untrained looks like extra powerful posturing but to the trained eye is just a very weak way to direct energy and is a potential broken wrist. The final fight scene ends with a big explosion where nobody knows what happened to either one of them. This, followed by 5 minutes of common drama, make the grand finale somewhat anticlimactic and the entire movie significantly weaker than X-Men: Apocalypse, and one of the weakest X-Men movies of all time – possibly the worst one. I’m going to rate it Bang Average considering it’s got some pretty good bits to it, but even that may be being a bit generous since it’s 2 hours long and the good bits are few and far between, and what’s between is really quite bad so keep the fast-forward button handy especially if you’ve seen this movie before.

It’s tempting to liken the disappointment of this movie, with the disappointment of Avengers: Endgame from the same year, since both followed on from the cast and storyline of a much better movie beforehand. In the case of Endgame, it was a poor “part 2” to the much better Avengers: Infinity Wars (“part 1”), and in the case of Dark Phoenix, it was a poor continuation of storyline from the much better X-Men: Apocalypse where Sophie Turner’s character Phoenix / Jean Grey showed her true power to save the day at the end.

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) – Michael Fassbender and Sophie Turner

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

This movie gets off to a good start. It seems better coordinated, more focused, and more consistently captivating than any other X-Men movie to date. So while I’ve rated every other as around about Bang Average, I have to say this is a few clear levels better. Indeed, for now I’m going to rate it Pretty Good, alongside Black Adam – a movie to which this one bears a striking resemblance. The ending was particularly strong here (much like in Black Adam), but the plot building up to that was also quite cohesive, and the drama was quite well balanced with action throughout. It’s not trying to do too many things at once, like previous X-Men movies have often been guilty of; and it’s not stuck between genres like Wolverine (2013) was for example, since that more depressing vibes and the horror factor was hitting home a lot more, while in this movie the dark forces are much more grandiose – much less raw & uncomfortable – thus making it more digestible for a smoother entertainment experience.

Jean Grey is the main hero of this movie, and Famke Janssen no longer plays that role – she’s played by Sophie Turner here and will continue in that role for Dark Phoenix (2019) although that movie is relatively disappointing. Sophie Turner is not the only cast member who’s been replaced either – Storm, Nightcrawler and Angel are played by new actors here too, for example. Several familiar characters have returned though, such as James McAvoy‘s Professor X, and Michael Fassbender‘s Magneto, and Jennifer Lawrence‘s Mystique, Nicholas Hoult‘s Beast, and Evan Peters‘ Quicksilver (who is revealed in this movie to be Magneto’s son, unbeknown to Magneto himself).

The main antagonist is an ancient Egyptian mutant – the first ever mutant – with strong telekinetic powers, who’s been brought back to life from his tomb, within a collapsed pyramid, where he’s been kind of comatose for thousands of years. He’s called Apocalypse and is played quite well by Oscar Isaac.

Sequels

Next up in the X-Men saga, is Logan (2017) – another spin-off Wolverine-focused movie – which we got a little teaser for at the end of this movie, after the closing credits. Then after that, there’s Dark Phoenix (2019) – zeroing in on Sophie Turner’s Jean Grey aka Phoenix or Dark Phoenix. That movie bears a striking resemblance to Captain Marvel (2019) which was also made by Marvel, released shortly before Dark Phoenix and was Marvel’s first ever female-led movie which had been in planning for many years prior to its release. Captain Marvel is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), so that character is also featured in Avengers: Endgame (2019); while Dark Phoenix is a character within the X-Men cinematic universe which includes several Wolverine and Deadpool spin-offs but doesn’t ever overlap with the MCU for some reason.

The Wolverine (2013) – Hugh Jackman and Rila Fukushima

The Wolverine (2013)

This movie gets off to a good start, with a highly memorable scene where Logan aka the Wolverine is set free by a prison guard in Japan, when Japan is seconds away from getting nuked. Whether you believe nukes are real is another matter – this movie promotes the mainstream narrative and we’ll leave it at that. Logan instantly returns the favour, by saving the guard’s life, by helping him hide down his prison tunnel and shielding him with its door. This scene was set back in the days when Logan had organic claws, before his entire skeleton and claw system was replaced by Stryker with practically indestructible Adamantium.

Then we see logan wake up from a nightmare, in a more recent time, and he’s accidentally killed his X-Men comrade and girlfriend, Jean Grey, having dug his metal claws into her belly while sleeping. Then he wakes up again, in the present day, now living on a snowy mountain, and he’s let his hair grow long. Then he strolls into town, and the movie begins to get much more into an exciting genre. Firstly, he comes across some extra irresponsible hunters, then when he’s in the process of dealing with them and about to take things to the next level, some red-haired Japanese samaurai chick called Yukyo steps in, takes over the show, and escorts him to her car in a befriending manner. The script that follows is an intriguing one, especially considering the interesting characters involved.

This appears to be a much classier Wolverine movie than the last one from 2011 – not only due to its setting in Japan, although that may be a big factor because it allows for the more decadent and intense culture of top Japanese warriors & businessmen creeping in. Backed by themes of Samaurai, Ninja, Yakuza and a touch of witchcraft-type supervillainy plus plenty of plot twists, this makes for quite a captivating movie for the discerning action hero movie connoisseur.

The pace, sound and cinematography are also well executed, giving this movie a modern, premium feel.

Having said that, there’s a good hour in the middle of this movie, from 35 mins till 95 mins, where the Wolverine is weakened and unable to heal himself – this gets a bit depressing at times. There’s still plenty of good action during this hour, but there’s a very depressing overtone to it all. Fortunately after 95 minutes he finds the source of the problem and cures himself, then the movie is capable of a higher grade of entertainment for those who like smooth, no-nonsense action hero performances. Unfortunately though, this only lasts 15 minutes until Logan is trapped and put in another very uncomfortable situation. This movie misses a lot of opportunity for cool Ninja antics minus the uncomfortable stuff, but I guess Hollywood can’t help themselves when it comes to mixing Horror and Drama in with every other genre, and this is really the key reason why I’m rating this movie just Above Average when it could easily have been more highly rated if it swapped most of its horror genre material for some cool extra action and ninja training scenes for example. Still, you can’t please everyone – there will be those who want more of the ugly Horror and irritating Drama. Indeed, this movie seems to be getting a bit lost between genres and that’s really the basis of its downfall I think, irrespective what my personal preference favours.

One of the most intersting scenes is at the very end, amongst the closing credits, where Magneto appears, along with Professor X back from the dead, both asking Logan for help due to dark forces threatening the fate of the world. Now why couldn’t they have a bit of that going on within in the main body of the movie itself? Especially since there were so many scenes of Jean Grey speaking to Logan from the dead – she could have helped out in a more significant way at least once.

The main cast members of this movie include Hugh Jackman as Logan aka Wolverine; Rila Fukushima as Yukio; Svetlana Khodchenkova as Viper; Tao Okamoto as Mariko Yashida; Hiroyuki Sanada as Shingen Yashida (Mariko’s father); Hal Yamanouchi as the Silver Samurai (Mariko’s grandfather, and head of the corporation, making him officially the most powerful person in Japan); and Will Yun Lee as Kenuichio Harada (leader of the ninja clan)

X-Men: First Class (2011) – James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Kevin Bacon

This movie tells the backstory of most of the core X-Men characters including: Professor X (Charles Xavier) played mostly by James McAvoy (co-star of Wanted alongside Angelina Jolie; also in Glass alongside Samuel L Jackson and Bruce Willis) to be a generation or two younger than Patrick Stewart’s version of Professor X; and there’s Erik aka Magneto played by Michael Fassbender (star of Assassin’s Creed) to be a generation or two younger than Ian McKellen’s Magneto. There’s also Raven aka Mystique played by Jennifer Lawrence; and Hank McCoy aka Beast played by Nicholas Hoult. We also see Alex Summers aka Havok (played by Lucas Till) – in theory his character is the younger brother of Scott Summers (Cyclops) who featured in the original X-Men trilogy from the decade prior. And there’s several more weird characters besides these.

The main antagonist is played by Kevin Bacon. His character, Sebastian Shaw, is the doctor responsible for torturing young Erik (Magneto) and killing his mother; and most of this movie revolves around Erik’s mission to get even. Sebastian Shaw also has mutant powers himself, including the ability absorb energy from all kinds of weapons, then transform it and throw it back as he pleases. He also wears the original version of what eventually becomes Magneto’s hat, preventing Xavier from reading his mind.

We also get a brief cameo from Hugh Jackman as Logan/Wolverine, when Charles & Erik originally approach him, but he immediately tells them to get lost without even asking what they want, and they do, and that’s as far as his role in this movie goes.

Other significant characters include Emma Frost, a telepath with diamond skin played by January Jones; and Angel Salvadore, a fireball shooting girl with butterfly wings played by Zoë Kravitz. There’s also CIA agent Moira MacTaggert played by Rose Byrne, and a disappearing red-skinned devil type character called Azazel played Jason Flemyng. And that’s not all but we’ll be here all day listing every significant mutant in this movie – we’ve covered the main one I think, there’s just a few more.

Considering how drama-heavy this movie is, and how childish it often is from time to time, I have to rate is OK – no better than the original X-Men trilogy – in fact it’s probably slightly worse, on a par with X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) but the margins are small so I’ve rated them all Bang Average.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) – Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

X-Men Origins: Wolverine tells the story of Jimmy aka Logan aka Wolverine (played by Hugh Jackman) and his brother Victor Creed (played by Liev Schreiber) growing up, from when they were young boys and ran away from home, to participating in several old wars (seemingly not aging much through the centuries). Logan’s brother seems to have more of a bloodthirsty mischievous side – he even has pointy canine teeth. Still, Logan’s got his brother’s back. So they both get captured and sentenced to death but they don’t die, which is when Stryker (Danny Huston) picks them up and brings them into his team which includes Wade Wilson (played by Ryan Reynolds) who has super-human sword skills and will gain a lot more powers by the end of the movie where he’s known as Weapon XI – the final boss, and an early version of Deadpool. The supporting role he plays here, adds a nice bit of humour to the movie. His own Deadpool movies are too much toilet humour for my taste, but when he plays a supporting role it really brings out the best of him and adds good value to an otherwise alright action movie I think.

Within the first hour we learn where Logan got the name Wolverine from, and we see how he went from having claws made from organic claw type material, to having practically indestructable adamantium (derived from meteorites) replacing his claws and being bonded with his skeleton to make him bulletproof all over (not that our bones completely shield all our vital organs, but that’s the story here nonetheless).

The middle of the movie is dominated by the fact that Logan’s brother killed Logan’s wife. But in the second hour there’s an interesting plot twist, as Logan catches up with his brother and Stryker, only to find that they’ve got his wife and she’s still alive – they only faked her death.

Considering its balance of strengths and weaknesses, I rate this movie Bang Average, on a par with the three X-Men movies that came before it – probably slightly weaker but there’s not much in it.

X-Men 3: The Last Stand (2006) – Hugh Jackman and Ian McKellen

X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

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.

X-Men 2: X2 (2003) – Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen

X2 (2003)

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.