Go F--- Yourself

At this point of my life, getting to the movies is serious business. My wife is cool with me going, but I feel guilty so I don't press her as often as I'd like. This past weekend, not only did I see something on opening night, I attended it with two solid individuals, Flem and Miller/Payne. It was "Good Stuff."(indeed)

Obviously from the rather lame picture above, we tackled X-Men: First Class. I say tackled, because what seems like a requirement of all movies lately, this bastard clocked in at 132 minutes. Goodness. The first-first one was only 104 minutes. Anyway...that wasn't the real problem here (though 10:30 start time didn't help).

I had read reviews prior to showtime and I was pretty stoked about a "good" X-Men movie again. I really liked the first two and had read that this was very similar. Matthew Vaughn is currently deemed trustworthy as Kick-Ass was really good and I kinda think James McAvoy is the man (Wanted, anyone?). All that said, I'm on the fence here. Definitely not an outright punch to the balls like X3 (or whatever the Hell it's called), but not "The finest comic-book flick since 2008's The Dark Knight" (see the list in a May entry and verify that nonsense in your own head).
Anyway...here's the breakdown.

Yay!

• Wolverine cameo! (and Mystique to a lesser extent)
• January Jones' cleavage!
• Overt sexual discrimination!
• Kevin Bacon!
• killing people by dropping them!
 

Boooo!

• Most of Beast's dialogue (look at that picture)
• Black guy dying first cliche
• Weird semi-incestuous relationship between two-characters
• Weird semi-homo-erotic relationship between two other characters
• NO BONUS SCENE!!!

I need a horse.

I'm not a comic-book guy. I used to read Spider-Man and Daredevil when I was a kid, but never got hooked. Oh, I did buy Marvel cards like I hated the money I used to purchase them. And I played the crap out of Marvel Ultimate Alliance on my 360. Outside of those events, the only exposure to the Marvel Universe has been the recent explosion of movies. In a poorly chosen word...

1998       Blade                                                           Astonishing

2000       X-Men                                                         Excellent

2002       Blade II                                                        BADASS

   Spider-Man                                                  Great

2003       Daredevil                                                      Occurred

   X2                                                                Solid

   Hulk                                                             Ang

2004       The Punisher                                                 unseen

   Spider-Man 2                                               Stellar

   Blade: Trinity                                                 Lame

2005       Elektra                                                          unknown (but really, someone greenlighted this?)

   Man-Thing                                                    What?

   Fantastic Four                                               Alba

2006       X-Men: The Last Stand                                 If I hyphenate soul-crushing...is that one word?

2007       Ghost Rider                                                  Ugh (or the sound of being kicked in the crotch/face)

   Spider-Man 3                                               Shrug

   Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer      Non-existent

2008       Iron Man                                                       Resurgence/Favs

   The Incredible Hulk                                       Okay

   Punisher: War Zone                                    Curious (I friggin' own this and haven't seen it)

2009       X-Men Origins: Wolverine                           unfinished (I've seen parts)

2010       Iron Man 2                                                    Letdown

2011       Thor                                                              Mjolnir!

I saw ‘Thor’ last night and was very impressed. I thought that Kenneth Branagh + Thor was an equation that should never be solved, but I was surprised by how much I liked it. The dude who played Thor, Chris Hemsworth, was awesome. Natalie Portman continued her reign as ultra-hot goddess of fanboy-cinema (completely factual). And the action was very cool (initial ice-battle was pretty kickass). I also loved the big dude who played the guardian/teleport operator of Asgard. Intense.

Only minuses were the lame crew that Thor rolled with (Xena, Jackie Chan and Robin Hood) and the post-credits scene was not as boner-inducing as I would have preferred. Nitpickery aside, check this one out. It's the best Marvel flick since Iron Man, hands down. Oh, and any film featuring Anthony Hopkins gets a B+ out of the gate (unless it’s Hannibal).