X-Men & Deadpool - Ranked

I’ve had Marvel fatigue for years now, but I’ve kept up with the theatrical releases and most of the shows. But I no longer feel obligated to watch every single show, and I rarely do a deep dive re-watch to prepare any longer (which is probably why I had no clue what the fuck was going on in The Marvels). But the preview for Deadpool & Wolverine amped me up, and since I like the X-Men and Deadpool universe quite a bit anyway, I decided to rewatch it all. And thanks (I think) to Evan Dossey at the Midwest Film Journal, I even revisited Daredevil and Elektra since I saw that he watched Elektra knowing she was showing up in the movie. (And now I need to rewatch the Fantastic Four movies from the early aughts and the Blade trilogy, I guess.) But I’m not ranking those movies; I’m only bringing them up as evidence of the stupid shit I will watch when I get on a movie kick.

This series of films exemplifies my relationship with comic book movies in general. The first X-Men movie came out when I was fifteen and ignited a fandom that lasts to this day. But those films went through some wild peaks and valleys, and that’s how I am at this moment with the genre. Some movies, like Deadpool & Wolverine, will have me feeling like a dorky teenager again, while others, like The New Mutants, will leave me thinking, “Why did they even bother with this one?” 

Anyway, whenever I end up watching an entire series of films I have to create some content about it. So here are my completely subjective rankings of all the X-Men and Deadpool movies now that they seem to be truly done as Deadpool (and probably Wolverine) get sucked into the MCU for bit parts for the foreseeable future.

1. Logan

The R-rating aspect of this gets too much attention (from me as much as anyone) as an example of finally being able to see Wolverine brutally kill enemies. While that is awesome, and I immediately turn into an insufferable fanboy when I see those claws enter a goon’s face, the R-rating is mainly there because this is a dark, adult story. I’m all for a fun comic book movie, but when someone can turn one into cinematic art, it’s something truly special. Logan is number one with a bullet on this list, and it’s one of my favorite movies of all time.

2. X2

This one takes me back to that fun early era of superhero films when a sequel was cause for excitement instead of trepidation. Much like with Spider-Man, the first film was the lower stakes proving ground that allowed for a bigger, and better sequel. This is the most rewatchable movie in the series for me. And Brian Cox ruined Stryker for all other actors. No one has come close to him since.

3. X-Men

The first film was a big deal for me. I was used to goofier comic book movies at this point (I was, and still am, a fan of Batman Forever), so when this more serious and moody film came out and showed that these things could be elevated, it made me a lifelong fan. And what a relief when Hugh Jackman immediately proved to be the perfect choice for Wolverine.

4. Deadpool & Wolverine

Definitely some recency bias going on here. Click here for my full thoughts on this one. It’s this high on the list because it did the impossible and made me excited about the MCU again. But in all likelihood, if I revisit this list in a year or two it will likely drop at least one spot.

5. X-Men: Days of Future Past

The Last Stand and the Wolverine spin-offs were disappointing, and First Class gave me a little hope. But this was the movie that brought me back on board. I’m a sucker for future dystopias, so I just enjoyed the premise. And as a fan of both the old and new casts, it was such a relief that they found a way to bring them together in such a satisfying way.

6. X-Men: First Class

This could have gone wrong in so many ways, so it’s a minor miracle that’s not a trainwreck, much less one of the best films in the series. As with the original film, casting played a big part. Fassbender will always be the standout for me, but nearly everyone made their character their own. There’s a little 1960s goofiness here and there, but overall it’s an emotionally resonant film (mainly because of Erik’s storyline) with the added bonus of taking place during a period of history I have a particular interest in.

7. Deadpool

It feels a little weird to include the Deadpool films in any list because the fourth-wall breaking stuff makes them feel like their own thing. But the X-Men play a large part in each film, even if they never devote the whole team to a film. I really enjoy all three, and this one is actually the best movie of the three (even if I enjoy the third film a lot more), but a good proper X-Men movie will always be above these movies…unless Wolverine is a main character.

8. Deadpool 2

I like this one more than most, I think, but I do think they rushed it. I got so excited for Deadpool & Wolverine partly because it’s been six years since the last movie. I think if this had come out even just one year later than it did it might be remembered a bit more fondly. Rewatching them this time close together, it honestly gets a little difficult to differentiate them, which is why they are back to back on this list.

9. X-Men: The Last Stand

Ninth is probably higher than this would be on most lists, but I still enjoy this as the end of a trilogy. It’s certainly the lesser of the three, and there’s nothing here even remotely as memorable as anything in the first two films. But I had grown to love these characters so much at this point that I still liked it. But yeah, upon a rewatch, this is the point that I started to check out a bit while watching.

10. The Wolverine

I watched both the theatrical and extended cut of this, and I think it suffered because of it. This more serious take on a solo Wolverine story is definitely better than the first attempt, but it’s still a bit of a slog. It’s just not a lot of fun to see Logan moping around, wanting to die and without his powers. But this was Mangold crawling before he could run with Logan, so at least there’s that.

11. X-Men Origins: Wolverine

If you accept how fucking stupid this movie is, it’s possible to have a little fun with it, but I can just never forgive those CG claws in the bathroom scene. I’ll never understand how they managed to make them that awful for his FOURTH portrayal of the character. Just keep doing what they had been doing! Perhaps more than any film on this list, this thing collapses under the tiniest bit of scrutiny. But it’s never boring; it’s just really fucking stupid.

12. X-Men: Apocalypse

Origins might be trash, but I’ll still revisit it from time to time. Apocalypse (and the next two movies), on the other hand, just bores me. I wish it was worse, actually, because then I might remember it. The villain just isn’t compelling to me, either. The good thing about most of these movies is that the bad guy has a good reason, at least in their opinion, for what they are doing: Trask thinks he’s protecting humanity, Magneto thinks he’s protecting mutants, etc. Apocalypse is one of those bland villains that just exists to destroy the world because they look evil and that’s what you do when you have a face like that.

13. Dark Phoenix

This was supposed to be some kind of redemption for The Last Stand storyline, and it somehow made fans even angrier. As someone who has never read the comic version of the Dark Phoenix storyline, I wasn't all that upset with how it was handled in The Last Stand, so I didn't need to see it re-done. And apparently no one else dod, either.

14. The New Mutants

This isn't really a bad movie, I was just completely tired of this series by the time I got to this. I just kept wondering who it was made for, because it just seemed miserable inside and out. The abuse of children has been a topic for this series from the get-go, what with Charles's school being used to basically recruit soldiers, and the government's much harsher treatment of mutant children. But it's always been one aspect of the story, not the focus. I just don't want to be this bummed out while watching an X-Men movie. So maybe it's unfair, but I'm putting it at the bottom because I had no fun watching it and never want to see it again.

Deadpool & Wolverine - Marvel Jesus

Deadpool & Wolverine is not a good movie; at least, not in the traditional sense. It’s impossible to judge this film on its own merits when there are so many past (20th Century Fox) and future (the Marvel Cinematic Universe) elements at play. It’s such a strange mashup bridging the gap between two studios that the only way it could possibly work is if it became almost a parody of a comic book movie. In that regard, it must be treated as a typical comedy: it will work for you if you find it funny, and it will be a miserable exercise in fan service if you don’t.

On paper, there are a lot of elements that would normally annoy me about this movie. I like Reynolds and Jackman, and I think they’re both perfectly cast, but I didn’t really care about what happened to them in this. And just like seemingly every other MCU film, the bland villain trying to destroy the entire universe or timeline or whatever was not compelling to me at all. How am I supposed to still care about an end-of-the-world threat at this point? (The only fic for this is to start making smaller movies with more personal stakes for the characters, but that seems to be an impossibility for the MCU.) And the timeline stuff is getting too messy, especially when you toss in the already sloppy X-Men continuity (they never did give a legitimate reason for Charles to be alive in Days of Future Past or the mid-credits scene in The Wolverine). And is Logan a movie in the Deadpool world or real life? It’s treated as both, but neither scenario makes sense…never mind. This is a movie that demands your brain to be put into sleep mode and just go with it, and that’s what I did.

Based on all this dorky complaining above, it would seem like I hated Deadpool & Wolverine, but I actually loved it. I’m so tired of the MCU at this point, I enjoyed this movie as a spoof of it. It’s like the Hot Shots! of the franchise, and that is high praise from me. I’ll avoid spoilers for now, but every cheap element of humor, fan service, and cameo worked for me. Aside from Multiverse of Madness (which I was mainly interested in because of Sam Raimi), this is the first MCU film I’ve actually wanted to watch since Endgame. Every other movie felt like homework that I had to keep up with. This is just fucking fun.

A lot of my enjoyment of this is because of my immature sense of humor. This movie made me feel like a thirteen-year-old fuckhead, and I mean that in the best way possible. There may come a time when Ryan Reynolds making dick jokes or REDACTED talking about “husk-fucked charred remains” won’t be funny to me anymore, but I pray that day never comes. (Ha ha, “comes.”) It’s more than just having the right sense of humor for this; it’s also about simply liking the actors.   

Reynolds and Jackman can play these parts in their sleep at this point, so it’s nice to see them seemingly enjoying themselves in this one. I haven’t grown tired of Reynolds’s schtick yet, so he still works for me. As for Jackman, this was the first time he got to dive into a funnier R-rated version of Logan. Yes, he’s had some comedic moments through the years (the claw finger he gives Cyclops in the first movie is a classic, and I liked the “Go fuck yourself” cameo in First Class), but they’ve only been small moments in the midst of a brooding performance. There’s a little brooding here, but there’s a lot more banter, and it’s great to watch him talk shit to Deadpool for two hours.

The only other element I want to cover before spoilers is the action. I’ve been largely disappointed in this regard for a while with the MCU, but I mostly enjoyed it this time, mainly because of the indestructible main characters and the R-rating. There’s no John Wick-worthy moments or anything, but it is nice to see some gnarly shit in these movies when most of the action lately seems to be like kids playing superheroes rather than actual superhumans trying to kill each other. 

Usually, I hate comparing a movie to a bunch of other movies as a way of critiquing it, but Deadpool & Wolverine is an unusual movie. Because of this, you’ll likely come across the highest praise and the lowest condemnation of this one. But I truly believe it’s all about your personal sense of humor and your relationship with the MCU. For me, those elements were right in step with the movie, making it one of my favorite cinematic experiences of the year so far.

Now for the SPOILERS

Okay, I mainly loved this movie because of the cameos. I’m a basic bitch, and bringing in Chris Evans as Johnny Storm and Channing Tatum as Gambit was enough to win me over. Snipes and Garner were just fun extras for me. Evans in full foul-mouth New Yorker mode cracked me up, especially in the end credits scene. And Tatum’s cajun accent was hilarious. There’s no way that’s what he was planning on doing before his Gambit project got killed, but I would gladly watch a whole movie with him doing that swamp voice.

They didn’t have them do much, but it was great to see Tyler Mane and Ray Park back as Sabretooth and Toad, respectively. Though I was hoping for a Liev Schreiber joke. 

Speaking of jokes I was hoping for, I was a little disappointed that T.J. Miller’s absence wasn’t mentioned, but he talked shit about Reynolds on a podcast or two, so maybe that’s what made it off limits. 

All of those Wolverine variants were great, and of course I loved the yellow suit. It was weird and amazing to see him with the cowl on. It’s funny to think about how far these movies, and that character specifically, have come over the years. In the first X-Men film, Logan talks shit about their black leather costumes, and Cyclops makes a joke about Logan preferring “yellow spandex.” And at the time, it was the right move to make. If they came out the gate with classic costumes, it would be hard to take seriously. The silver lining to this incomprehensible multiverse/branching timeline stuff is that you can just have comics-specific looking characters and not have to justify why they would be dressed like that. 

This movie in general had the kind of fun I wanted them to have with the alternate timeline versions. Get crazy with it. Bring back Aaron Stanford as Pyro, why not? Jason Flemyng as Azazel with no lines? Sure. Throw Kelly Hu back in the mix, too. You get it.

The downside to all of this fan service is that this movie kind of fails at being a sequel to its own second part. Multiple characters (Cable, Domino, Weasel, Firefist) are simply gone (I think he says something about Cable being dead, but I didn’t catch anything about the rest). And the ones that do return, aside from Peter, get absolutely nothing to do aside from standing around a table like they’re filming an Olive Garden commercial. As I stated earlier, I don’t really care that much about any character, but it did feel like they got short changed because they’re part of the old, dying storyline. And that makes sense, but not when the entire plot is about Wade trying to save them. Anyway, it wasn’t like I was wondering where Yukio was while Gambit was blowing heads up with his charged cards, but it did occur to me once the fan service high wore off a bit.

This is why I usually like to wait way too long to write about movies. I have no clue how this is going to hold up. I might be writing about it again in a couple years claiming it’s an abomination that ruined everything before and after it. But I hope not.

The Return of the Living Dead - Do You Wanna Party?

This should have occurred to me years ago, but, thanks to a text from my brother, I just realized that The Return of the Living Dead is a Fourth of July zombie movie. Technically the movie begins on July 3, but at least half of it and the ending takes place on the holiday. Anyway, that’s the only reason I need to write a little something about one of my favorite horror comedies.

“The events portrayed in this movie are all true.”

You know you’re in for a good time with Return from the first frame, which announces, “The events portrayed in this movie are all true. The names are real names of real people and real organizations.” Sure, there’s reference to movies changing the true story in the film, but that’s still a funny way to start a zombie movie.

While I tend to prefer the Romero movies (Day is my favorite), The Return of the Living Dead is there when I want to, pardon the pun, turn my brain off and have fun. The zombies talk, mostly about brains, and all the characters react hilariously, though arguably realistically. 

The zombies are a big reason for the fun of the film. Instead of sticking to any annoying rules, these zombies are fast and loose, literally and figuratively. If the Army chemical (245 Trioxin) is exposed, everyone becomes a zombie. And destroying the brain won’t stop anything. Chopping a zombie to pieces won’t stop it. Nuking the twenty square blocks of Louisville won’t stop it. Also, the zombies run and talk. In other words, these are fun zombies.

A more serious film might take the talking zombies, who need to eat brains to stop the pain of death, and try to make a statement about addiction or some other serious, miserable crap. But it’s just a fact in this movie. And the talking is mainly used for comedic effect, with the constant refrain of “Brains!” or a zombie asking dispatch for “more cops” or an undead boyfriend trying to guilt trip his girlfriend into putting out…her brains. 

Growing up, I was hung up on zombie rules. Bullet to the brain, they can only walk, they can’t talk, etc. Then I watched this movie and realized why I love zombies to begin with. When I was a kid, and still as an adult, if I were to act like a zombie, I would absolutely yell, “Brains!” Before I got into the movies, I just assumed this was how all zombies acted in all movies. Romero’s movies, and my own stupid need to take my fandom so seriously, turned me into one of those insufferable pricks who might correct someone if they said, “Brains,” when acting like a zombie with an, “Actually, in Romero’s films…” Embarrassing. 

Return taught me to chill out and just enjoy a different version of the genre. I still love the Romero movies, but I can’t turn one of those on unless I plan on giving it my full attention. When I go on autopilot, this is my zombie movie.

It’s also my living people in a zombie movie zombie movie. Typically, any zombie movie or show is meant to turn the tables of the living characters and pose such questions as, “Who are the real zombies: the undead monsters, or the mindless consumers walking through malls every day?” That’s fine, and I don’t mind posing such questions when I watch some of these, but the people in Return are simply entertaining in their reactions to the outbreak.

All the punk characters are amusing enough here, even delving into self-parody at times (“You think this is a costume?”), but for me the best moments belong to Frank (James Karen) and Burt (Clu Gulager). When the first zombie comes to life, you expect Freddy to freak out and the older Frank to try to calm him down. Nope. Frank loses his goddamn mind immediately, and is arguably more terrified than Freddy. It’s a blast watching Freddy and Frank blubber and sob as they deal with an undead split dog and a now-living cadaver in the deep freeze. 

Burt ends up being the voice of reason you expect Frank to be, but he takes it so far it becomes humorous. Typically, there’s a skeptic in a film like this that tries to calm people down and tell them there must be a logical reason for everything. Very quickly, this character changes his tune and becomes just as scared as everyone else. Not Burt. He knows what’s up from the get-go because he knows what’s in the barrels. 

Burt does lose his shit a few times, but overall he’s funny because he’s logical in the most illogical scenario. Instead of going to his mortuary buddy, Ernie, in a panic. He casually drops in and makes up some stupid shit about “rabid weasels” before he’s forced to tell him the truth. And while Burt certainly does his share of yelling in the film, I never think he truly loses his shit. Even at the end, as he hears the whistling of the nuke on its way to somehow only kill 4,000 people in Louisville, he still seems calm. There’s something to be said, perhaps, about his trust in the government that when shit really hits the fan, they will be able to take care of it. Maybe that says something about trusting the government, but I don’t care, and I don’t think the movie cares. It’s just funny, and that’s all I want from Return of the Living Dead.

Random Thoughts

July 3, 1984 is on a Tuesday, yet Burt is talking about the 4th of July weekend and a barbecue on that coming Sunday. Man, Burt really stretches the holiday.

“All skeletons come from India.”

The army’s plan for recovering the missing zombie corpses is to wait for someone to call the number on the barrel. Awesome.

James Karen in full freak out mode after waking up is refreshing for this genre. Usually, his type of character would be skeptical and saying shit like, “There’s got to be an explanation for this!” But instead, he’s running around yelling, “Oh, God! Oh, Jesus!” 

The eye test in the office reads, “Burt is a slave driver and a cheap son of a bitch who’s going bald, too ha ha.”

One way this is actually realistic is that they talk about zombie movies when coming up with a plan to kill them. That’s exactly how I would handle the situation, and I would be promptly killed.

The headless naked zombie is hilarious.

“Do you want to party?” kicking in when the first graveyard corpse comes to life is an all-time needle drop. And the filmmakers agree since they simply re-used the scene for the ending shot.

“Are you crazy? Are you on PCP?” That is exactly how I greet everyone who comes to my door.

Talking zombies are so great, but they only work for horror comedies.

The fact that the zombies eat brains to make the pain go away makes this film the best zombie film as an allegory for the opioid epidemic.

You have to appreciate a movie that’s so confident that a montage of scenes from the movie plays during the credits. Not outtakes or anything like that, just replayed footage from earlier in the movie.

The colonel at the end says “Louisville” incorrectly, but he wouldn’t be expected to know the local way, being from San Diego.