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.

"Swordfish": A Movie Out of Time

*I write these articles under the assumption that you've seen the movie, so...SPOILERS.

The few people who have stumbled upon this site might think it’s influenced by (or is a slight ripoff of) the How Did This Get Made? podcast. They would be slightly right. I would say only about half of my posts fit the same category as that podcast. I write about movies I own, not just about shitty movies. There has been some crossover, but I don’t own very many of the movies they cover on the show. And I have not timed any of my posts in relation to the movies they do....until now...sort of. They covered Van Helsing (no fucking way I would ever own that) a few weeks ago, and while checking their Facebook page I saw that people were asking about the release of the Swordfish (a movie I do own) episode. And during the Van Helsing episode, they even talk about doing a Swordfish show right before the current episode. But they haven’t released it yet. I have no idea when they will release it, but I’m assuming it will be soon. With that in mind, I decided that if I was going to watch this movie again for the podcast, why not also write about it? So that’s what’s going on with this post, and I’ll probably do it again when they cover another movie I own. Who knows when they'll release the episode, but let this article be evidence that I didn't listen to the podcast first, so any crossover comments are completely coincidental.

Is Travolta a good guy?

Travolta is clearly the antagonist of the movie, but is he a true villain? Even if his goal to acquire money to fund his fight against terrorism seems noble, innocent people die because of his actions. A lot of people die because of his plan. And, sure, some of them were bad people, but some of them just didn’t agree with him (Sam Shepard and his aide) or were collateral damage (the hostage and SWAT members killed in the explosion and Jackman’s ex and new husband [but they made pornos, so they’re bad!]). Deciding if his ends justify the means is the strongest point of the movie, and, I would argue, the main point of the movie.

Swordfish begins in the middle with Travolta seemingly speaking directly to the audience about hostage takers in movies not going far enough to get what they want. This gets the audience thinking about “bad guys” in movies. Near the end of the film is when Travolta takes it a step further and pretty much explains his whole philosophy. He presents Jackman with a classic moral dilemma: would you kill one innocent person to save multiple people? Jackman argues that no one should make such a decision and Travolta is no different than the terrorists he claims to fight. Travolta calls bullshit, claiming that needless death happens everyday, but no one seems to care, and he can and will do something about it.

This makes for an interesting villain because his argument is not completely crazy. He doesn’t want to kill anyone, but if people have to die for his ultimate goal of fighting terrorism effectively, then so be it. Looking at this practically, is he wrong? If you pay attention to the typical message of movies, he is wrong. When told one person must die to save many more, the hero always saves the one person which usually leads to them also saving everyone, making the conflict pointless. But if movies pushed the envelope like Travolta suggests, then the hero should bear the burden of their choice leading to many more deaths.

That all sounds vague, so I’ll give an example that always comes to mind. In the first Sam Raimi Spider-Man, the Green Goblin wants Spider-Man to choose: save Mary Jane or a cable car full of children. Of course, he finds a way to save both (for the record, he picked Mary Jane first...what a hero?). Most movies use the “pick one to save” situation as a challenge for the hero to overcome rather than an actual moral choice. And the movies are less interesting because of it. By the way, I am aware that other movies do make the choices actually matter, but in general the hero has to win.

With Swordfish, there wasn’t a choice situation, and Travolta appears sincerely upset that the hostage died (to be fair, Travolta has already made his choice, and Jackman does try to stop him). But he does get away with it, and it’s shown that he is hunting terrorists with the funds he received. Does this make him a good guy?

Hypothetically, I say yes, Travolta is overall a good guy. It would be hard to argue against a man fighting terrorism. But in reality, some unlucky bank patron dying for this guy’s cause would not sit well with me. Based on what we see in the movie, Travolta just wants to be free to fight terrorism effectively, without government oversight. Typically, getting around government red tape is a good thing. But when if you look at some of Travolta’s dialogue, we can see a possible slippery slope.

Travolta changes his argument about saving more people to “preserving our way of life.” That’s a little problematic but realistic. Sure, killing people just to let Americans live comfortably sounds bad. But in Travolta’s defense, that’s what seems to be important to everyone. He gives Jackman shit for not caring about the daily death toll in the world because, like most Americans, he’s shielded from it. Travolta just wants to be an effective shield for all of us moral hypocrites. Where Travolta gets truly problematic is when he brings up nuclear warheads, making a claim that he gets a discount if he buys a lot of them.

Killing a terrorist leader on his yacht is one thing, but nuking a city is quite the leap forward. Travolta’s argument is that no country would harbor terrorists once they see what he’s capable of. That means he would have to use at least one nuke to let the world know he’s serious. That doesn’t sound very logical. First, it assumes that terrorism exists because countries allow it, and that is not the case. Sure, some countries do harbor terrorists, but most are either unaware of the terrorists or unable to combat them effectively. So they get nuked? How does the rest of the world respond? And even if Travolta is rogue, would his attack not appear to be backed by America? He is one step away from becoming a Bond villain.

If Travolta just wanted to assassinate terrorist leaders, then yeah, he’s kind of a good guy despite his methods of acquiring the money. But when he brings up nukes, he enters bad guy territory. Either way, this aspect of the film definitely makes it more interesting than a lot of movies. It’s unfortunate that the film didn’t focus a bit more on this and instead painted Travolta as a total villain until the final moment of the film, but it still made for a thought-provoking element, and that’s more than you can say for most of the “shit” that Hollywood makes.

A movie out of time.

Swordfish was lucky and unlucky with its release time for many reasons. First off, if this movie had been scheduled for release three to four months later, after 9/11, who knows what the studio would have done with it. The explosion and aerial destruction would bother audiences, but that stuff wouldn’t seem insensitive if given a few months. But the plot about terrorism might have kept this out of theaters for even longer. It’s not that people wouldn’t want to see a story about a man wanting to hunt terrorists, quite the contrary. It’s possible people would be even more willing to see Travolta as a good guy. But how could you watch this movie without thinking about 9/11, which had happened yet in the world of Swordfish? It would completely take people out of the story.

It’s hard to imagine now, but terrorism was not taken all that seriously as a threat pre-9/11 (to all the older readers, I know you know this, but as someone who used to teach kids born right around or after 9/11, trust me, they have no concept of the pre-9/11 world). Obviously terrorism existed, but it was something that happened mainly in other countries, at least on a large scale. I suppose I should write “Islamic terrorism” because terrorism in the ‘90s in America was mainly domestic (the Unabomber, Timothy McVeigh, etc.). Even with the earlier bombing of the World Trade Center, Islamic terrorism wasn’t the focus until 9/11. At least this was certainly the case with movies. For example, look at True Lies: the terrorists in that movie are often portrayed comedically. Yes, they were a threat, but not to be taken completely seriously.

My point with all this is that terrorism became the main thing on most people’s minds in the immediate years following 9/11. That would actually make Swordfish a better movie, in my opinion. Instead of terrorism being used as a kind of tacked on aspect of the story, it would become the focus. With some reshoots and editing, the movie could exist in an even better form. It could have said something about the moment. Instead, it slightly predicted our country’s focus on terrorism. That’s still interesting, but it made for a less memorable movie for most people, myself included. Hell, I kind of forgot a lot of that part of Travolta’s plan until I rewatched it. I just remembered it for that opening explosion and Halle Berry’s topless scene.

Which brings me to why this movie would also need some major editing if it was released today. As our society becomes more mindful of sexism, gratuitous topless scenes and hacking-while-getting-a-blow-job scenes are becoming more and more rare. Today’s audiences are aware of the exploitation, and they’re not that into it anymore. On top of that, he sex in this movie felt very tacked on anyway. It was as if some producer read the script and asked, “Can we get some more sex and nudity in this? All this computer stuff is for nerds.” And that’s where Halle Berry factors into things.

At the time of its release, Swordfish was famous because producers paid Halle Berry $500,000 to do a topless scene. In 2001, that news created interest in the film. In 2019, it would create outrage, justified or not. For the record, it wasn’t one of those slimy situations in which Berry was told to get naked or she was fired. She made a lot of money for it, and she talked about how she wanted to confront her fear of doing nudity. The problem is more the world we live in where this is a situation and a story about a film.

My issue with the use of sex in the film is that it is unnatural to the story. Berry’s topless scene has no point, aside from making Hugh Jackman blush. They even filmed the scene with her clothed, as well, for the TV version, so it’s obvious that the nudity was not integral to the plot. Aside from Berry’s famous scene and other creepy, leering shots of her body throughout, one other memorable sexual moment comes to mind: the hacking test. Jackman has one minute to hack into a government website while getting a blowjob and while a gun is pointed at his head. I imagine the same producer suggesting the blowjob element when looking at the script. Once again, the point of it is to distract Jackman, but a gun to his head isn’t enough? It’s just a ridiculous scene that’s there for shock value.

You could find stuff like this in movies from any time period, including today, but I point these moments out in Swordfish because there are elements that could be taken out entirely. With the freed up space, not only is the movie less juvenile, but there is also running time that can be devoted more to the terrorism plot. And if the film would have had to go through reshoots had it been released later, it would have given the filmmakers plenty of wiggle room to make a much more serious, insightful film.

But it came out three months before the world changed. So instead of being a very serious, and entertaining, film about a changed (or changing) world, it’s the movie that paid Halle Berry a half a million dollars to get topless.

Did I imagine that this was sold as a Matrix-style movie?

I’ll keep this one short (as if many people made it this far into an article about Swordfish anyway), but for whatever reason I’ve always thought of this movie as a Matrix clone. I did find an old TV spot that mentions a quote from a review calling it “The Matrix meets The French Connection!” Maybe that’s what did it initially.

Rewatching it, I think the entire style of the film is lifted from The Matrix. The music is nearly identical: a mix of techno and traditional, though horn-heavy, score. The text of the title and location tags is similar to the text of The Matrix. The whole film has a strange tint to it similar to scenes within the matrix in...uh...The Matrix. It tries to make Jackman like Neo before he wakes up: he’s being manipulated and has no idea what’s really going on all around him. And finally, it’s a movie about hacking. Yeah, this movie was trying to be like The Matrix. It doesn’t make it bad, but it did make it very distracting when I re-watched it.

Why do I own this?

I really thought this movie was cool when I saw it in the theaters. I definitely see it as less cool these days, but I still like this movie. I dug the overall mood of the movie. I think my love of The Matrix and this movie seeming to be like The Matrix played a factor in my enjoyment of it. Most of that stuff annoys me watching it today, but I still like the twist and the overall plot. And, as always, any movie that can make me write this much should be in my collection.

Random Thoughts

The opening titles and music are such an obvious Matrix ripoff.

Ballsy move starting a movie off with a monologue about how Hollywood produces shit.

It's the rare non-Tom-Cruise-movie William Mapother role!

Vinnie Jones seemed to be everywhere for a while, then he disappeared.

I still think that opening explosion holds up, despite my reservations about using an explosion involving a hostage and police officers to make a cool effects sequence.

Man, the music is annoyingly Matrix-like.

The score is done in part by Paul Oakenfold, though, and his music was undeniably an influence on The Matrix, but still…

Who the fuck hits golf balls while wearing a bath towel?

Halle Berry is legitimately only in this movie to be gawked at, both by characters and the audience.

You know Drea de Matteo is a bad mom because she smokes Winstons. Gross!

Even the location titles do the Matrix thing.

Don Cheadle telling the hacker's lawyer to eat a dick is great.

They even have the same slider phones from The Matrix!

When the police tech guys start talking about the porn dude, the nerdier one tries to hand Cheadle a VHS tape. Was that one of the pornos? Did he just have that at hand? At work? What the fuck is going on there?

And then one of them says Halle Berry is out of Hugh Jackman's league? Is anyone, male or female, out of Jackman's league?

Speaking of which, my God this is a horny movie. It seems like every five minutes there's something sexual: a blowjob while hacking, skinny dipping, full frontal nudity, etc. I can see why I liked this a bit more back when I was seventeen.

I don't when I became so critical of movie music, but it just really bothered me rewatching this. When Jackman runs from Cheadle, it starts off with the techno stuff that had been playing the whole movie. But when he jumps down the hill, the music jarringly shifts into traditional peril music. Pick a style and stick with it!

They really tried their best to make hacking exciting with that silly montage.

What hacker drinks multiple bottles of wine while working? Wouldn't he need to be alert?

That Jefferson line is bullshit, but maybe that's what Sam Shepard was about to say when Travolta shot him.

I think the inspiration for the line is Aaron Burr killing a man in a duel while he was Vice President. But it wasn't for treason, and it certainly wasn't on the White House lawn.

I don't see the point of starting the movie with the hostage sequence other than just wanting to start the movie with the most expensive sequence.

I can't believe the hook-a-bus-full-of-human-claymores-to-a-helicopter didn't go smoothly.

I like that Travolta and Berry survive and get the money to go on their war on terror cruise, but I don’t like that he planned everything Jackman would do. Part of his plan is that a hacker/dad is going to be able to use a rocket launcher and hit a helicopter with it. That seems a bit too far-fetched, even for a movie like this.

..

You Should Watch "Anna Karenina" and Skip "Les Miserables." Hear me out on this...

I know this is the opposite of what most critics would tell you, but having watched both, I cannot understand how someone could tell a moviegoer to watch Les Miserables (the accent over the e is not worth the trouble, by the way, so I'll just go with unaccented throughout) when Anna Karenina goes all but ignored by nearly everyone.  Both are films that depict a story from classic literature told in stylish, ambitious ways.  The difference?  In Anna Karenina, the characters speak to each other…like normal humans in films do.  In Les Miserables, the characters…sing…everything.  Okay, you got me; I do not like musicals.  Unless it’s funny or on a stage in New York or something, I don’t want to hear the characters sing their dialogue.  I couldn’t stand Chicago, barely got through Sweeney Todd, and I cringed through Les Miserables.  So if you like musicals, don’t listen to me.  You’ll undoubtedly love Les Miserables (I refuse to shorten the title, by the way) if you enjoy any other musicals.  It’s long, it’s expensive, and it has a lot of star power.  Almost all of the other critics are salivating over it, but I don’t get it.  I am not really going to review the musical, but I have to put this out there: Russell Crowe cannot sing.  He can’t.  He sounded weird, unnatural, and generally terrible in this film.  I would call it laughable, but I found myself to perplexed by his voice to actually laugh.  Okay, on to Anna Karenina, and why, if you’re on the fence about musicals or hate them as I much as I do, you should watch this film when you get the chance.

 

First, for those of you who hear all of the hoopla over the musical (as I will refer to it from here on out) and think, “I don’t really like musicals, but everyone says it’s soooooo good,” don’t lie to yourself.  If you don’t like musicals, there’s no way this one will change your mind.  If you find it silly for someone to sing lines of dialogue describing exactly what you are watching them do, then you will still find this film silly.  It looks great, don’t get me wrong, but they still sing.  Anna Karenina (or AK as I will refer to it hereafter due to my difficulty in typing Karenina over and over) provides all of the melodrama and visual flair that the musical provides, but it doesn’t leave you asking yourself, “Why were they singing the whole time?” 

 

AK takes a classic tale of forbidden love and injects it with the amazing style that director Joe Wright is known for.  I began to truly pay attention to this director after his last effort, Hanna, because he uses style perfectly.  It’s not in your face, yet it’s still impressive.  The style calls attention to itself, but feels natural.  If he can take a dense Russian novel and turn it into a stylishly entertaining film, then this is a director worth paying attention to. 

 

I don’t want to get into the story all that much, even though playwright Tom Stoppard did a fine job condensing the novel into less than two hours, while also keeping the tragedy and depressing comedy of it all intact.  I want to focus on Wright’s take on this film.  He sets it up as if it is all happening on a stage, even to the point that there are set changes from scene to scene at times.  It was the perfect way to tell this story.  Is AK not a story meant for the drama of the stage? 

 

I acknowledge the contradiction of hating one film because it is meant for the stage and praising another because it was filmed as if it was on a stage.  I am not being unfair, though.  The musical is meant for the stage and it should stay there.  AK would work on the stage, but it is endlessly more entertaining to see it filmed as if it were on the stage.  AK is meant for the stage in that it is melodramatic and there is an inherent musical quality to the proceedings.  Musical in the strictest sense of the word in that classical music is utilized amazingly well, and the characters never feel the need to join in with the music. 

 

If I haven’t convinced you to check one out over the other at this point, I highly doubt that I will.  But perhaps a bit about the performances will help.  Keira Knightley, of course, is great as the title character.  She was simply born to play the miserable character of a Russian novel.  Jude Law was impressive as her cuckolded husband.  Aaron Taylor-Johnson (of Kick-Ass fame) continues to show his range as Vronsky.  And Matthew Macfadyen was a bright spot in a supporting role. 

 

The true star of the film, as you may have guessed, is the director.  I have not been very specific with any of the “style” of the film, but that’s because it is better seen with very little knowledge.  I had no idea what I was in for specifically, so when I saw it the first time it impressed me and kept me hooked throughout.  If you want a musical story without all the nonsensical singing, then Anna Karenina is definitely the movie for you.

"X-Men Origins: Wolverine" / The Craptastic Cage Trilogy

*Note: I've made a few more changes. I added a poll to the left that will be updated weekly. I also added a list of links to check out for more movie-related stuff.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine - Directed by Gavin Hood, starring Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, and Danny Huston - Rated PG-13

The summer movie season was supposed to have begun with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but I think it’s going to have to wait for Star Trek to truly begin. Wolverine, despite featuring fun performances from Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, and Danny Huston, tries to cram too much in what should have been a smaller, character-driven action movie. Wolverine goes for quantity over quality when it comes to character, though.

The story begins in Canada in 1845 with a sickly adolescent James Logan (Wolverine) being watched by Victor Creed (Sabretooth), the son of the groundskeeper. The groundskeeper shows up, drunk and yelling, and things get violent, allowing James to unleash his skeletal claws and yell up at the camera. Yelling up at the camera must be one of Wolverine’s mutant powers because he does it every chance he gets, which becomes unintentionally funny. After the yelling and the violence, James finds out Victor is his brother and the two run away, setting up a cool credits sequence in which they both fight through every major American war (except Korea) up to Vietnam.

Throughout the credits, a divide is starting to form between James and Victor (now as their adult counterparts played by Jackman and Schreiber). Victor seems to enjoy killing quite a bit, while James stays closer to humanity. Eventually, they are sentenced to death for attacking their own soldiers, but when their execution doesn’t take, William Stryker (Huston), who eventually gives Wolverine his metal skeleton/claws, recruits them to join a mutant strike force.

The strike force leads to a further divide between the brothers. Victor finds kindred spirits among the other mutants, who all seem to be fine with slaughtering innocent villagers. I would name each member of the strike force, but it’s pointless. They are never given a chance to develop into actual characters and are all forgettable. Ryan Reynolds shows promise as Wade/Deadpool, but he’s only in a scene or two, despite how much he is featured in previews for the movie. This is where the movie becomes bloated. Soon after the breakup of the team, a new mutant seems to be introduced every five minutes as if to say, “Hey kids! Remember Gambit from the cartoon? We’ve got him! We also have Cyclops back even though it is completely unnecessary for him to be in this film!”

If just four or five of these extra characters would’ve been left on the cutting room floor, then the brother vs. brother dynamic, which keeps this movie entertaining, could have been fleshed out. But as it is, I found myself becoming bored at times just waiting for Wolverine and Sabretooth to have another scene together. But I didn’t become too bored, because the action is impressive throughout the film, though it lacks the style from the first two X-Men films (that style was lost when Brett Ratner took over for the third film). The missing style might be because director Gavin Hood (Rendition) is not an action director and had to have Richard Donner (Superman) come in to consult.

Despite these problems, Wolverine does entertain at times and it is very fun to watch Jackman and Schreiber lock horns. The biggest mistake is that the filmmakers didn’t realize they had a good enough movie on their hands with these two characters. They took a kitchen sink approach to the film, which made it an uneven mess that will soon be forgotten.

**This review may be in The Perry County News (link on the left). I said almost everything I wanted to in this review, so I decided to use it for both. This may not be the case for each movie I review for the paper, though. And, to add a little something for the website, I will comment a bit further on some things that bothered me and some things I liked.

More things I didn't like: the scene with Wolverine checking out his claws in the mirror is awful. Those claws were so cartoonish looking they made me laugh. Other than that, I didn't have too much of an issue with the CG, but that scene was terrible. My other problem, which might be a spoiler (fair warning), is that Sabretooth is too different from the version in the first movie. Since Stryker was doing all of that DNA stuff, why couldn't they just create a new Sabretooth, which would explain why the other Sabretooth is completely different looking and seems to have half the intelligence of Schreiber's version. And I wanted Wolverine to get into the dark side of the character a bit more. I think it would have made the character more interesting if he had been shown engaging in this behavior he disagreed with before deciding it was wrong, but in this he's the moralistic hero from the very beginning. Oh, and Ryan Reynolds should have been in more scenes than will.i.am!

More things I liked: the action, the action, the action. Every fight between Wolverine and Sabretooth is great and their banter was funny. I still like the, "Ooh, shiny" line from the previews and the movie did supply a decent amount of laughs. Liev Schreiber is perfect as Sabretooth as well, which is why I wish the focus was more on him than all of the other mutants along the way. I don't know, this movie strikes me as the type to have some kind of director's cut on DVD, so I will have to wait for that to weigh in on a lot of these issues, which could be corrected through editing.

The Craptastic Nic Cage Trilogy - 8MM, Snake Eyes, and The Wicker Man

*I decided to change the title from Crappy to Craptastic Classics. Not a big change, I know, but it sounds better to me. I'm still open to suggestions for it, though.

I don't want to dwell on each of these films, exactly. I just want to point out that these movies get a bad rap. Well, The Wicker Man deserves its reputation, but I'll get into it in a moment as to why I consider it a "classic." First, 8MM is about a private detective (Cage) who has to figure out if a snuff film found in a rich client's safe is real or not. This movie just has a mood to it that I've always dug. The weird music, the dark, seedy places Cage investigates along with the humorous and strange characters make this movie entertaining. And Cage isn't half bad. He does some of that awful yelling/"emoting" but for the most part he is cast well. Joaquin Phoenix, James Gandolfini, and Peter Stormare round out the cast, each doing a great job playing a porn-shop worker with a heart, a slimy producer, and a eccentric and funny director, respectively. This movie isn't award-worthy or anything, but it's definitely better than people would have you believe.

Snake Eyes is in the same boat as 8MM. Cage plays a slightly corrupt cop opposite his squeaky clean army buddy played by Gary Sinise. When a politician is murdered during a boxing match, Cage decides to start doing his job in this complicated, stylish conspiracy film. Brian De Palma directs, using his trademark splitscreens to great effect. I just like this movie because there's a noir style to it as Cage deals with liars and femme fatales. I just think this movie is misunderstood and people don't acknowledge the callback to the old noir films from the past. But then again, I love anything that is remotely noir-like, so that may be while I'm in the minority in my appreciation of this movie.

The Wicker Man. This is the movie that features Nic Cage in a bear suit. I don't even want to explain why he puts on the suit. It's all just so stupid, but this movie is so unintentionally funny that I consider it to be very entertaining. You can skip watching the whole movie and just click on this link to watch a compilation of the dumbest scenes from the movie recut as a hilarious comedy trailer. But I find the scenes to be even funnier in the context of the movie. Cage is awful in this one, but I want to point out that I don't think he is a bad actor in general. I know he gets trashed by critic after critic, but he's capable of greatness. Just watch The Weather Man, Leaving Las Vegas, Raising Arizona, or Adaptation. It's a matter of character. When he plays these characters that have to show emotion by yelling, it turns to comedy. If he would just pick proper roles, he could avoid all of the bashing. But don't dismiss a movie just because it has Nic Cage in it. Remember the good roles he's had and judge each movie by itself.

Next: Star Trek