I have fallen behind on Marvel’s movies, not seeing any since the pandemic (and I had missed Ant-Man and the Wasp even before then). Now, I am going to start a rewatch/catch-up project.
The What
Rather than give a general breakdown here, I’ll just link to the project page, which has the full list nicely broken down and also includes a (incomplete) list of the stuff that I’ve deemed beyond the scope of this project and why.
My current schedule has me finishing July 13. There’s a very good chance Thunderbolts won’t be on Disney+ by then, but the list also doesn’t have any Disney+ series past Echo, even though a few are known to be coming in the next year or so. So what’ll likely happen is I’ll get to Thunderbolts right around the time it drops on Disney+, then I’ll decide whether I’m going to see Fantastic Four in theaters or wait for home video/streaming.
X-Men Trilogy (2000 – 2006)
X-Men is a very grounded superhero movie, poking fun at comic book staples like codenames and bright costumes (while still using, if downplaying, the former) and avoiding things like punny one-liners from the villains. Oh, sure, you’ve got a guy with a metal skeleton and a woman who can fly and summon lightning and a guy who shoots lasers1 out of his eyes and a villain whose grand plot is to turn all the world leaders into mutants. But it’s mostly played seriously – and the movie starts with the boy who will become Magneto being separated from his parents in Auschwitz – and it works well.
The first movie did the heavy lifting establishing the world of X-Men and the main characters. This lets X22 tell its story, trusting the audience to remember key bits from the first movie, like that Mystique is impersonating Kelly3. Iceman gets more to do this time around than be the cute boy who likes Rogue; one of the film’s best scenes is the sequence where he comes out to his family. Nightcrawler is a good addition to the cast, and it’s too bad Alan Cumming hated the makeup process and didn’t stick around. And of course, the Alkali Lake sequence is the peak of the trilogy.
Some things in X2 stand out in hindsight as setting the stage for bigger problems with the next movie – Wolverine’s personal connection with Stryker makes him even more the focus character. Cyclops is absent for most of the movie, and Iceman and Rogue are mostly sidelined in the end. Lady Deathstrike is given very little to do until her fight with Wolverine near the end. Then X-Men: The Last Stand tries to adapt the Phoenix Saga by having Jean kill Cyclops and Xavier, then stand around doing nothing until she starts destroying everything in the end. Meanwhile Wolverine is even more in focus, Rogue takes herself out of the action, and good God, why would you call her Psylocke if that’s all you’re going to do with her? The movie has its moments and is not as bad as its reputation, but it’s definitely disappointing after the first two.
Spider-Man Trilogy (2002 – 2007)
If X-Men (and Blade before it) downplays its comic roots, Spider-Man embraces them. Spidey’s costume is straight off the comic page, Jameson is a ridiculous character played to perfection by JK Simmons, and Willem Dafoe’s Norman Osborn does not go a little mad when he tries his super serum. Neither approach is necessarily better – X-Men‘s approach works fine for it, but Spider-Man embracing the silly side is the right choice for the character as well. Not that the movie is all light – you’ve got Ben’s death and all the guilt that goes with it, and Peter choosing not to pursue a romantic relationship with Mary Jane because she nearly got killed by Norman when the latter figured out who he is.
My memory of Spider-Man 2 is that the start of the movie, depicting how much being Spider-Man was making Peter Parker’s life suck, went a little too far to the point of feeling oppressive. Maybe I just wasn’t in a great mood the previous times4, maybe I’m older and more patient – whatever the case, it wasn’t so bad this time. The movie has a strong theme – does he want to be Peter Parker or Spider-Man, or can he find a way to balance both? (Hmm. While Dr. Octopus was a great villain, I can’t help but think using Lizard to contrast with Spider-Man’s dual identity might have been a stronger choice.)
Spider-Man 3 is a bit busy. You’ve got Sandman, Venom, Mary Jane’s career hitting a bump, Peter being insensitive, Symbiote Peter being a jerk, and Harry’s story hitting conveniently timed beats. There’s a lot here that doesn’t work – probably the worst is Bernard finally telling Harry the truth after letting anger and hatred consume him (apparently he’s supposed to be a hallucination, but that doesn’t come off at all). That said, it’s a decent movie with some good scenes, and Sandman at least is a good villain.
Daredevil and Elektra (2003 – 2005)
This was my first time watching the director’s cuts of either movie. It’s been years since I’ve seen either of these movies – since Elektra‘s theatrical run, I’m sure – so I’ve long forgotten a bunch of the details and couldn’t be sure what was added (aside from a whole subplot for Daredevil that makes up a significant chunk of its expanded runtime).
In the director’s cut, Daredevil is a lot like the TV series – Matt’s going against the Kingpin both as Matt Murdock the lawyer and as Daredevil the superhero vigilante. The problem is a lot of the movie was shot for the theatrical cut and stands out as being really goofy when the rest of the movie’s played so straight: the playground fight between Matt and Elektra is silly, and Bullseye feels like they dropped a villain from the Joel Schumacher Batman movies into one of Christopher Nolan’s. The added subplot of Matt defending a man accused of murder is generally strong (a scene where Matt assaults a witness who got away with lying on the stand because his pacemaker fooled Matt’s super-hearing aside), also giving Foggy more to do.
I managed to enjoy Elektra when I saw it in theaters, but rewatching it now I’m not sure why. Maybe seeing it in a theater made it less boring. Stick’s master plan is okay, there are some nice moments between Elektra and Abby… and that’s about all there is to recommend. The Hand is bland, mostly only seen in boardroom scenes or as generic ninja who are every bit susceptible to the Inverse Ninja Law. Kirigi and his team are only slightly better because their powers make them stand out, but they tend to die in ridiculously stupid ways (Stone crushed under a tree he felled being the worst). And no, it doesn’t help that Kirigi killed Elektra’s mother; the flashbacks really don’t add anything to the movie other than runtime. As for the Director’s Cut, looking through a list of differences it doesn’t seem much of interest was added – just a few alternate takes.
Next: “You’ve become part of a bigger universe. You just don’t know it yet.”