The Reel Rejects - All X-MEN Movies Ranked!! (Deadpool 1 & 2 Included)

Episode Date: May 16, 2024

BEFORE DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE HITS THEATERS!! Coy Jandreau from Reel Rejects is here to do a Ranking all 11 X-Men movies from the Marvel / Fox Universe as well as including Deadpool 1 & Deadpool 2! With the X-Men 97 Episode 10 (Finale) resonating strongly with fans, the high anticipation of the return of Hugh Jackman as Logan & Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool in Deadpool 3, let's gear up for the ultimate ranking video before the X-Men join the MCU! The list includes X-Men (2000), X2: X-Men United (X-Men 2), X-Men The last Stand, X-Men Origins Wolverine, X-Men First Class, The Wolverine, X-Men Days Of Future Past, X-men Apocalypse, Dark Phoenix, & The New Mutants. Marvel Phase 5 is set to debut the Fantastic Four & MORE as apart of the MCU Multiverse Saga and we await the debut of Daredevil Born Again! Maybe going over this list will get our fan casting brain going with thinking of actors for Cyclops, Jean Grey, Professor X, Magneto, Storm, Rogue, Morph, Mystique, Bishop, & MORE. This is Every X-Men Moved Ranked! Follow Coy Jandreau:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwYH2szDTuU9ImFZ9gBRH8w Support The Channel By Getting Some REEL REJECTS Apparel! https://www.rejectnationshop.com/ Music Used In Manscaped Ad:  Hat the Jazz by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ POWERED BY @GFUEL Visit https://gfuel.ly/3wD5Ygo and use code REJECTNATION for 20% off select tubs!! Head Editor: https://www.instagram.com/praperhq/?hl=en Co-Editor: Greg Alba Co-Editor: John Humphrey Music In Video: Airport Lounge - Disco Ultralounge by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Ask Us A QUESTION On CAMEO: https://www.cameo.com/thereelrejects Follow TheReelRejects On FACEBOOK, TWITTER, & INSTAGRAM:  FB: https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/thereelrejects Follow GREG ON INSTAGRAM & TWITTER: INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/thegregalba/ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/thegregalba Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Visit your local Sierra store today. citizens of the reject nation we are going to dive into the x-men films ranking all of them including the deadpool films because deadpool and wolverine is around the corner and i thought this would be a great way to celebrate our road to deadpool and wolverine looking back on all of these films i can almost guarantee you i think my list is pretty unique to anyone else's i think the way i see these films is unique to myself and i do see them as both someone who grew up watching these. I was 12 when the first one came out and someone who was raised reading these comics. So I'm very uniquely poised to dive into this. 25 years in the making.

I've not been more excited for a movie as I am Deadpool and Wolverine. And I'm really excited to relive these films with you looking at their strengths and weaknesses. So please leave a like if you enjoy this list. Leave a like if you didn't because I appreciate it. And also leave in the comments below your list, your ranking. The thing about these lists is none of them are wrong. It is your experience. It is your opinion. It is your journey with these movies. A quarter century with these mutants is a very long time. I want to celebrate that. So please let me know how you went through this journey, which one's your favorite, and why I want that comment board to be like a comic store. I want to hear all of the

nerdy, nitty gritty down below, and I want it to be respectful like a well-run comic store. So please do that down below. Without further ado, let's get to my first. Coming in at number 13, and unfortunately one that we probably all agree with, is X-Men Origins Wolverine. Now, part of what makes this painful is there are moments that are great in this movie, but there's not many of them. And when you know what something could have been, that does make when something's bad, all the harder.

I love the opening of this film. I think the leave triber, live Shriver, I'm not sure how to say your name, Sabretooth, and I'm sorry, but the sequence with him and Hugh Jackman as these brothers at arms, these brothers through war, this beautiful relationship with Wolverine and Sabertooth, I thought absolutely sung, and then the movie started and absolutely stunk. I don't know how many cooks were in this kitchen, but I do know this movie took place while there was a writer's strike going on.

So it clearly had a lot of problems. You guys know how much I love Deadpool. Deadpool's my guy. And what they did to my boy, they massacred my boy. And what the elements of Deadpool are were stripped away. Like the Merck with the mouth should never have his mouth sewn shut. And this isn't even a Deadpool movie,

but to harm a character to that level, and then to kind of sacrifice Wolverine on that journey, it didn't really feel like Wolverine as much, as Hugh Jackman usually does. There were some great set pieces that are like, oh, he's doing the motorcycle thing, he's got these moments, but they all felt like they were trying really hard. And if that's one thing Wolverine's known for, it's not trying very hard, Bub, like he's just the best there isn't what he does. This movie felt like someone trying to show they were the coolest there is at what they do. And that's just not Wolverine. This movie's a lot of shiny,

a lot of failed opportunities with a few glimmers of moments. It is definitely my number 13. Coming into number 12 is, unfortunately, because I really wanted to like this movie. X-Men Apocalypse. X-Men Apocalypse is a movie that really doesn't know where to put its energy. It doesn't where to put its focus. And it has a lot of really, really beautiful ideas, none of which I felt like were executed to scale. This is actually the only X-Men movie,

and I am including X-Men Origins Wolverine, the only X-Men movie I've only seen twice. And that hurts me because I love Oscar Isaac. And Oscar Isaac, as Apocalypse, on paper, genius. But how often have even thought of it since 2019 that he played Apocalypse? That's insane. I'm so upset that we wasted one of the great actors. I'm glad Moon Knight did some work there.

But to hide that man under all of that and also to make the character of Apocalypse who's so important to the X-Men, to Mutantum, to the idea of evolution, just whatever that was, it's a shame. Now, there are moments. I do love Storm getting a bit more time to shine. I do love that we get some action set pieces that feel like the team dynamic I love from especially the X-Men animated series. But what I don't love is that it is one of the best examples of it feeling like an interesting

mutant movie and never really establishing that X-Men tone the comics gather. And that's going to be a theme throughout this list. I do think there are more exceptions to that being acceptable. But here, X-Men Apocalypse is somehow not very memorable. It's special effects did not hold up, especially considering it was one of the later installments. And the villain was horribly wasted, as were a number of supporting cast. This one just, it's such a bummer because McAvoy and Fastbender, they deserve better to.

Coming into number 11 is unfortunately one of the most recent installments in the franchise. And a big reason I'm excited we're getting Deadpool and Wolverine because I don't want to say goodbye to the X-Men like this. X-Men Dark Phoenix is such a bold and ambitious swing for a first-time director. And I think that's some of its strengths, but most of its weaknesses. I don't think you should try rebooting a franchise by rebooting a story you just hold 10. years ago. The Phoenix story was horribly squandered in X-Men The Last Stand. We'll get to that in a minute. But then to rehash it and then kind of fail again in a smaller way, it really is a shame because Dark Phoenix is the iconic X-Men story for a lot of people. And it partially captured

the angst of power and the trickiness of childhood. But we'd only just met the Scott and Jean, and they were children. So childlike angst and the God power, they really didn't find a way to mesh very well in this film. There are some moments that I really enjoyed. I think honestly, I like Dark Phoenix much more than the average viewer. I think the action set pieces are very X-Men. I think the drama and the soap opera elements are fantastic. Fun fact, I was at the premiere and I talked to Chris Claremont, one of my heroes since childhood, and he loved this movie. And that's not to disrespect Chris Claremont, that's to show that the guy who gave us, not just the Dark Phoenix saga, but some of the most iconic X-Men runs of all time saw his characters

on screen and felt that soap opera power, passion, and drama and loved it. So that DNA is in there. I just think you have to look a lot harder for it than you should have to. And I also think this movie doesn't quite have the weight to it it needs to. And I don't know if that's all the director,

but it's certainly not an accident that a lot of these characters aren't supporting characters. We're very invested in. If you're going to make an X-Men movie, use the characters we know and love. Let us have earned moments. And how you don't have them in the costumes that we got teased is just beyond me. This movie, Overall, just didn't land where I wanted it to, but a lot like my last one, X-Men

Apocalypse, it does serve Storm a bit better than the Brian Singer ones do. So if there's light at the end of the tunnel, it's some of the characterizations, some of the storm stuff, and some of the team-building elements in the action. And as ever, McAvoy and Fastbender are pretty fantastic. Coming in at number 10 is really interesting because this one moved around the most, and it's because it at the time was my biggest disappointment in comic book movies. it is X-Men the Last Stand. Now, it is that disappointment to me

because it follows X-Men 1 and 2 and X-Men 2, and X-Men 2 ends with the Phoenix T's. This was the first time I had felt like we were going to get the perfect trilogy. I thought we were going to get this amazing, glorious arc

that felt like the comic books. And I really thought, if they just focused on Phoenix, this could be everything. And then they focused on seemingly everything but Phoenix. X-Men the last stand deals with the Spider-Man 3 problem.

It's got a main storyline that gets totally sidetracked by a B storyline. In Spider-Man, the main storyline was the Sandman. The heart of that film is Sandman. He might not have the memorable moments. It might not be what people think of with that film, but you can tell that's where Sam Ramey's heart was. In this movie, they really wanted to make the entire concept of Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men run that is all about the cure its heart.

The problem was it was in a Phoenix movie and it threw everything aside. And it didn't allow you to care about the cure as much as you needed to. It didn't allow you to play with the philosophy of it. It didn't allow you to care about the Phoenix because it felt like there were two fighting side missions instead of one movie. And all of that cost us the momentum of one and two. It's this high because it is still insanely powerful to see some of these sequences, to see Ian McKellen move that bridge, to see these X-Men acting as a team, to see the payoff of the relationships we've had up until a third movie.

I thought of movies as trilogies for years because of this movie. I think of, you know, Star Wars and at the time, Indiana Jones and the trilogies that you grew up watching, X-Men 3 was always like, ugh, what we could have had. And I think it might be higher than the other three so far because there is a reverence for the beauty of what Brian Singer's first two movies built. And I will always stand by. They are great mutant movies. He didn't make the best X-Men movies. But this was almost the perfect trilogy.

now what X-Men the last stand had with Brett Ratner filming this of the guy paid him you know things have happened the guy made a movie and he made rush out. Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth? But the movie itself is flawed as hell but it does have heart. Brian Singer, Love or Hate him. How do the X-Men movies keep ending up with directors like this?

Matthew Vaughn come back. But Love-Mor-Hate these directors and all the things they've done off set or on set apparently have made these movies really hard to look at abstractly. And I do think the way they made us feel for these people that were hunted and feared had a lot more weight in the first two. And by the time we got to three, it definitely felt more like a summer blockbuster. But when it shines, it shines so bright. Coming in at number nine, and a movie that I think is going to be uniquely high in my list is the new mutants.

And I've got an even crazier statement to make. I think this movie would be higher on my list and everyone's list if it wasn't a product of circumstance. This movie was re-edited 20-some times. This movie's release date was pushed at least five times, maybe more. And it came out in the throes of the pandemic when no one could get to see it. But I think this movie captures Sinkiewicz in its visual style, the artist of the New Mutants. I think it captures Claremont's drama. I think it captures that insane feeling of being trapped as a teenager, in this case, in a haunted house setting.

And it does the thing so many people love about the early MCU. It makes it its own genre. and it thrives in that horror genre. If this movie had been rated R, I guarantee it'd be a cult classic. If this movie had been rated R, I guarantee you this would be one of the, oh my God, how did they make that crazy horror movie

that happened to be a Marvel story? Unfortunately, by the time all the edits came out, this was a PG-13 movie. But if you look at this movie and you take away everyone's opinion on it, magic is impeccable. Anya Taylor Joy is magic is one of the great castings. And I love the curveball of like making her so likable,

comma oh my god one giant flaw that makes her very unlikable that's an interesting character choice and i think it really worked for this film i really like that this film has the insane visual audacity to include demon bear this movie has lockjaw and that's not even the craziest thing you see there's a purple dragon in this but there's also a giant cosmic entity demon bear and it's all to serve the plot the beautiful thing about comic book movies is it's a moral compass and a insane story of coming of age and so many walkabout tales, so many, you know, Joseph Campbell tales, so many insane psychological studies of man, but with shiny objects. And that's why I love comic book movies is these are the great stories, but framed in a way that's exciting. And

new mutants capture so much of that while having a demon bear. I think this movie is very slept on. This one, I can almost guarantee as most people's bottom three. For me, it would be higher if I got to experience it correctly. I got to see this at a drive-in, and that was cool, but you know, you're watching it with one or three people. This was when, you know,

the world was locked down. But if I'd seen this in a theater, I think it'd be even higher. I think if this was rated at R, it'd be even higher. Unfortunately, this movie got massacred by circumstance. I think New Mutants is very underappreciated.

It's by number nine. Number eight and a movie that I have a really hard time even looking back on because of how much I love two-thirds of it, The Wolverine. The Wolverine is a near-perfect two-act film.

and then the third act happens and that is so hard for me because i had waited my entire life for a solo x-men movie to be exceptional and i had already endured x-men origins wolverine so i was like now's going to be my time james mangold man i love 310 to yuma and then the wolverine for two-thirds i was like they did it and then the third act really falls apart under the way to the studio system but we're not going to focus on that we're going to focus on the great stuff because this has an incredible train sequence that literally feels like a comic book come to life this has Wolverine feeling feral and like Hugh Jackman has found a way

to get to play him in all of the ways that the X-Men movies dabble in but this is at your full in your face Logan and this movie doesn't have to have the X-Men in it it is really tricky what happened to the mutants in these movies. It became

Wolverine and the X-Men it never really felt like the X-Men because Hugh Jackman is such a force of nature in this he got to be that force of nature It didn't have to be an ensemble. This movie for two acts deals with the concepts of honor and loyalty

and what it means to be an outsider and it goes into his origins in the Frank Miller stuff with the Japan and samurai elements of his history and it does all of that while being so authentic to the comic books

and it does all that being so authentic to not just Wolverine the character but Hugh Jackman's version of Lori in the character. The Wolverine allows Hugh Jackman to flex in a way that he doesn't get to again until Logan, but shows us for the first time

the potential of where this character can go on his own, and I think this movie kind of gets lost between the lows of X-Men Origins Wolverine and the highs of Logan to come. Coming in at number seven is Deadpool 2. I love Deadpool. I'm going to have that as either an asterisk or this explains a lot for you.

You don't know me. I love the murk with the mouth. I think Deadpool 2 is a really fun time that doesn't quite have the heart of the first one but the fun is so good it's kind of okay like sometimes you want steak sometimes you want pizza

sometimes I want a story that's going to make me think about my life and you know kind of have an experience while being an action film sometimes I want an action film that'll have little sprinkles of thinking about my life it's all about balance Deadpool 2 leans action and it leans into the insanity but what's crazy is the actual story is so heavy

and that's what I love about this movie is Deadpool is a character and I say this so much you're probably bored of hearing it but he's one of the only characters that wears a mask not to protect his identity but to protect you

from the horrors of his face both Deadpool films capture that kind of depraised black humor because it's a movie about a guy who loses everything loses his opportunity to have kids

loses his opportunity to be whole as a person loses his opportunity to be the man that he didn't think he could be and found out he could be all because of this incredible woman and losing that woman cost him everything

and it somehow validated fridging like ish not quite it got close but it was so heartfelt it almost validated a horrible comic book trope and in doing that it introduced the idea of what a man would go through to stop someone from hurting kids the lengths he'd go through to sacrifice himself because of the atrocities of the world

all while being full of vat jokes and that's incredible the tonality of a character like Deadpool allows for some brilliant storytelling. All of which revolves around X-Force, a giant joke on the genre, which is what Deadpool is. Deadpool's a commentary on the genre. So to have a movie that is in this insane thriving time of teams, to have a team movie and the team in a five-minute montage, you set up an entire team for a movie, and then you've got a massacre of a joke. Genius. So Deadpool, something that is insane. It got a $110 million budget to make a giant joke about X-Force. I loved it. I love X-Force. But that's the difference. Like, I understand.

understand mediums, translate things. I didn't think we'd get a mercenary squad right out the gate with Deadpool 2. I think we might get it down the line. But to have the mercenary squad be this great joke about them all getting just taken out. So good. So good. And I also think what they did with things like Brad Pitt, what they did with things like having certain characters be actual badass.

This was great. I do think there's some rockiness in the middle. I do think the first one, as you'll see in a few moments, is stronger for me. But I think Deadpool 2 is a very, very great example of why the character is unique and how to serve him in film. Number six, and the movie that started it all, and the movie that changed movies, X-Men. When X-Men came out in 2000, it was so insane as a young comic book fan. To see these characters on posters, to see these characters in the movie theater, it still, 24 years later, feels magic. 24 years later, I think about that time in my life as a kid with such wonderful.

and such awe because I remember there was this wizard magazine was a magazine for comic fans and it had like a price guide in the back and also had news in the front

and had really great fan casting and they had fancasts like three years before and a lot of the fan casts ended up especially Charles Xavier I mean Patrick Stewart was born to play Xavier but they had fan cast some of these characters before

and to see them come to life after thinking about it for three years and it being that special I cannot ever forget and I also speaking of Wizard magazine the back cover of one of the issue was a cover of a Spider-Man poster. And it was Leonardo DiCaprio as Spider-Man.

And this came out when I was like seven, and it said parody at the bottom. And I didn't know what the word parody meant. So for a full year, I was waiting on the Spider-Man movie that never existed. And I remember waiting and looking at the movie theater for the poster I'd seen on this magazine.

I was a kid. I didn't understand any of these concepts. But it never showed up. So when X-Men showed up, it felt like, oh, they can exist. Like, I'd thought that they couldn't make comic book movies, like some law. some people would like that law pass.

I really think X-Men is to this day one of those magic experiences as a comic fan. The movie itself is flawed here and there. Obviously, Storm is not given her due. Obviously, Cyclops isn't given his due. Wolverine might be given too much due. But all of that to the side.

It is seeing these characters as a team with powers in the year 2000, just being united by Xavier, seeing the school for the first time, seeing mutants just scattered about fighting the brotherhood of evil mutants, getting this dynamic between Xavier and Magnino, all of these things that I never thought I'd see on screen,

done with reverence, done with love, done with incredible production design, done with love in their visual, in their heart, in their writing, in their everything. Like, this movie changed comic book movies and then changed movies. And I think if you're watching this video, you probably like comic book movies,

and you owe so much to this one. And I really, it's hard to not. not put a higher, but we'll find out with number five. All right, number five. Okay, this is where I think it's going to get spicy. Because I think even if you hated, say, New Mutants, or if you didn't think Deadpool 2 was high enough, you could probably see where I was coming from.

But I think my top five are where people are going to be, hopefully, respectfully, angry, but respectfully. Number five is lower than I think a lot of people would have it. But I've got my reasons. And I think Days of Future Past is number five. And I think it is a very tricky film to judge. because it is a masterpiece in so many ways. This is endgame before end game.

This is a crossover that is astronomical in its proportion. But what it could have been was the third film in the Matthew Vaughn trilogy, and it would have earned a lot more of that scope, and it would have felt even bigger if we'd had more time with McAvoy and Fastbender and that world of mutants. Days of Future Pass set something up, and this skipped a lot of steps to get to that point. And in doing that, it rushed a lot.

And then the movie had to rush a lot. And then we could have had an endgame if they'd taken their time and they'd let there be an A, B, to C instead of an A to C, this movie would probably be in my top five comic movies of all time. But in rushing, they had to make some weird choices. The movie follows a movie

that is about being mutant and proud. And in that movie, the mutants are often in their human form. Why? Because they cast movie stars. But does it work for the plot? Absolutely not. Can I forgive that? Not really.

I mean, I can. And it's number five for a reason. exceptional film, but if you've got a story about accepting who you are, and half the time, Nicholas Holt is just, hey, I'm Nick Holt and hey, I'm Jennifer Lawrence. That doesn't work. The mutants that look the most mutant are mutants.

And that's really cumbersome for a story that they're trying to tell about acceptance. The X-Men represent being yourself in a world that hates you and going beyond that to save the world that hates you. If you can blend in with everyone, and if you just ignore your

heritage by looking like everyone else, you're not getting the X-Men. So I love Days of Future Past. I don't love weird-hwin addict McAvoy-Xavier. It kind of works for the plot, but it doesn't work for the character really here without getting into the onslaught stuff, which they, I guess, kind of tease.

But if they'd had a second movie that set up some of the darkness, that would have paid off better. If they'd had a second movie that gave us a bit more time with these characters, that maybe there's a reason for Nicholas Holt acting that way that I could kind of rationalize more.

But since they don't, it's just an exceptional A-minus. Like, all of these, flaws notwithstanding. This movie is such a good piece of history. The way it dabbles into real life history like first class did, but using those elements is genius. The way it blends these two worlds of X-Men is astronomically cool. I never thought we'd see those teams meet. And the way they did it with the Days of Future Past storyline, one of the great X-Men comics of all time, which by the way is only two issues. And that's insane. This whole movie is effectively from two

issues of comic books. Two 23-page pieces of paper brought us this. That's insane. Also, read those comics. I think it's uncanny X-Men 141 and 142, if I remember correctly. Wolverine getting to use his powers in a way that allows him to kind of play in this narrative. That does work for his comic origin. That does work for him being like, you know, Wolverine and the X-Men. It allows us to have the movie that they kind of made the other ones with because Wolverine had to be to leave. But here it serves the plot. To see these characters interact with each other, to see McAvoy and Stewart, to see Ian McKellen and FastBer in one thing, so special. The action in this is spectacular. Some of the best, I think, action in Marvel, like period, not just X-Men, not the

MSU, in Marvel, and all of it is in Date of Future Past. Some of the best acting is in this movie. Some of the best storytelling is in this movie. My big flaw is just, it can't be authentically X-Men if they are not who they are. They can have problems with who they are. They can think horrible things. Beast is a man torn at what he's become. But if that man torn at what he become, just click a button and be like, what up? I'm handsome Nicholas Holt. It doesn't work. So this movie's a big reason why I say Brian Singer made exceptional mutant movies, but the X-Gene is not quite as strong in this one. On WhatsApp, no one can see or hear your personal messages, whether it's a voice call, message,

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beaten by its sequence. I didn't think I could feel as cool as someone who knew what was happening in that night crawler sequence. That night crawler sequence in the White House where they recreated the Oval Office and had Alan Cummings Nightcrawler bamfing in and out.

It's the first time we heard a bampth in a movie. Like now I know what bamp sounds like. Like this movie is so badass and is so cool. We got a berserker rage from Wolverine. It gave Hugh Jackman more than 30 days to work out. It really just enhanced everything that's good about the first movie.

and it made a lot more human of a story. X2 deals with the Friends of Humanity and William Stryker. It deals with humanity, really hating and fearing them, escalating the first one's plot. But the first one is, you know, mutant against mutant for the most part.

You know, there's human elements, but that's kind of the thing. I love man versus self here. The God loves man kills story is basically what they translate. It's a great graphic novel. And that story is so much more painful. If you see deities fighting each other,

there's a lot of weight there. I mean, DC is largely God. fighting gods. It doesn't eliminate the weight, but it's a different kind of thing because you're a human looking up, right? It's all about perspective. All art is about perspective. If you're always looking up, it's removed from you. But if it's gods fighting man or man fighting God, suddenly it's on your eye line. And suddenly you're connected in a much more personal intimate way. You can go, oh, I can't imagine being there. And what's interesting is when the humans are the bad guys, it makes you look at you. And that's what the X-Men have always

been about. The X-Men are about how you would be in this situation, whether you see yourself as one of the X-Men, whether you see yourself as one of the people that is navigating a world they don't understand. The X-Men is a scary concept. What if people more powerful than you are the next step to evolution and you feel like you're lesser? What if you feel like you've been betrayed by your genes and how would you navigate someone being that other? Obviously, there's all the beautiful metaphors of civil rights movements and LGBTQ and all the things that the world is always dealing with is how do we embrace all of mankind when other people won't? How do you deal with bigots? And I think the second film, I think X2 takes those messages

head on. I think bigotry is the X-Men. I think navigating people that just hate is the X-Men. And I think that we live in a world that hates more than ever. I don't know if that's because we're more exposed to it. I don't know if that's because there's more echo chambers. I don't know if that's because the hate just seems louder because there's more megaphones. I don't know if the world actually hates more now or it just feels that way because of all those other things. But my point is, the X-Men are more and more relevant. And that's more and more sad.

And this movie that came out 20 years ago really showed how far we need to go and how much we need to accept man and people and who we can be as culture. And I think it did a great job making that an action movie. All right, we're doing the final three and it's very hot. so we're going to break down the last three and I'm sweating number three x-men first class okay so

x-men first class is if the first x-men was oh my god we got a comic movie i can't believe this exists x-2 is they did it they went bigger they made it better it was more human there was more heart but also the spectacle was better x-men first class is in my opinion the one to get the x-men right two those mutant movies are amazing this is an x-men movie this doesn't focus on wolverine and his X-Men. There's a cameo by Wolverine. This is about Fassbender and McAvoy. This is the story of these two men

who loved each other just diametrically opposed about their view on very important things and how you try to make that work until you can't. That's Magneto and Xavier. And on that journey, we get incredible recruitment montages, we get incredible training montages,

we get incredible action set pieces. In this movie, we get what we were supposed to get, if X-Men Ords Wolverine have done well, X-Men Origins Magneto. We get the most traumatizing opening with Fastbender going through as a young, young Eric Glenscher, with the Nazi just Hargrews, and then Nazi Hunter Fastbender. Like Inglorious Bastards meets X-Men is a subplot, and it's given its time to be awesome while furthering the movie.

All of this, while we're getting actual X-Men that feel like X-Men. Now, this movie is not perfect. Eddie Gathagi should not have died. It doesn't make sense that the one that can adapt to anything gets killed. That's ridiculous. But overall, I think this movie is nearly perfectly paced. It is shot like a comic book. Matthew Vaughn actually framed this thing to feel like a comic book.

They have comic suits on and it doesn't do the thing where it loses the point of the X-Men at the cost of movie stars, at the cost of studios, at the cost of making a movie. This feels like a comic come to life. Every time there's an action set piece, it feels like the team is. acting as a team. Every time there's a bit of moral conundrum, it feels like you're reading panels. The moment where Michael Fastbender is serenely rageful, that sequence where he reaches out and he's just turning, and you see all of that emotion, that raw experience, you relive 40 years of trauma in Fastbender's freaking eyes. And that's not Fastbender's trauma in those eyes. That's

Magneto's and you feel every bit of it. You feel the betrayal on the beach. Also, love, by the way, they use the Cuban Missile Crisis as a way to kind of give us that marker. I think that was really genius of them to follow that up with Days of Future Past. I think Days of Future Past's greatness is weighted largely on this movie, and that's why it's so high. Days of Future Past can't happen without this, and a lot of the good things about

a lot of people's favorite X-Movie, which Days of Future Past is deservedly loved, is because of this film. Using historical moments to connect us retroactively to real life history, giving it human weight, giving it that fun, cheeky comic book, like, what could happen if they were around for that, like, giant historical moment?

All of that, but none of that shiny eliminates the heart of what these actors are bringing, who they're portraying. I think Shaw is an excellent villain. The sequence with McAvoy, you know, living in his head while Fastbender pushes the coin through his skull is metal is fucking crazy. And it's also good for the plot. There's no moment that's wasted just to be cool. A lot of times comic movies can try to be cool and cost the actual movie.

This one doesn't do that once. I think X-Men First Class is the most X-Men movie we've ever had to date. and I think it's largely because someone who loved the comics made it if I could somehow manipulate time and do anything. All I would do is give Matthew Vaughn his second movie that he wanted to make before we went to Days of Future Past

because I would argue if that had happened we could have had the trilogy that would rival anything the MCU has made and I honestly think if you had a trilogy go from X-Men first class a second movie into Days of Future Past we'd look at that way like we look at the Avengers films and hopefully when the MCU gets the X-Men

we'll get something like that because this movie is really something special and I don't think enough people talk about it. Number two and one of my favorite movies of all time, one of my favorite comic films of all time, one of my favorite characters of all time, Deadpool. Deadpool is a movie that shouldn't exist. Deadpool is somehow

a $58 million budgeted masterpiece that made so much money. It was the highest R-rated comedy is the highest R-rated movie of all time. It's been broken by Deadpool 2 and Joker, but that's how much people want mature comic book movies.

The top four R-rated movies of all time, three of them are comic book films, and one of them is this indie masterpiece. Now, what makes Deadpool work is it understands the character more than most comic book movies ever will. The thing about comic book movies is when you adapt a character that's archetypal,

you can see the character differently than your director. You can see it differently than your writer. You can see it differently than your production designer. And it's so rare that it feels like the writer, the actor, the production designer, the director, the extra. the best boy the gaffer everyone on set saw Deadpool the same way and in this case that was the way I see Deadpool this is the first time in my entire career as someone who talks about comic book movies

as someone who talks about comic books as someone who talks about movies those are my three main things I talk to actors about those things like my job is those things Deadpool 2016 was the first time I felt like everyone saw this thing that I loved like I did and it felt crazy. It felt like drugs to be like, oh, we're all just, we just agreed this, is it. And the character is so hard to get right. The humor is, in my opinion, exactly correct for the character. It might not be your humor, but that's the beautiful thing about humor. It's for you. Like, it can be yours or not. You can find something funny or not. That's, you turn the movie off. But for me, this movie is hilarious. And the heart is why it's hilarious. Deadpool is broken. Deadpool is

ravaged by cancer and falling apart and he doesn't want to lose his love but he doesn't how someone could love him what's more human than that what's more just honest than that feeling unlovable what's more oh my god i relate than doing something and trying to be right and everything falling apart and just wanting to be loved all the while there's giant action set pieces and and the movie just plays so well it's just so the way it plays with chronology the way it plays with action, the way it's montages work, the way the suitups work. It's all tried and true.

We've seen these things before. It does it in new and unique ways that I really, really can't get sick of. Whenever I rewatch Deadpool, I'm always struck by how tight and magic it is. Uh, tight. But it's also a movie that I can't really quantify without letting you in my head, right?

It's kind of like no way home. So many people are like, oh, it's only good because of nostalgia. So many people are like, oh, Deadpool's only good. because, you know, it's a dumb comedy and it's allowed to, you know, do this. No, all of that makes the character. All of those elements are what serves this narrative. And it's not the comedy I love. It's the heart. And that's Deadpool. So when this came out, I just was so impressed, so surprised.

I love DMX. I now can't think of anything but Deadpool when I hear DMX. It changed pop culture DNA. The movie did so well in the comic books, Deadpool, in canon, makes so much money that he starts funding the Avengers. And that's kind of what it felt like when Deadpool came out. This changed everything. It was an impact on comics, on movies, on certainly Ryan Reynolds' career, on everything. And it all came from this leaked footage. And what's more punk? What's more underground? What's more comic book than a pre-vis leak of an action set piece set to DMX that is this giant shoot-em-up that gets leaked and then suddenly shows everyone at Comic-Con, you could have this. like it felt like someone had a pitch for a comic and no one was picking it up and then like some random editor was like no that actually be pretty good and became like an eiser award winning like sellout hit all of that was probably too comic-y for the average viewer but it's a rare crazy thing that this happened and uh i don't know it's a miracle so deadpool one is damn near perfect and it is such a miracle it exists and i'm so happy it does number one and the only thing i think could even come close to deadpool is logan and logan is

somehow everything I've ever wanted when someone said, oh, but it's a comic movie as a slap in the face to no, no, no, it's a film. And I hate when film bros are like, no, it's not a movie, it's a film. But using the language does affect how it feels to talk about something, right? Like, when you say movie, you've got a certain energy, and when you say film, it's got a certain energy. This is a film, and that's not to disparage movies, but there's a difference in how it feels to discuss it.

This feels like a Western. This feels like something your dad showed you when you're too young to watch it. You don't quite understand how great it is. This feels like something that's just been on TNT and TBS and USA Networks for 20 years. It feels classic and timeless, but it's somehow ahead of its time.

It feels like something that is giving you a sense of humanity. It is what comics are, is humanity distilled down to these four color pages, right? Like, they're about being good and better. And this isn't a story about an X-Man. It's a story about a father. It's a story about a man dealing with being a father. And it's a story about a man dealing with being a son.

It is this incredible story of Wolverine accepting X-23 as his daughter and accepting Xavier as his father figure. And all of the weight that comes into that. And all of the weight that comes into our history. with Hugh Jackman's Wolverine. Logan is so painful that the cover of Nine Inch Nails Hurt by Johnny Cash

is the only way to describe this movie. A very painful three and a half minutes encapsulates the trauma of this film. And it's not just Hugh Jackman's journey. What Patrick Stewart goes through, the most powerful mind on earth being ravaged with dementia and being ravaged with the deteriorating

mental landscape when you used to be the most powerful mental landscape, the trauma of aging, and that being a father. father's son connection with Hugh Jackman of like he's taking care of this man who was his father and Hugh Jackman's Logan has never shown love and affection really I mean moments but like that bond is so incredible and then Hugh Jackman's Logan this is a man who's had a healing factor his whole life who's run face first into bullets who's never had fear because he's never needed to

whose own adamantium is poisoning him your own body poisoning you is aging we're dying all of us every single one of us body is killing us this is it like We only get today. Tomorrow's not promised. You've heard it before from all the inspirational people online, but we really only have right now. And that's why these immortal characters

are fascinating. That's why mortality needs to be looked at. And to have a character that's so mortal that they're being poisoned by their own body, there's nothing more human than that. And to try to rationalize time

with your father, trying to rationalize time with your daughter, trying to rationalize the time you have left, all while being hunted down by, in this case, Revers, a character set

I never cared as much about in the comic books. these mutated half-cyborg things that were willing to be basically turned into demons to hunt down mutants. They were willing to lose their humanity to fight for humanity. That is so terrifyingly on brand for humanity. And it's so topical, terrifyingly. All of that with subplots of characters like Caliban that are fascinating. All of that with the weight of losing the X-Men and Xavier and the atrocities that inadvertently happened.

Old Man Logan is one of the best mini-series in comic books. on so many spinoffs. There's like Old Man Hawkeye and all these other things because of how good and powerful it is. To adapt that into a more grounded Western is amazing. And what's even more amazing is because of Deadpool and Wolverine, we're getting another adaptation of Old Man Logan that's going to be the more comicy version.

So we're getting this amazing cake and it too where we've had the film Logan. And now we're getting the movie Old Man Logan mixed with all the heart of Deadpool, mixed with all the reverence of the MCU, mixed with all the Easter eggs, all while saying goodbye to all the characters, that I've just been talking you about for 20, 30, 40 minutes,

however long this video's end up being. That's incredible. So Logan paved the way for a serious, sincere film that happens to be based off a comic book. And I am so sick, so sick of this comic book movie fatigue, this superhero fatigue conversation. We don't talk about book fatigue. How many fucking movies are based off books?

It's just another medium. We don't talk about adapting TV shows for movies and say like, oh, TV adaptation fatigue. If you make something as good as Logan, If you make something as good as Deadpool, if you make something as good as X-Men first class, days in future past X2, there is no talk of fatigue.

You just enjoy the experience of what humanity is that happens to be dressed in spandex so that it's a nice, shiny object for you to look at yourself in. The shiny or the object, the more you'll reflect on who you are inside. And if you want to know what humanity's about, you look to the X-Men,

and I cannot wait for Deadpool and Wolverine to show us how broken and messed up and wonderful. We all are again, and I hope you enjoyed this video because I had a great time making it. I love these X-Men. So to me, my real rejects, I love you dearly. Thank you for watching.

Please leave a comment below. Please leave a like so I know that this was something you enjoyed. I am honored that Koi's Comic Corner is back, and I am honored that you made it to the end of this video because, frankly, you've seen these 13 movies. Why do you care what I have to say about it? You caring means the world to me. So thank you.

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