Hard to believe, yet true: over the past fourteen years, there have been seven X-Men movies, all in the same continuity, and all including Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. 20th Century Fox is doing nearly as good of a job as Marvel Studios. That’s really pretty impressive, all in all. (I mean, okay, the actual movies have not been as consistently good, but it’s nearly impossible to credit how much better special effects have gotten in the not quite a generation between then and now.[1])

All of which brings me to the seventh such movie, Days of Future Past, which is named after what I understand will eventually be a really important storyline that I’m still probably more than a decade from reading. That said, I’m not so sure it’s very similar to that storyline? It is, however, extremely cool and handles time travel pretty well, both philosophically and structurally. I don’t want to say much about it, because of spoilers, but the title already gave away time travel and the end of The Wolverine already gave away the Sentinels; so I will only add that I thought the Sentinels were handled at least as well as the time travel was, and probably quite a bit better.

What was handled best of all, though, were the characters. The movie is, more than anything, a sequel to First Class, which was already heavily character driven. All of the dangling conflicts are brought to fruition in satisfying ways, and what more can you really ask? Well, that the characters also be fully realized, but I think they are. (Speaking of which, the scene with “Peter” in the Pentagon? Definitely the best characterization of him I have ever seen, and all without a word of dialogue. Bravo!)

[1] That makes it sound like I’m saying the special effects are the only flaws in early or for that matter middle X-Men movies. I’m not saying that, but having watched the first one a week or so ago, special effects are what stuck out to me as the second biggest flaw, just barely ahead of pacing[2] and way behind upscaled 480p, which it turns out is eye-hurtingly unwatchable in modernity. At least, it is if there are any special effects happening.
[2] Because, seriously, half that film was spent on Liberty Island! Climactic battles should not feel draggy. And don’t even get me started on treating Rogue as a major character in one half of the flick only to leave her as a damsel in distress for the other half. That she was rescued by a mixed team instead of a big strong man helps a bit, but not really enough.[3]
[3] Talk about being in the wrong review, right?

Can I just say I’m really happy that Spider-Man got rebooted? I would not have predicted feeling that way, but after two movies into the current franchise, it is become more and more clear to me that Tobey Maguire’s take just didn’t really cut it. It’s true, Peter Parker has a really hard life; but he’s not a sad, mopey person, and that’s what we got out of the previous trilogy. (Yes, the second movie starring Doctor Octopus was still incredibly done every step of the way, and my realizations do not take away from that in the tiniest regard.)

There are plenty of things that work better about this new series. I’ve already mentioned how the seeds of sequels are planted here and there and all over the place, just as though it’s a living, breathing world in which all relevant information doesn’t happen in the same segment but instead gets spread out over time. Comics weren’t episodic in the 1960s at the latest, TV has stopped being episodic as of the 1990s, and if serial movies can make the transition? All the better for me! (And, I would argue, the viewing public in general, but nothing pleases everybody, regardless of how much it ought to do.)

As for the movie in question? Clearly, I am still okay with the basic structure and with the way the characters are being acted. Gwen Stacy is a strong, modern woman who actively contributes and makes her own damn choices[1], Spider-Man runs at a quip a minute, Oscorp is a creepy company that has its tendrils into everything, etc., ad nauseum, this is Spider-Man done right nearly as much as Marvel is doing its own properties right in the expanded Avengers franchise; my only complaint, if any, is that they aren’t all in the same world, as God and Stan Lee intended. And the story is pretty good too! Nearly everyone is paying for the sins of the past, sins none of the players actually committed. It’s not a new plot, but it’s one you can’t really go wrong with. Plus, usually that plot doesn’t star Jamie Foxx as a being of pure electrical energy with an inferiority complex. It’s cool, you can’t go wrong with that plot element either.

[1]  Which, okay, Mary Jane was doing by the 1960s also, and I guess you can see yet another reason why I’ve always been enamored of these comics.

Argh, this movie. Here’s the problem, in a nutshell. I saw it in a double feature with the first one, as a premiere event before opening day. And I had no idea how to review it, because literally anything I could say that delves into character motivations or why some characters work and others do not, and how…. anything at all would be a massive spoiler. So instead I’ve sat here for days, letting the review get stale, still just as stuck with nothing to say. It’s hateful is what it is.

Instead, I will talk about the event. Even though it’s probably all stuff I’ve said before. See, I’ve certainly discussed how much I love the Alamo Drafthouse out of Austin, and I know I’ve talked about my excitement that it finally came to Dallas. What I only believe I’ve said (but have no proof, short of 12 seconds’ worth of research that clearly isn’t going to happen) is how thrilled I am by the Dallas location’s management. These guys are as genuinely excited about their movie events as the original management in Austin, and not to leave out that they’re as excited as yours truly. It’s not the single most comfortable theater experience I’ve had, and it’s nowhere near the most high-tech or immersive. But I can always be certain of the quality of the audience, and I can always be certain of the quality of the staff, and I can always be certain of the quality of the event. More to the point, I can always be certain that every film I see there will be worthy of being called an event.

I’m pretty passionate about this chain, is what I guess I’m saying. And yes, the new Captain America movie was no exception. Where else do you get to watch animated Baron Zemo from the ’60s dancing around in glee after being reminded that maybe Paste Pot Pete can help him get the mask off his face from where it’s been glued for twenty years, during the half hour pre-show entertainment?

Okay, that plus the cut I’m about to put in here should be plenty enough spoiler space. Screw it, everything hereafter is for people who saw the movie or else want to be sad.

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First things first, to get it out of the way. Yeah, I really liked this movie. There were disappointingly obvious problems with Newtonian physics, and there was, as far as I can recall, no more than one plot turn I didn’t see coming. Nevertheless? Loved it. I mean, to start with, I’ll watch an entire 120 minutes’ worth of Darcy reaction quips and consider it money well spent.

But aside from hammer gags, cool explosions, and Kat Dennings, there are solid reasons to like Thor: The Dark World. Probably the precipitating plot, in which Christopher Eccleston is more or less wasted behind too much makeup as an inexplicably albino Dark Elf who wants to return the universe to eternal darkness and who nearly kicked Odin’s father’s ass several thousand years ago during his first attempt, is not one of them? I’m not saying I dislike comic book plots, because I don’t, but it’s impossible to deny that this one is towards the fringier end of the form.

The broad, vague answer is that I liked the acting. It doesn’t hurt that I’ve been immersed in 1960s Thor comics for the past few months, but it was cool to watch Odin interacting with his two sons. Far more than that, though, this movie gave me something I didn’t realize I’d been missing in the annals of Marveldom[1]. I finally have a solid, bone-deep belief that Thor and Loki really are brothers. That’s going to help me later, when I’m still reading 1960s Thor comics and Loki is still a cartoonishly annoying villain instead of nuanced and clever.

Also, Natalie Portman was in it, I guess? In retrospect, I should probably have more to say about someone who got so much screen time.

[1] Except maybe the Loki book I read years ago now, before I’d barely gotten started on my in-depth project here? Who can remember what happened in 2007, though?

The Wolverine is the first new sequel to the X-Men trilogy in seven years. That’s kind of a long time, right? I’m not going to get into a “worth the wait” discussion, since those never end well and speak to expectations, which I try not to set in the first place. But certainly it was good.

First, a recap of relevant information: Wolverine is a pretty old mutant whose DNA has an impressive healing factor, such that he can recover from nearly any wound you can imagine and he doesn’t really age. Over the past hundred, maybe hundred and fifty years, he’s seen a lot of the world. Also, he has claws that grow out of his hand. Also also, his entire skeletal structure has been coated in adamantium, the hardest substance known to comic-book man. (This was made possible by his healing factor, you see. If you pause a moment to consider what having molten metal forged around your bones would feel like, not to mention the logistics of it, you will see why this would suck more for anyone else than the prodigious amount of sucking it did for him.)

So, okay, that should have you nice and caught up. This movie? Is about a haunted Wolverine, filled with regrets over the outcome of the last X-Men movie. Then, he gets caught up in some Japanese family politics. Since this is a comic book movie, I don’t think it’s a spoiler to promise you some hot mutant-on-ninja action, and also there’s a samurai with a distinctly silvery cast to his features, if you know what I mean and I bet you probably don’t, honestly.

The most important plot issue in a mostly character-driven movie (despite all that ninja action) is in the scene after the credits, when we are promised one hell of a spectacle of a new fully X-Men sequel. So, y’know, yes please.