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Fox X-Men Film Series: A Definitive List, Part 2
In (part one of this definitive list we covered all the bad and middling films from the X-MenLaunched in 1963 and written by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the X-Men featured heroes distinctly different from those featured in the pages of DC Comics. Mutants who didn't ask for their powers (and very often didn't want them), these heroes, who constantly fought against humans who didn't want "muties" around, served as metaphors for oppression and racism. Their powerful stories would form this group into one of the most recognizable superhero teams in comics (and a successful series of movies as well). franchise. While this film series has had a lot of good movies, it’s also seen its share of stinkers. Thankfully we’re past those now and can get into the meat of the movies everyone actually cares about. These are the ones that are worth going back to, again and again, even now that the franchise has ended. It’s the cream of the crop, the mega-hits of the mega-mutants.
As a reminder, this list only covers the films released by Fox during their tenure in charge of the X-Men franchise. It doesn’t include their television shows (which were of questionable continuity anyway) and it doesn’t cover anything released by Disney as part of the Marvel Cinematic UniverseWhen it first began in 2008 with a little film called Iron Man no one suspected the empire that would follow. Superhero movies in the past, especially those not featuring either Batman or Superman, were usually terrible. And yet, Iron Man would lead to a long series of successful films, launching the most successful cinema brand in history: the Marvel Cinematic Universe.. These are just the Fox films, and only the Fox films. And with that disclaimer out of the way, let’s continue:
X-Men
As we noted in our series about “what film launched the modern superhero genre?”, you can trace the current superhero boom back to a few very specific movies: 1998’s Blade, 2002’s Spider-man, and 2000’s X-Men. These three films were something of a holy trinity for superhero media, the point where it stopped being “movies for kids” and really started having mass market appeal. X-Men was coming off an excellent run of stories in comics, and fans were primed to see their favorite heroes on the big screen, which this film delivered.
With that said, the first X-Men film isn’t perfect. It has a few glaring plot holes (Magneto puts in a lot of effort for a plan that really doesn’t make much sense once you think about it), and the film does feel very small, even compared to its direct sequel. Plus, we can debate the merits of switching all the characters to black leather outfits instead of their classic costumes. But, regardless, this film proved the superhero team could work on the big screen, something the execs at Fox weren’t even sure of.
And it gave us Hugh Jackman as the Wolverine. Whether you liked his casting at the time or not, there’s no denying he became synonymous with the role. There may be no better bit of casting in superhero media than Jackman as everyone’s favorite grumpy Canadian. X-Men may not be perfect, but it certainly pointed the way forward for the franchise to come.
X-Men: First Class
After the original trilogy kind of fizzled out (with much blame going towards Brett Ratner’s X-Men: The Last Stand) and then the failed start of a series of “Origins” prequels (X-Men Origins: Wolverine souring that pot real quick), Fox had to find a way to pivot and reinvigorate their floundering franchise. The decision was made to take the series back to the start of the X-Men timeline, back during the early days of Charles Xavier recruiting his band of heroes to help protect mutant-kind. It was time to go to the first class, the original class, and reboot our way to glory.
In construction, X-Men: First Class is something of a soft reboot. While it does reinvent the franchise, reimagining some characters and screwing around with the established timeline, it doesn’t completely throw out the baby with the bathwater. It sits in this weird place where the original timeline still exists, you just have to squint and look at it funny to make everything work. For some fans of the original films this might be a bridge too far, considering how much some of these reinventions break established canon (Mystique, most specifically). But it’s a comic film. Sometimes you have to accept the retcons with the good.
And there’s a lot of good in this film, from the period trappings to the light, breezy writing, the fun story, and the absolutely phenomenal cast. The combined talents of James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, and Michael Fassbender help to give new life, and new vitality, to their characters of the Professor, Mystique, and Magneto. Watching these new versions of the character interact, having fun in the 60s milieu, helps to kick start the franchise once more. This was the reinvention we needed at the time we needed it. And it would get better soon after.
Deadpool
In all honesty, 2016’s Deadpool shouldn’t have happened. Fox didn’t think the Merc with a Mouth was a viable character to head up his own film, and they didn’t even think he was that great a character (see what they did to him over in X-Men Origins: Wolverine), but through sheer force of will lead star Ryan Reynolds made this film happen. He got them to agree to fund a bit of test footage, and then after that footage was made and the studio shrugged at the idea even still, he leaked the footage so that fans could see it. The collective online uproar, with fans going crazy for the footage, convinced Fox that the movie was actually a good idea.
So they spent pennies on it (relatively speaking). They gave it a tiny budget, and none of the main X-Men cast… and yet even then the vision that Reynolds, director Tim Miller, and writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick had came through, and Deadpool became an unabashed, R-rated, violent mutant wonder. It blew past all expectations, becoming a Box Office juggernaut, and it functionally gave Reynolds the cachet he needed to continue doing this character whenever he could.
Plus, it helps that the film is a lot of fun. Violent, gory, and over the top, and it’s also supremely comedic and very silly. It’s the very antithesis of what Fox and Marvel had been doing with their superhero films, and it revels in it. This isn’t the standard superhero film (even if it does, at times, lean towards a bit of the genre’s bombast). This is an unapologetic movie for Ryan Reynolds, made by Ryan Reynolds, and in this instance it works really, really well.
X2: X-Men United
There’s an interesting pattern for the X-Men films you can notice if you look at the whole series laid out. The first film in a major chapter (X-Men and X-Men: First Class) does a good job of establishing the characters and getting the world ready for a bigger adventure, and then their immediate sequels take that ball and run with it. The first sequel we had, was X2: X-Men United which, functionally, takes everything that worked about the first film and says, “let’s do that, but more of all of it.” And it’s great.
Part of why X2: X-Men United works so well is that it continues to invest in its characters. None of the characters on screen feel one-note or simply there to sell toys. Sure, there’s some smaller roles for mutants that can’t get a lot of screen time (like Colossus, who shines, no pun intended, in his short sequences) but all of the major characters get real storylines, with real motivations. Unlike in the sequels to come after (X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine) no one is ever introduced simply for the sake of existing. They all serve real purposes.
And the film has a fantastic villain. Magneto is here, but he’s not the bad guy; Striker, the mutant-hating military man takes over as the big bad and he gives us a very different story from the first film. This was a movie that trusted its audience to keep up and then quickly got off and running, splitting the team up and having them go in multiple directions all to stop a plot that could threaten all of mutant-kind. It’s the perfect escalation of the original film that doesn’t lose anything for going bigger and bolder.
X-Men: Days of Future Past
And then, years later, the franchise did it again. With X-Men: First Class giving us a new-boot version of all the familiar characters, X-Men: Days of Future Past could then get rolling with a bigger, more expansive adventure. Like with X2: X-Men United this meant broadening the scope while giving the X-team a bigger, scarier villain to battle against. And it all comes together ion a time-twisting adventure that brought the new cast together with the older cast for a grand adventure that satisfied all audiences.
It helps that the film was adapting one of the greatest stories in X-Men comics. “Days of Future Past” is a seminal work with a sci-fi plot twist, forcing Kitty Pryde to go back in time to her younger body (via mind powers) to try and prevent an event that will cause a “bad timeline”. The movie does twist it, in part because Kitty Pryde wasn’t as major a character in the movies as she was, at the time, in the comics, and also because Wolverine was right there, and everyone loves Wolverine. Some comics fans were displeased about that change, but most just loved the old-meets-new plot mashup.
And the film is fun. It has a great story, solid writing, and the introduction of Quicksilver, played fantastically by Evan Peters. The film fires on all cylinders and it really made X-Men fans think the film franchise would thrive for years to come. Sadly it didn’t, but that’s not the fault of this film…
Logan
And then we come to what could have, and probably should have, been the grand finale to the whole Fox X-Men series. Logan is a movie about a dark future, one where the X-team is gone, most mutants are dead, and those that are still alive are in hiding. Yes, it does kind of walk back the ending of X-Men: Days of Future Past, but it does so to explore who was, functionally, the main character of the whole franchise, Wolverine, and give him a proper and fitting end to his whole story.
At its core Logan is about generations. Professor X (who is slowly dying of dementia) helped train Wolverine, and then Wolvie has to help train a girl, Laura aka X-23 (Dafne Keen) who could end up being the next Wolverine for the next generation of mutants. And to do that, the old generation has to give way (through death) to the new. It’s a sad, tragic film that is full of both heart and violence, and all of it wrapped together with an adamantium bow in the form of Jackman’s best performance as Wolverine ever.
The only flaw with the film is that instead of being the end of the franchise, like it should have been, Fox continued making more films in the continuity. Both Dark Phoenix and The New Mutants came out after, and while we can’t really hate on The New Mutants against it, as that could have served as something of a reboot for the franchise, Dark Phoenix was a completely unnecessary franchise continuation that audiences absolutely loathed. That’s not the fault of Logan, but it does put an asterisk on the whole run. Really, just blame Fox for not realizing they had the perfect ending here and that they should have stopped while they were ahead.
And yes, I know that Deadpool & Wolverine desecrated the corpse (literally) of this film and brought back Jackman to play a version of Wolverine after he retired from the role because of this film. But, hey, it’s a Deadpool movie; it’s allowed to play by its own rules. None of that really takes away from what Logan accomplished and how good this film really was. It’s easily the best of the Fox series, hands down.