X-Men: The Last Stand Review

[Music] hi and welcome to the dynamic duel podcast a weekly show where we review superhero films and debate the superiority between Marvel and DC by comparing their characters and stat based battle simulations I’m marvelous Joe and I’m his twin brother Johnny DC and in this episode we will be reviewing x-men The Last Stand which is a crap movie but we’re watching it in preparation for x-men Dark Phoenix which comes out in a couple of weeks so we’re gonna go ahead and see how this one compares to what’s inevitably going to be the next shit show now I vividly remember the night we first saw this film and you really defended it so did yes oh you and your shit you and your girlfriend at the time now wife and I’m really curious to see what you have to say about it 10 plus years later as bad as the movie is it does have some good things going for it which we’ll definitely get into but I think through hindsight I could recognize my past self as a dumbass yeah we’ll talk all about where this movie went wrong later on in the show before that we’re going to get into the news over the past week of which there was none however there was a new Swamp Thing trailer for the show that comes out on DC Universe later on this week actually so we’re gonna talk about that trailer as well as the one that came out last week that focused on Alec Holland yeah and as always we put our segment x in our episode description so if you want to jump around in the episode feel free to do so yep but we want to give a huge shout out and thank you to mr. eBay double-oh-seven or maybe it’s mr. eBay double-oh-seven not sure but he wrote us a review on iTunes and gave us our 106 the rating on that platform as you guys are well aware by now we’re trying to get to 200 ratings on Apple podcasts and iTunes so that we can become eligible to become critics on Rotten Tomatoes and half our Marvel and DC film reviews count toward those tomato meters so if you guys could help us out by either rating us on Apple podcasts or iTunes if you haven’t already or at least sharing the show with someone who is able to do that that would be greatly appreciated so we can go ahead and get past this goal also heads up to our patrons on patreon com at the 1st of June we will be releasing another blooper episode for you to enjoy those of you who aren’t our patrons go to patreon.com slash dynamic duel wear for just $2 a month you get access to a new blooper reel that we put out every month as well as our back catalog of mini episodes which include our top 10 lists our movie pitches where we come up with plots for films like Inhumans and Martian Manhunter and Fantastic Four it’s really fun to listen to go ahead and check it out again by visiting patreon.com slash dynamic duel and signing up for just two bucks a month yeah it’s a really good deal we plan on doing more monthly content once we get more patrons you can also visit our patreon profile by going to our website dynamic duel comm and clicking on the link that says bonus content so check that out and help support the show but with that all out of the way quick to the O prize so no prizes an award that Marvel used to give out up until the 90s to fans our version of the dynamic duel no prize is a digital award that we post on social media that I personally draw for those who we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week last week’s question was other than penguin and Catwoman who are both rumored to be in the next Batman film while other for bat villains would you like to see in the upcoming film because there’s a rumored to be six right or up to six I should say so we got a lot of answers for this and when choosing who we would give the no prize award winner to I was looking for someone who gave us the names of villains who haven’t been seen on screen before because both the penguin and cattleman have right right so I’m I was looking for something a little fresh so our first honorable mention goes to Caspar Henry who gave the answer hush scarecrow Rachele ghoul and Clayface yep and Dustin Balcom who henceforth I will refer to as old dusty balls gave the answer the Riddler Hugo Strange Mad Hatter and Rochelle ghoul ear on egami gave the answer mister freeze or Clayface and check out your Ani got me on instagram his name is basically the word imaginary spelled backwards great superhero content on his profile here in the poem ra gave the answer Hugo Strange the Riddler Clayface and mr. freeze Kenny McNeese tolkemec gave the answer doll maker Bentley jack-in-the-box Riddler and court of owls Jonathan Hazleton gave the answer I call em hazelnuts oh jeez [Laughter] shop here the answer Mad Hatter zaz Clayface and Solomon Grundy and Colby hench’s who I think we’ve been mispronouncing as hint cheese this entire time but that’s his nickname pin cheese he gave the answer Clayface poison ivy and Deadshot Erin Alexander Jones gave the answer Killer Croc Deadshot Harley Quinn and katana what is this some kind of Suicide Squad I love that line in the movie and by love I mean hate Joel Seagrave gave the answer Hugo Strange and Solomon Grundy and caleb ali burgers gave the answer Riddler Mr Freeze Clayface and poison ivy actually liked that one a lot but a lot of those characters except for Clayface have already been in a movie yeah that’s probably like the most a lists list so far yeah Adam speeds give the answer zaz professor Pig Jane Doe and Hugo Strange Ken Johnson gave the answer at Allen hush Mad Hatter and poison ivy and x-men thoughts one on Twitter gave the answer Vandal Savage Clayface Solomon Grundy and cagey beast and make sure to follow x-men thoughts 1 on Twitter he’s reading every single x-men comic ever and sharing his thoughts on them it’s a pretty interesting Twitter that’s gonna take it really long yeah yeah and final honorable mention goes to Mike Hoffman who gave the answer of Clayface so the winner of this week’s no prize the only person to give us four answers and each character has not been seen on screen before is Jeremy or who said Solomon Grundy Mad Hatter man bat and Clayface right and just two notes as has been seen on screen before a couple of times but he’s also gonna be one of the main bad guys the birds of prey film right up right so we we do count as as being on screen before same thing with cagey beast he was in Batman V Superman right right right and by on screen we mean like live-action film not like cartoon or television right right just to clarify that as well yes so congrats once again to Jeremy or you win this week’s no prize if you the listener would like to win a no prize go ahead and stay tuned to later on this episode when we will be asking another question of the week and other that’s done on to the news [Music] okay so as we mentioned earlier the DC Universe apps swampthing television series will be dropping on their platform this Friday and in lead-up to that they wouldn’t really sync you know some trailers last week they released one titled Alec that kind of focused on dr. Alec Holland who later becomes Swamp Thing and the second one that came out this past week was called a bee and it focuses on dr. Abby arcane his love interest now we didn’t talk about the Alec trailer last week because it gave more of a like a vibe and tone for the series than anything really substantial the Abby one is a little bit more substantial but I’d like to talk about both of them in terms of how much of this horror angle that they’re playing up it’s really interesting and early reviews have been coming out for this and they’re saying this is DC’s best show yet which blows my mind because Doom Patrol has been really really good and if people are saying that Swamp Thing is better than that I cannot wait I cannot wait this is gonna be like a really long week I could already tell so getting it to the first trailer it starts off with the actor Andy bean plank Alec Holland like in his laboratory in the swamp and he’s just talking about how he’s been there a while and he’s finding things that haven’t been there before right even in these small snippets I’m really compelled by his performance he looks vaguely familiar as an actor what else has he been in nothing that I’ve seen before and I agree he does look familiar he was like in the divergent series and I guess he’s gonna be in it Chapter two I guess he’s gonna be playing Stanley URIs which I’m sure that scene is gonna be horrifying if anyone’s familiar with its story yeah okay oh that’s cool I mean despite the fact that I haven’t really seen him in anything it’s good to note that he stands out as being a leading man it’s just from what I’ve seen yeah I don’t know how to describe his performance here it just seems really authentic it’s too bad that all of the Alec Holland actors are always replaced by somebody else when it comes to the character of Swamp Thing right so we’re probably only going to really see his performance in the first episode I think I mentioned a few episodes ago the whoever plays Alec Holland should also play Swamp Thing uh-huh but the more I think about it that may not necessarily be the case because if you remember from our last episode Swamp Thing is more of like a plant creature that thinks and tries to be Alec is not aleck regardless yeah it is sad that we may not be seeing too much of his performance in this show maybe like in dream sequences or something whatever yeah you know the trailer just shows him and Abby looking into the mysteries of the swamp and then it just gets horrific like these cadavers you have been reanimated by plants since just illah it’s gross it really grows it ends with like this big explosion and Abby’s looking around for Alec and then she sees like Swamp Thing emerging from the water yeah the extras who plays Abby was also pretty damn well cast here I really like all the performances that I’ve seen so far within these trailers and overall it looks far less generic and less like the Syfy original Man Thing than I thought it would be oh yeah it definitely looks less generic than the first trailer that they put out for the show made it seem speaking of Abby the actress is crystal Reed she definitely sold me on her trailer the second trailer that we’re gonna talk about Abby it opens up with a jump-scare she’s like lying in bed her alarm is going off then Austin like this hand just like reaches in and snoozes it for her and she just scream well let’s consider it no I’d be pissed I was like no I need that to wake me up don’t hit the snooze looks like the character of Abby is a doctor from the CDC who’s come to like investigate some mysterious like goings-on within the swamp and probably to help Alec with his research yeah whatever that may be but she sees some horrific things like this guy like rooted to a mirror and then like a she’s investigating him like the mirror cracks that freaked me out yeah that’s pretty scary but I’m a big chicken like I hate horror films in a way I’m kind of apprehensive to watch the show even because you think it’ll be that scary this trailer specifically made me afraid which is a good thing I guess yeah I mean one of the things that you said in our Swamp Thing review was that Swamp Thing live-action media should be horror based so this is definitely selling us on that regard and is it any wonder because it’s produced by James Wan you know who gave us the a fantastic Aquaman and the conjuring this trailer also gives us our first look at kevin durand as the floor onic man who’s that he is a DC villain he’s like a plant based DC villain he’s responsible for giving poison ivy her powers oh really yeah so I wonder if they’ll introduce poison ivy in the show that would be dope oh man I mean we know that they’re introducing like Professor Pig a Batman villain right and like there’s also Blue Devil who’s like an obscure DC character so why not the more the merrier I’ll just kick out I think the most horrifying shot in this whole trailer is like this monster the Abby sees like in the shadows who has like maggots coming out of his like mouth and eyes the special effects are pretty good I don’t even remember this out to watch it again that sounds horrifying Oh gross yeah this is not gonna be an easy watch like by any means this is gonna be rough but near the end of the trailer we get what I think is our best look of the swampthing character so far he’s not like crawling out of the muck like in shadows or anything like that he’s like bright green he has red eyes he’s just like looking up it’s really cool it’s a really cool shot and it really sells me on this show yeah I can’t wait to hear your thoughts about the pilot episode in our next podcast yeah I’m really looking forward to it I’ll also give my overall thoughts on season 1 of Doom Patrol in our next episode so look forward to that as well Benni regards to swamp things like horror angle that they’re taking with it let’s get into our question of the week out of all the Marvel and DC films shows and comics which has been the scariest which has scared you the most and why post your answer to our Instagram Twitter Facebook or email us at dynamic duel podcast at gmail.com we’ll pick our favorite answer and draw that person a dynamic duel no prize that will post to social media you have looking forward to your answers I think that does up for the news this week let’s jump into our review of x-men The Last Stand [Music] okay x-men The Last Stand is widely considered the worst film in the franchise although I do think that title actually belongs to x-men origins Wolverine oh yeah absolutely but this is probably second worst followed by probably x-men apocalypse now having said that apparently when I first watched this movie back in 2006 I enjoyed it a lot which I don’t remember so yeah explain expand on that I remember debating with you and Melissa your wife in the car on the ride home because I was like waiting for someone to like say the first thing because I wasn’t sure how you guys felt about it I thought you guys probably hated it because I knew I did it was like man that was awesome and I was like what the fuck is that was horrible well I think the movie had a few things going for it we’ll talk about what the film had going for it before we rip it to shreds the first thing that I had going for it was I think spectacle and action I think it delivered on those fronts I was a big fan of like seeing beasts fly through the air and all people I did like the end fight sequence and the scene where Dark Phoenix kind of takes over and starts really fucking shit up the entire Alcatraz base and like the water around them was like raising up into the air and stuff I thought it was a powerful moment and I think the cast did really well honestly I if the cast has always done a serviceable job with these characters for the most part and I think they were done a huge disservice with the scripts that they got for this third film considering that people like Hugh Jackman Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen helped bring credibility not just to these characters but to modern superhero movies in general yeah I mean frankly the modern era of superhero cinema started with the first x-men film in the year 2000 yeah exactly they helped establish this genre that we have now and it’s just too bad that the film sucks so much I think the main reason why this film is considered one of the worst in the franchise is because of the script it was a horrible unnecessary mashup of two of the greatest x-men runs from the comics you had the Dark Phoenix saga which is widely considered and rightly so one of the greatest x-men storylines of all time and I mean you can learn more about that story in our Raven vs Phoenix duel episode but essentially what happened was the full potential of genes powers were awakened after a crash landing from space and she was manipulated by elite mutants known as the Hellfire Club to think that her loved Cyclops had died and raged she flies out to space and destroys a solar system and the Shiar aliens come to execute her and the x-men try and defend her on the blue side of the Moon although she ends up killing herself it was a dark and sad and just wonderful story though it was later retconned so that Phoenix was not actually a fully realized gene but rather a cosmic entity known as the Phoenix force that was posing his gene I wonder how much of that we’ll see in this dark Phoenix film probably none of it now the angle that this movie took with the Dark Phoenix was that it was a kind of subconscious part of her psyche that develops due to mental blocks that Professor X had placed on her as a child and it was resentful right and so it became like this dark aspect of genes personality and you know I didn’t mind that angle and that would’ve been fine if that was the sole storyline for this film but the fact that it was bogged down with the cure storyline from the comics which was written by Joss Whedon from astonishing x-men and that was about a mutant cure that was just another phenomenal story - that could have been its own movie neither of these storylines were done justice therefore both were pretty unsatisfying which led to an overall unsatisfying film if they had to cut one storyline which one the cure the cure yeah save that for another movie see I think the opposite I think the Cure storyline would have made for a much better film to like wrap up the series but they set up the Dark Phoenix in at the end of x-men 2 and Jean sacrificers yeah they’re bad like they’re bad no I would have much rather seeing the Dark Phoenix story play out in its proper way and hopefully we’ll get to see that when Dark Phoenix comes out in a few weeks here but yeah I think the Cure movie could have totally been a fantastic adaptation all on its own because of the ethical questions that are raises they could have really dived into that and they they totally dropped the ball in that regard the film showed little to no respect to the fans of the comics and the previous two x-men films and yeah and the characters in general yeah Zach pen was one of the writers here he also wrote Elektra he’s the frickin worst superhero screenwriter of all time he’s like the of a bowl of strain writers and the film was co-written by Simon Kinberg who wrote the fans for stick movie and is also directing Dark Phoenix and and he’s not any better the fact that these two collaborated on the script is no surprise because it’s like the perfect storm of bad dialog non-existent character development and shoddy plot execution which are traits that were you could definitely not use to scribe the previous two x-men films directed by Bryan Singer yeah this film of course was directed by Brett Ratner so when you have him and Zach pen and Simon Kinberg it’s like the three musketeers of like suckage yeah and I guess you could consider the studio to be d’Artagnan because they also had a role in this in fact most of the behind-the-scenes drama that took place during production of this movie could be blamed on the studio because they were trying to rush to meet their May 2006 release date they focused more on making the release day than actually making a great film in a perfect world the movie would have been delayed and Matthew Vaughn would have stayed on as a director Matthew Vaughn was gonna direct this film yeah he was the original replacement for Bryan Singer when Bryan Singer and his team jumped on to the Superman Returns project and so it took a while for the studio to find a replacement they found it in Matthew Vaughn who made some brilliant choices for this film including the casting of Ellen Page a Shadowcat and Kelsey Grammer as beasts it’s like he felt too rushed to felt the movie was going to be crap rightly so and so he bailed on the project and was changed at the 25th hour by Brett Ratner and now there’s all kinds of controversy about Brett Ratner right yeah who apparently was a huge douchebag on the set creating like a toxic atmosphere like he outed Ellen Page as Gabe when she was just 18 before she had come out to anybody right and he was just being like sexist and gross and petty yeah just really not a good person to be around yeah there’s a reason why he doesn’t get much work in Hollywood any more behind the scenes drummer or not the fact that this movie was released it was such a transparent bid for profit more than anything and in that regard I feel like this was almost like the Justice League of its time or Justice League was the x-men 3 of its time you know where you have such behind-the-scenes drama you know director replacements a lack of delays for the film that should have existed and Brett Ratner was involved in both films Brett Ratner was involved in Justice League Justice League was produced under his Rat Pack dune entertainment production company okay but for the home video release they changed that to access entertainment so they removed the Rat Pack logo and everything oh really because of the controversy behind him yeah that’s hilarious yeah just keep Brett Ratner away from superhero films please play this Matthew Vaughn does such a better job with superhero movies and comic book movies in general like with kick-ass and Kingsman and of course x-men first class which was the reboot of this Chai’s that had to take place after this crappy movie so yeah the studio knew that they could count on the x-men brand to sell tickets and we’re just frankly lazy when it came to everything regarding the film but if I had to give the movie credit for anything it was probably the first ballsy superhero film in that it made bold choices that a few other franchises would have done at the time like eight killed off two major characters and depowered a few others although it did leave the tiniest bit of ambiguity as to whether those choices would stick in future installments but it did kind of pave the way for future films that also had ballsy character deaths like age of Ultron Logan and infinity war although maybe I wouldn’t give x-men 3 that much credit because the deaths in those films were definitely handled better I almost wonder if the studio actually did think that this was gonna be their last x-men film they did because traditionally franchises were done in in trilogies and then you would move on from there but you know studios have since learned that you can just keep milking these franchises for profit over and over again as long as you make the movies good like the MCU right exactly oh but let’s go into the character breakdown Hugh Jackman was probably the saving grace of this film no matter how bad these films get and I think this also applies to x-men origins Wolverine though the film may be lacking he still shows up sort of by this point like his attitude had gotten kind of stale what’s ya like when he was like who’s the furball what a fuckin asshole that’s not his fault that’s the scripts fault all right that’s what I’m saying none of these actors were able to handle some of these lines I definitely don’t blame him for that I think he did a great job at this point he had been well established in the role but I think in this particular movie he got to do more emotionally than he got to do in the previous two and you know that’s not to say that the previous two films didn’t have any like heavy stuff involving the character Wolverine but in this one he had to deal with you know basically killing the love of his life and I thought he handled those emotional beats really damn well as well as the physicality of the role I mean he got more jacked in this movie than he had been in the previous two and like freakin running through the forest and like just stabbing dude straight to the chest it was very true to character he’s just a really good Wolverine there’s recently kept making films with him like based on this continuity I never when they rebooted the franchise yeah exactly and I want to watch movies like x-men 3 now I just get so sad that he’s not playing the character anymore and that you know we’re gonna have to have somebody else in the role because he was so iconic and he really did to find the character for the modern day it was a little bit disappointing that they kind of took Cyclops emotional arc from the Dark Phoenix storyline in the comics and gave it to him because in the comics I always kind of saw Wolverines and jeans relationship as more flirtatious and more of a crush than any sort of like true love kind of thing yeah at the end of this he does confess his love for Jean before he stabs her you know and obviously Cyclops has been done a huge disservice throughout this entire franchise that made me so mad let’s talk about Cyclops okay let’s talk about Cyclops what the fuck now we know that James Marsden has scheduling issues with Superman Returns which was being directed by Brian sinker he brought James Marsden over to that movie and it was like a thankless role like why was James Marsden even in Superman Returns he did not need to be in there he should have been in this film doing what Cyclops was supposed to do in regards to the Dark Phoenix story I agree there was a lot that was unnecessary about the Superman Returns film and one of them was his character of Perry White’s son Superman Returns was an unnecessary film to begin with but you also think about what we lost because of his involvement with that and it just it just makes you furious I love Cyclops so much shit with him he had like two shortest scenes in this film I forgot how little screen time he had in this film he has like an altercation with Wolverine and then he like blasts a hole in the lake and then that’s no reason yeah he’s just like I’m so angry I’m just gonna shoot the water with my leg my optic blasts gene I keep hearing yeah yeah it just makes you said it would have been great if you had been able to stick around had not been in Superman Returns movie and you know we got something a little bit more faithful luckily it seems like they’re gonna do something more with the character in this upcoming Dark Phoenix film thank God thank God and I do like ty Sheridan as the character but watching x-men 3 again reminded me how much I actually did like James Marsden as Cyclops as well he’s a good actor like I know he doesn’t get like a lot of roles but he’s a really good actor yeah I’ve never hated him in anything as cinnamon but let’s move on to fomka Johnson who played Jean Grey’s slash Phoenix now I thought she gave a fantastic performance in this movie she was little to do in the first x-men movie she was phenomenal in the second x-men movie and I think she carried that over into this one for the first half of the film like when she’s telling Logan to like kill her and now she’s like freaking out and you can see what’s going on her mind as she realizes what she’s done how she killed Scott who she’s become what’s happening it’s powerful and she can turn off and on like a dime where she goes from really vulnerable to really angry and really scary actually like when she’s like threatening Professor X yeah and they’re fighting psychically and you know as she’s struggling with the idea that she’s even fighting with Professor X I just love funky anson very attractive oh yeah the last half of this movie she did nothing she just stood there they gave her this great set up this great emotional arc and she did nothing with it as soon as she joined Magneto she just stayed around as his like backup secret weapon yeah which sucks for vodka which sucks for the character of Jean Grey which sucks for fans I want to live in a parallel universe where funky Johnson got her do as far as dark phoenix goes I’ve always been a fan of her as Jean Grey ever since the first x-men film but yeah from the moment like she threatened magneto with those Cure like syringes to the end of the film she has like no dialogue almost she’s just like walking around standing by his side looking kind of menacing it’s pointless yeah stupid when a character like dark Phoenix is pushed to the side for another story in my opinion she should have been the main character in this film like we should have seen like what she thought about like killing professor axe and stuff like that right right you know and again maybe we’ll get that with a new movie what do you think about the kinky love scene between her and Hugh Jackman do you think it went too far I don’t think he went far enough that was a great scene it wasn’t well they really sold it yeah I remember like oh I wasn’t that young when this movie came out I was like 20 years old but when she like it wraps her legs around him and like telekinetically removes his belt I was like oh dang they’re about to go there yeah who did I walk into jeez it’s probably when this steamiest superheroes scenes and all of superhero films so they’re two very attractive people so make sense let’s talk about Patrick Stewart’s who played Charles Xavier and Professor X he’s the definitive Professor X as he always has been and he did a great job in this movie except for some of the lines that he was given they kind of gave him a dark streak in this movie like the they didn’t want him to be too sympathetic they wanted audiences to understand why he maybe had to die because of how he meant mentally manipulated Jean Grey but that entire like turn of character was done over the course of just a few lines of dialogue right therefore was just freakin horrible it felt so out of character when Professor X was like I don’t have to explain myself least of all to you I’m like Professor X what’s happening Petric story is just way too likable for me to like not like him well I have you ever seen the movie green room No yeah you wouldn’t like him and that would be he displayed a good villain but he is definitely not a villain in this movie I was pretty emotionally affected when I saw him die in Amish especially because it’s kind of really graphic the way he dies like I don’t know how to experiment yeah very it’s just a few frames but you basically see him explode what I saw that on screen I was about ready to walk out really like I got so upset by psych Cyclops dying cuz he’s like my favorite x-men character huh then once they did that to Professor X it was so fucking disrespectful I was like uh I’m walking out I’m walking out whoa cow wow it was a powerful scene I think a lot of what made Professor X is death scene so emotional was the music I was a big fan of the score of this particular film especially that Dark Phoenix score like dantana yeah I’ll agree with you if that emotion was discussed I did not get emotional by that at all I’ll shed a tear I was fucking angry you were just angry you weren’t sad no just angry that’s interesting but yeah Patrick Stewart despite the fact he was giving a shit deal in this film I still think he did a really great job with it a person who has never done a great job in these films Halle Berry Halle Berry Aurora Monroe and storm every single bit of dialogue that she has coming out of her mouth I never believed she’s just not a good actress and she never has been it’s true she’s are attractive and she looks like a believable super heroine but she is not the Ororo Munroe that I know of from the comics and I know she’s won an Oscar and everything but I never saw monsters ball and I have no idea how she pulled that off she got naked I think probably help she got naked in swordfish too you know an Oscar for that that’s true but um like I just want like the scenes where she’s fighting Callisto and she’s like pretending to get hit by her uh it’s some of the worst like action acting I’ve ever seen especially since in the comics Callisto doesn’t have Quicksilver powers exactly that she doesn’t have super speed and that’s one of the most frustrating things about this movie is they’re melding of characters because they were just so fucking lazy they thought this was gonna be the last installment they wanted to get as many superpowers and as many like Oh mah jizz to mutant characters from the comics within this film that they just decided to group a bunch of them together so you have psylocke here with like camouflage powers yeah you have Callisto with SuperSpeed you have kid Omega with quills powers it’s just so dumb I have no idea who kid Omega is but I’m still angry it’s just a slap in the face and you know at least thankfully we got a decent to psylocke in x-men apocalypse still waiting to see her return but yeah going back to Halle Berry one of the best things about this Marvel acquisition I think in my opinion is that we never have to see her a storm ever again damn but on a lighter note I did really enjoy Kelsey Grammer as Hank McCoy and beast when he was first cast by Matthew Vaughn I was ecstatic because he had the perfect voice I wasn’t sure what the makeup job was gonna look like and thankfully that came out like flawless perfect but I knew that his voice was just gonna kill it for the character he is to me beast and you know he’s older when he was cast in this role he was like in his late 40s early 50s I think that’s fine but it yeah it was perfectly fine because that aging was hid from the makeup and also he was supposed to be an older character within this movie established as like one of the first x-men characters exactly because in the comics he was one of the first five yeah and I’m glad that they held true to that continuity when they rebooted for x-men first class touching on that off topic real quick I think one of the biggest travesties of this film is the fact that you had the original five x-men characters all in the film Oh Iceman angel beast Cyclops Phoenix yeah and you didn’t like recreate that iconic scene from the cover of x-men number one that would have been so cool yeah that would’ve been amazing I thought that’s what we were gonna get like I was looking forward to that going into this film when I first saw it did it happen yeah didn’t know how to do proper fanservice at this point in time no in comic book movie history but Beast scenes as the diplomat as the head of mutant affairs with the US government were some of my favorite scenes because I think those were the only ones that were like well written I think it’s dialogue with the president was extremely believable yeah I didn’t know if that had to do with delivery or if Kelsey Grammer just rewrote all of his lines or something but I really enjoyed it especially when the president’s like I wonder how democracy survives when a man can move cities with his mind and beast was like as do why they actually touched on like real issues that would exist if mutants were real and really I just want to see like a whole movie or television series with beasts working in the West Wing you know I I would watch the shit out of that just that just sounds so interesting so the West x-wing the West x-wing but yeah just him like solving like the day-to-day affairs of like mutant and human relations and at the end of this film you know he became an ambassador so that could be like season and goes around the world dealing with me in affairs exactly so cool and the theme will sound like a mixture between the 90s x-men cartoon and the frasier theme and the West Wing thing sold sold tossed salad and scrambled eggs tenant debt I in regards to the other x-men characters let’s just go quick down the line of all the the x-men kids as I call him and I pack when his rogue had very little to do here did not appreciate her arc of basically just myself too yet to get laid basically changing yourself for a boy which is you know the wrong reason to do it right right Shawn Ashmore played Bobby Drake slash Iceman is really cool that he got to go into full ice mode here I like squealed like a little girl he was one of the best parts of this movie I think that the whole Ice Man versus pyro scene because that’s something that we wanted to see since the last movie right and the special effects I thought were pretty well done I like how he kicked the shit out of pyro what do you think of Bobby is a two-timing fool I he did not two-time rogue you know I think it was clearly established that Kitty Pryde was his friend and rogue was his interest I don’t think any of the affectionate overtures between shadow can ice men were overt and the fact that he kept coming back to rogue I think was a testament to his loyalty to his a girlfriend but let’s talk about Shadowcat who I think was played down to a tee by Ellen Page who was a phenomenal actress I’m a huge fan of Ellen Page though ever since hard she’s just fantastic and I think she looked the part of Shadowcat so much and the way they portrayed her use of powers in this film was so damn cool like the way she was like phasing through the ground and the way she like like phase juggernaut into the ground yeah and face through that guy and then slammed him down through by his shoulders yeah it was so cool she’s definitely the best of the three kitty prides that they had across this trilogy right yeah definitely and you kind of want to have to wonder why she was even like given a substantial role in this film was it just to create like a love triangle between Iceman and rogue I think that and maybe also for the action set piece that was shadow cat versus juggernaut because you know she can run through walls he could crash through walls that’s the great spectacle Matthew Vaughn not only cast Ellen Page but he also cast Vinnie Jones in the role of juggernaut because he thought it would be funny to have like this British gangster guy the stepbrother of Patrick Stewart they didn’t even touch on that no they didn’t them Daniel Cudmore as piatto rasputin’s slash Colossus he was in this film I’m really glad that they did the character of Colossus more justice in the Deadpool films because he was criminally underutilized in these first three x-men movies I think the main reason he was in this film was just for the fastball special though right he should have gone toe-to-toe juggernaut that would have been great that’s what I wanted to see and I’m so glad they did that in Deadpool 2 yeah and the last x-men to talk about is Warren Worthington the third aka angel who was played by Ben Foster never thought Ben foster would make a great Warren Worthington he’s a really good actor though he has such good range and he got ripped for this role he looked great as Archangel I thought the wings looked great even though they were like dove wing the wings looks phenomenal well that’s how they are in the comics too you know they’re like these huge angelic wings and I never really quite understood how magnificent they would look like in real life until we saw in live-action yeah because they you know in the comics he’s like oh you just had bird wings you know but in this it’s like oh you know what that would actually be a really damn cool mutant power to be able to fly like that yeah that being said I think his character was also underutilized here too I would have really enjoyed to see him join the x-men team in that final fight although maybe he wasn’t as trained as the other x-men characters right he mean he did save his father and everything like that but that was just kind of a throwaway I wanted to see him in the x-men suit you know I wanted to see him a full-fledged member and fight it’s always interested me how Warren fights in battles and of course we got to see that in Apocalypse yeah and that was pretty cool although his wings in Apocalypse didn’t look nearly as cool as they did here yeah surprisingly yeah that’s weird it’s still jamming through this character break down let’s move on to the bad guys ian mckellen / Erik Lehnsherr / magneto did as great a job as always here but just like Patrick Stewart just was not giving the best of scripts he’s always like the more interesting character in these x-men films in my opinion uh-huh I don’t know if it’s just because of the performances they just get really good actors to portray magneto uh-huh but he was one of the characters in this film that I think they did mostly right despite having some of the weakest lines I mean he does his best with them you know I do love the way he plays off of Patrick Stewart’s Professor X like in the opening scene where they’re visiting Jeanne and when they go back to the home later on and he’s like antagonizing Professor X to Phoenix you know and despite the fact that he does dumbass shit like raised the Golden Gate Bridge to transport his group over there when he could have transported them on literally anything and not leave a back entrance for the US military to come and attack him from behind and everything like that you’re right right so stupid he’s still one of my favorite characters from this franchise yeah my - Rebecca Romain was also in this movie playing Raven dark whole mystique should anybody role in this but it just served as a reminder of how much of a better mystique she is than Jennifer Lawrence oh my gosh I thought the character was fantastic in this film for the amount of screen time she had I like it when mystique is more mysterious you know she barely talks in these and she has like a weird voice when she does she kicks just all the ass super lethal I like mystique when she’s a villain you know and not you know morally flip-floppy like she isn’t in the the first class reboot oh right just the scene where like she’s transforming it’s like the president and then like the little girl it was just so sinister yeah yes exactly and I was so sad sad when she lost her powers and the magneto just abandoned her yeah that was her bird that he was a dick despite the small role some of the thematic implications that arose when magneto abandoned her were massive you know there are so many ethical questions that arise from this movie that they just never touch on then they could have a better movie would have done that like what like the nature of a cure of curing a genetic defect as opposed to accepting it the nature of being a mutant does your defect define you according to Magneto it does and whether it’s a quote unquote defect at all right exactly exactly I think these are themes that at the time the the gay community or really any sort of minority community was able to tap into at the time and I think we were owed more of an exploration of these themes considering that that’s what the comics have done I think it’s always been pretty overt in these films that there’s a correlation between the mutant gene and you know things like homosexuality you know like the coming-out scene to Bobbi’s parents and x-men to and stuff like that which has always been fascinating and huge part of the appeal of these characters from the comics to the film right yeah and that’s why we as fans don’t want to see just like a spectacle action movie we want to see a whole lot more because you can do a whole lot more with the x-men you can ask really big questions yes exactly Vinnie Jones played Ken Marcou slash the juggernaut we already talked about him a little bit briefly there’s not too much more to say other than his costume really sucked uh-huh I’m really glad that they did him more justice in the Deadpool 2 movie I do have to say though I didn’t realize until this film why I was so fitting that Kitty Pryde called him a dickhead because that helmet was fucking ridiculous what did you think of that I’m the juggernaut bitch line I mean I laughed in the theaters when it happened but because I knew that it had come from like this redouble of the x-men cartoon yeah that these guys had done on YouTube this is way back before the movie even came out and actually it was Brett Ratner’s inspiration for including the I’m the juggernaut bitch line in this movie because he saw that same YouTube video classy Brett Ratner yeah exactly I don’t think a lot of people saw that YouTube video so they didn’t understand to the shout out right but even when I see him say I’m the juggernaut bitch now I still laugh Erin Stanford played John Ellard I slash pyro he did a phenomenal job here I’ve always really liked Erin Stanford in this role he’s a phenomenal actor who’s kind of like slumming it I think in these films a little bit because he is really talented it was nice to see him carry over from the previous film yes yeah because we wanted to see that Iceman pyro fight it’s like almost like they made this film with just action set-pieces in mind and that’s how they got their whole cast of characters like that’s why they had Shadowcat that’s why they included pyro again because they wanted that pyro versailles went fight i could totally see that yeah they kind of reverse engineered the story from the action scenes they wanted I know what are we surprised if that’s how a lot of writers like Zack pen write you’re supposed to have an action to be every 10 minutes so you serve the action scenes you want to see then you build the story around that which is stupid yeah you’re not gonna tell a substantial meaningful story that way right I do like the the little devices that pyro had on his wrist I did miss the metal lighter that he had in x-men - we had devices like that in the comics right except yeah like tubes that come yeah and there weren’t like Flint’s they were like connected to gas tanks on his back okay the Flint sparks are much more practical yeah he’s not gonna blow himself up right exactly and last but not least I just want to mention multiple men because I’m a huge multiple man fan the worst thing about Disney’s acquisition of the Fox franchise is that it’s likely that the James Franco multiple man the movie is not gonna happen we haven’t really heard much about that movie since the almost a year that has been announced yeah who knows he could still pitch the idea to Disney that’s true I would love to see a multiple man film but yeah I think that doesn’t for all the characters let’s go ahead and get it to the story breakdown so the film starts off 20 years ago which you should realize is the same time frame as x-men apocalypse so you look at Patrick Stewart in this opening shot and then you look at James McAvoy and x-men apocalypse and you just have to wonder what the heck happened age-wise that CGI is so horrible so bad you made the comparison earlier to Justice League this cold-open reminded me so much of like the henry cavill mouth debacle yes weird looking it looks like their faces were floating on their heads yes yeah I didn’t really like this seen too much mainly because it seemed like Jean Grey was a little brat I’ve always just thought of Jean Grey as you know a heroic character so it’s weird to see her being an arrogant little shit when she’s a kid right we got the Stan Lee cameo here where you know his garden hose the water that’s coming out of it is flying up into the sky that’s pretty cool was it not really that’s word - 10 years ago and we see a young Warren Worthington first developing his wings and he’s trying to like file them down well in the bathroom that was a powerful scene it was such a powerful scene he’s trying to deal with this emerging mutation in the bathroom and he’s crying and he’s freaking out as we do as we get older and we say her body’s changing but to a much more extreme way yeah his dad comes knocking on the door here’s these tools I don’t know if he thinks he’s he’s cutting himself or something like that which essentially he kind of is yeah the kid actor that is in this scene is just so phenomenal I sold it sold it so well yeah I feel for him you know when he’s crying and apologizing for something he can’t even control exactly exactly it’s heartbreaking it’s heartbreaking and at that point I was prepared for a much more thematically resonant emotional movie and it didn’t really happen No from there we go into the danger room which I hated this scene so much I did every single thing about the danger room seemed like I was looking forward to a danger room sequence for so long in these films and what we got was such crap I mean they’re going up against a sentinel and a post-apocalyptic simulation and the dialogue is just atrocious storms delivery of all of her lines we’re just so bad like Wolverine snap they’re not ready yet store him don’t do this I mean the fastball special was cool and everything like that and like seeing the the Sentinels head land was cool was that a Wolverine like just walked out from behind right he was like was he in the head what the hell does do teleport it was it was a really bad omen of the things that were to come later on this film when it comes to dialogue and editing and special effects and everything like that and you know Halle Berry’s performance like the way she was pleading with Wolverine like he was like about to do something drastic that was gonna get them all killed or something like that you know and then it was over act and the way he was so aloof I was like what is going on so the Danger Room session ends and we learned that Wolverine was subbing for Scott who is hearing voices of Jean Grey in his head and and he’s going through a lot of emotional turmoil so he goes to set out to investigate and I love the line that Cyclops gave Logan where he was like we don’t all heal as fast as you do Logan as much as I give the dialogue shit in this movie there are some decent lines here and that is definitely one of the better ones Warren Worthington for the past 10 years has apparently been working on a mutant cure which he announces which leaves the x-men team divided as to what they should do you know you have beast and Professor X who are fairly neutral on the matter I think they could understand both sides of why you would want to get the Cure and why you wouldn’t yeah then you have storm who’s totally anti cure and then you have rogue whose procure which is actually how I think it would play out in the comics as well I think they were pretty true to character on their stances although if I remember correctly from an astonishing x-men beast was procure I think he wanted to test it on himself yeah because there’s blue fur is an accident right exactly it’s a result of him experimenting on himself the The Cure causes mass panic among the mutant population across the world and magneto shows up at a community meeting to rally mutants to his cause of destroying the Cure because he views it as offensive as well he thinks that they’re gonna weaponize and force it upon them yeah which the government kind of does they do weaponize it yeah it’s crazy yeah Scott goes over to alkali lake just shoots the water just cuz and Phoenix comes out and kills him dumb but we don’t know why why does she kill him if I knew the answer to that question I want to be so pissed off it’s done with such little fanfare off screen the whole time I’m wondering is he really dead that was annoying yes she like deactivates is like powers uh-huh and then we don’t see him again and he’s not even mentioned as to whether or not he’s dead for like the next half hour yeah like yeah they don’t give a shit about Cyclops fuck it was a nice moment though when she deactivated his powers his optic blasts cuz that was from the comics I appreciated that she gotta see his real eyes yeah I mean they should have gone farther with it you know I think that’s gonna happen in the Dark Phoenix film I think we’ve seen like the little snippets from the trailers where she does that for him hopefully a Wolverine and storm go investigate alkali lake where they find Phoenix and they bring her back to the mansion and we learned that Professor X is a dickhead and he and will ring get into an argument which we’ve already stated it is pretty out of character I think for professor X yeah or at least this version of him as he’s been portrayed in these movies magneto uses one of the mutants that he recruited Callisto to track down the location of mystique and he attacks the prison convoy that she’s being held in which was a pretty cool scene until I remembered like why would the drivers continue to head toward magneto if they see that all the cars in front of them have already been demolished right it was pretty cool how he took him out though how he was just like crushing the cars and like flipping him up through the air and everything like that I did like that I always liked the way they portrayed the more extreme uses of his powers within these films yeah yeah I hated when they freed like multiple man from his container and just how fake that looked and this is like yes--you’re I’ll join time in yeah no character development what’s in there boom same thing with juggernaut he’s like let me out I got a P and then you know he just joins their cause yeah and he says the helmet keeps his face pretty and it’s like that’s not why you wear a helmet right it’s for a psychic protection from his stepbrother exactly the Brotherhood abandons mystique when she gets deep powered which was messed up but then we go back to gene and Logan who have a sexy kinky almost love scene but he confronts her and asked you know what happened to Scott and she freaks out and escapes the mansion she goes back to her childhood home so the x-men go to her childhood home to pick her up where the Brotherhood is already waiting because they were able to find her through Callisto as well he was able to track her there’s a big fight in the house Professor X dies super tragic did not see that coming I really thought Wolverine sucked at fighting against the juggernaut for some reason he just wasn’t able to even scratch him I don’t understand how that’s possible right but storm was able to handle the rest of the Morlocks herself they have a funeral for Professor X which I thought was actually pretty well done honestly it was probably Halle Berry’s best line delivery when she’s giving his eulogy yeah and just seeing everybody’s reactions it was pretty touching I think I was still angry at the time when I first saw this especially because they didn’t have a funeral for Scott at the time either yeah exactly what’s up with that oh they had his tombstone for him very end yeah yeah cuz I think they finally realized what happened but Wolverine starts getting calls for help from Jean Grey who’s in the woods now with the rest of the Brotherhood and so he goes to investigate it’s a pretty sweet ass action scene with him against spike who was one of my least favorite x-men characters he’s from x-men evolutions the television show oh yeah for some reason they decided to include him in this movie and he’s based off of the character marrow yeah kind of I’ve never really liked marrow either although the concept of like throwing your bones at people it’s pretty neat if a little bit gross here’s my skull hey no they never do that like but marrow would like grow Brown protrusions out of her body that she could just like pull out yeah I can like use this type in stuff yeah and spike for some reason just was able to like shoot them out like guns although in the in the movie here he like pulls him out of his forearm and then throws him and they’re all like twisted and binding it’s we yes so Oh gross so while spying there Wolverine learns that they plan on attacking the Alcatraz facility where they’re developing the cure so he rallies the rest of the x-men to go over to Francisco wear magneto has raised the Golden Gate Bridge and used it to transport the Brotherhood to the facility this is where the last stand begins where the mutants start attacking the military and the military is able to start deep powering some of them because they their plastic cure weapons but then Arclight who is like a mixture between arc lights and ex-stasi say CX from the shoe looks like stacy yeah yeah as stacy x is also gonna be in the new dark phoenix storyline that’s so weird like Simon Kinberg just must really like that character no idea what’s happening there but she’s able to target against the vibratory frequency of the plastic weapons and destroy them all and at that point the x-men come in and holds the line to protect leech the source of the cure which leech was a surprise in this film yeah I actually thought I was semi clever the fact that they made him the source of the cure because that wasn’t part of the comics in the comics dr. Rao developed the cure but it’s always been leeches ability in the comics to negate mutant powers or any type of powers yeah or otherwise so the fact that they thought to combine those two things was actually not a bad idea the scene where beast like approaches leech for the first time in his hand just like turns human I remember that scene from the trailer for this film yes and it was just a cool scene yes because you know what that means to beast right as a character exactly he was very conflicted yeah the x-men seemed to be holding the line well until magneto and pyro started combining you know their ability to start hurling cars that aren’t fire and I start crashing everywhere so the x-men decide that they have to you know use the Cure weapon against Magneto which is a little bit hypocritical I thought especially the fact that beast was the one that delivered that blow and he was the one who was worried that it was gonna be used against me and forcefully right he resigned as the head of the department of mutant affairs because the fact that the cure was weaponized and here he was using it and ultimately maybe that’s just a good story er he learned that hey there are situations where that needs to happen I mean I guess he is a realist I’ll say that but I did like Ian McKellen’s performance when he realizes that he was you know no longer a mutant and one of them yeah it seems like that’s the end for the Brotherhood even though Phoenix has done jack shit up until this point just standing there looking at everything military reinforcements come from the other side of the bridge and start trying to shoot everybody with the cure and that’s when Dark Phoenix like I guess decides to fucking do something and what she does is she just fucking kills everybody it’s crazy I mean I I do like the special effects of seeing someone like turn to dust it’s just like like breaks everyone’s atoms apart right yeah that was actually pretty cool I did like this scene actually when she became dreck Phoenix although you know we didn’t get any of the cool fire effects she just happened to be standing next to some fire yeah she was backlit by like the fire and that like caused like this halo around her hair to glow like a fiery aura kind of thing it was alright I do think that the effects they’re using from what we’ve seen in Dark Phoenix look much better yes because I want my Phoenix to be fiery and real fiery like psychic energy as opposed to you know just standing next to a fire right the shot where the camera pans around the whole scene where we see the water flying up into the air the music swelling is from Wolverines point of view he sees Phoenix off in the distance and he knows what he has to do he has to go up there and kill her he’s walking toward her and she’s basically just trying to rip him apart too but apparently in these movies his healing factor is so fucking powerful that he can regenerate as quick as she’s tearing him apart is it mean it’s kind of ridiculous but I also thought it was kind of clever because no one else would have been able to survive approaching her it’s like his healing factor was pushing against her telekinetic force yeah I didn’t mind it I actually did not mind it no I wonder how Cyclops is going to avoid being atomized in Dark Phoenix movie by saying the right words okay so the aftermath after gene dies we see that the school has been reopened with storm as the new headmistress which i think was a great call out to her leadership roles that she’s had of the x-men in the comics see that beast has been appointed to be the ambassador to the United Nations for the US which was really cool Wolverines is staying on at the school as a teacher to help raise the next generation of mutants and leeches going to the school now and I think everyone’s gonna hate him yeah everyone’s gonna fucking hate leech he’s gonna be a pariah for sure except maybe my powers around you dude get away from me rogue seem to be like okay can you just kind of like hang around while I make out with my boyfriend well she’s already cured but as we learn by the very last scene of this movie the cure is temporary which really fucking negates this entire move a whole movie exactly that really pissed me off that really up to big beast even said at the beginning they found a way to suppress the mutant gene permanently they’re calling it a cure he said the word permanently and it’s not permanent they lied to us exactly which kind of like made me groan at the very last shot of the movie where magneto like moves the chest piece with his mind you know it’s subtle it’s barely perceptible but we all saw it move I’m pretty sure you loved that at the very end one first saw this I love the fact that this meant that we might get more x-men movies but I hated it from a story perspective yeah from a story standpoint yeah you’re right it just negates the whole film right I mean you have to remember this is before the MCU was brought about and I just wanted more superhero movies so if I saw a way for them to continue the franchise I was gonna be excited by that but I was not excited by that story element itself this film should be noted for the fact that it was probably I think the first Marvel movie to include a post-credits sequence that like further the plot of the film’s story except that this one wasn’t any good it sucked basically we learned that the comatose body that Professor X was referring to as he was giving it a lesson earlier on in the film was his own twin brother now in the comic books Professor X does have a twin it’s a twin sister her name is Cassandra Nova and she’s freakin evil professor x like tried to kill her in the womb because he first saw how evil she was going to be right exactly it would have been interesting if in this after credits scene it wasn’t a twin brother but a twin sister and Professor X woke up as a woman I think that would have been hilarious I’m not quite sure how I feel about this end credits scene because all while I do think that it was a clever way for Professor X to get around death I also feel like it was also pretty cheap it was too convenient he just happened to have a twin brother who was comatose right and he happens to be psychic it’s bullshit I do like how they made dr. Moira MacTaggert Scottish in this movie though because she wasn’t in x-men first class yeah the actress made a good Moira I thought yeah and I thought for like the sequel after x-men 3 I thought they were gonna make an x-men 4 that involved Proteus who is a reality altering mutant that is the son of dr. Moira MacTaggert I thought that would’ve been cool but instead they rebooted and I think the franchise was made better for it because I did really like x-men first class and I think Days of Future past was able to utilize both casts pretty well yeah although you see x-men apocalypse and you have to wonder if it was even worth it by this point they mentioned in x-men apocalypse how the third film is usually shit yeah and I agree yeah yeah that does it for this review over all I have to give this movie two and a half stars so sum it you know like halfway between zero and five because while it did have good action set-pieces and you know the actors are still likable the story was just crap and I think when you balance all the things overall I think the film mostly ends up disappointing mainly because if it’s choice to dilute two of the x-men’s greatest storylines into one film and just because of you know like the whole drama behind the scenes those going on and everything right there’s trouble to production they never furs well forgive finished product yeah what star trading do you give it I’m gonna be a little bit more harsh with it because I think when you compare it to what’s coming out now it’s it’s just gotten worse as a film I think that’s probably true although I think when you compare it to x-men origins Wolverine which we gave one and a half stars yeah I think it’s more than just a half star step-up from x-men origins will reign that’s fair that you know actually that’s really fair yeah you know I’ll probably agree with you I’ll give it two and a half stars okay cool well listeners let us know what you guys thought about x-men 3 what you liked about it what you didn’t like about it go ahead and reach out to us via email at dynamic duo podcast at gmail.com or you can find us on social media on facebook Instagram or Twitter by going to our website dynamic duel comm and finding links to our social media profiles there yet if you go to our newly redesigned website you’ll find a link to our merchandise store which is on T public and we put up new designs every week so if you haven’t been there in a while definitely check back again there should be something that strikes your fancy yeah help support the podcast you could do that by visiting our merch store or by sharing this podcast with your friends and family who are into Marvel and DC or just Marvel or just DC in our next episode we will be doing a duel match x-men related and build up to the Dark Phoenix film in which we pit Cyclops versus negative man from the Doom Patrol and this is either gonna be like a really great matchup or like the worst matchup we’ve ever done we’ll see how it plays out basically other two characters and who had to protect the outside world from their powers and their energy based and we’ll see how it goes it’ll be fun but yeah that does it for this episode and we will talk to you guys next week and until then I’ll pop it away true believers