Preparing for the Apocalypse

So ahead of X Men Apocalypse coming soon i have finally watched First Class and Days of Future Past.

First Class to start with! I really enjoyed it. James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender are a great fit for the younger McKellen and Stewart!

Erik is such a confusing character. I find it quite difficult to see him as a proper baddie because he’s not really. He’s just not the best ideas of how to deal with things, but does want to protect mutants. I had the same problem with Ian McKellen’s version. I can’t help but like him a bit. Also seeing his back story in this film just reinforced that further. I mean I’m not into murder being a good thing but the way he got back at Shaw in the end – cheering at my TV! Bloody brilliant.

Interesting to see Mystique (sp?) being Charles’ good friend knowing it flips to her siding with Erik in the later set versions. Seems through Days of Future Past she’s still a bit between the two of them. Let’s see how Apocalypse goes.

I wish i remembered more about the cold war and cuban missile crisis from my GCSE history days as i felt a bit muddled up at times but it made for an interesting setting and i like how it shows mutants being part of everyday life and history we know.

One of my favourite moments was meeting Hank. Realising he wasn’t scary furry blue man yet so when he was suggesting an experimental drug i though…well Hank…think we all know how this is going to go buddy.

Also A+ cameo from a never aging Hugh Jackman…but i suppose that ability of his is explained.

Speaking of! Days of Future Past.

Well this was a fun one! Fantastic way to bring both generations of Erik and Charles together! All very dramatic. That speedy kid who sits around playing games is that the same fella from Avengers: Age of Ultron? Friends with Scarlet Witch? Quicksilver is it? He’s been doubled up a bit there.

I spent most of this film thinking “ERIK..WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING?!” We just never know what is going on inside his head. You think he wants one thing then he changes his mind. Yes, we need to get rid of Raven so she doesn’t kill that guy that leads to the destruction of all mutants. General plan seems to be…don’t let people see mutants as dangerous. No..Erik has a better idea…make them see mutants as so dangerous that they’re a massive threat. HOW IS THAT HELPING ERIK?! The only side he’s on is his own.

Final thing, cleverly done X-Men folk. Zooming back into the past and treading on a few butterflies..what a way to pretty much wipe out the original X-Men trilogy. Or at least any fatalities. Excited to see where it all goes.

In chess, the pawns go first…

Quick post! Because i keep forgetting to write about them and i wanted to give them a separate post before i started watching “First Class” and “Days of Future Past” that i’ve not seen before.

I watched the first 3 X-Men films recently because i’ve not seen them in such a long time and (as i said just before) i wanted to give them a watch through before i get to the films i’ve not seen yet.

First point, what an absolutely amazing cast throughout!

I mean, Ian McKellen i ADORE (now i think Eric/Magneto is born in…Germany was it?..i was trying to decipher his interesting accent. In the end i decided since he’d moved to America and had probably been all over the place he was allowed a bit of a mish-mash in there). Patrick Stewart – obviously brilliant, Halle Berry, Hugh Jackman, Kelsey Grammer, Brian Cox (not the professor), James Marsden, the list goes on!

I enjoyed the first two films but i think i found X-Men: The Last Stand the most exciting. I liked that they didn’t really have a clear villain. Or not to my mind anyway. With Magneto it was strange because he was friends with Xavier though clearly a bit violence inclined…but i never saw him as a villain really. Just a guy who wanted to be accepted, but didn’t think it was going to happen without….well…obliterating all non-mutants. I was upset for him when he seemed to become “normal” again and i think the way they ended the 3rd film with the slight hint and then cut to the credits was just fabulous.

There was some good humour in the films but compared to the other Marvel films about it seemed quite dark and serious. I know it’s good to be a bit different but i do like the sort of crazy-fun times that comes with a superhero film..though i suppose these stories weren’t really framed as such.

I also liked that there were a lot of mutants with a big range of skills about without it getting too ridiculous. I mean sometimes i was a bit like “that’s an interesting combination of abilities you’ve got there but hey-ho!”. But the good thing is that a lot of the time they just…were. They didn’t try to endlessly go into each character and their abilities which can get confusing and tiresome. (Remember that TV show ‘Heroes’…yeah..i’m looking in their direction).

So yes, i definitely enjoyed them. I almost watched Wolverine Origins on TV last night but then i didn’t bother in the end. He did give me some of my favourite moments across the trilogy…including towards the climax of Last Stand where his struggling to get to Jean results in such power that he loses his shirt and even starts to lose his skin (luckily he’s a healer) but his trousers stay almost completely in tact apart from the odd bit of dramatic wear and tear.

Ha. Who needs realism in X-Men!

This I swear by the stars!

Continuing the theme of “films i really should have seen a long time ago but finally have now they’re on tv” next was “Les Miserables” (with the appropriate dash thing above the ‘e’ that i can’t get on my keyboard).

This was the first and only version of Les Mis i have seen so far and i was very much looking forward to seeing what it was like since it was so well buzzed at the time and i very much enjoy musicals and the cast seemed pretty epic!

Uh…if you’re a big Les Mis fan, you’re probably not going to enjoy this post very much. I promise it’s not all bad! And i can see why people WOULD like it, but i have to say it really wasn’t my favourite.

Like ‘Life of Pi’ (or probably even more so) definitely not a film length that lends itself to having adverts throughout. Gosh. But! I was okay with it in the end for..reasons that will appear momentarily.

Also, i can see how it would work well as a stage play which of course it is originally meant as but upon reflection it’s not the fact that it’s a film that meant i didn’t enjoy so much.

Basically, as a sort of summary…here’s what i would do if i was given Les Mis and told to do it how i would like it. The story is lovely, it is, nothing wrong with that it’s a good idea, but it could really do with chopping the first two sections/hours into about 10 minutes of back story. As far as i could see the only reason we had to see such a wide stretch of time was to give Jean Valjean and Javert their sort of back story. Grab hold of “I dreamed a dream” and pop it in somewhere else because i like that song but the rest of that story-line is just misery (i know i know have i SEEN the title of the film?) and in the end not that necessary for the later interactions with Cosette.

You may be shouting at me here for not appreciating the lovely entwining stories and how important that all is and i apologise.

So, as i was saying, 10 minutes of back-story, get Javert singing “Stars” and then go onto the “1832” section of the story and do that. That part i really enjoyed! Really got into that! It was just a shame i had to wait almost 2 hours to get to it. If it has to be 3 hours long at least have Eddie Redmayne and Samantha Barks singing for the entire time.

The cast as i say i really do love, but as much as i can see Helena Bonham-Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen were there for the (very much needed) comic relief, i feel their sections fell a little on the cheesy awkward side of funny and as much as i like them and understand where their characters were used in the maze that is these story-lines i just don’t think they were necessary. Or could have been turned into a few sentences. Turned a bit into ‘Muppet Christmas Carol’ meets ‘Annie’ for a while there.

Hugh Jackman, lovely as ever, made some strange sounds at times but he can sing at least. Now i feel bad for Russell Crowe because he got so much stick at the time and at the start i was agreeing with people on that but i grew to like his voice and he could carry a tune at least. Also what is with Javert and talking about himself in third person like constantly? That was quite hilarious.

Maybe one thing where i found the film format a bit awkward was the sort of big emotional solos. Maybe i’m just heartless. I understand what they were trying to do but as lovely as the songs were it got a little bit trying just seeing a long close-up of crying and singing. I get it and i get it was big for the actors and the characters all had their own moment and things but just…phew.

But okay, i feel i’ve been a bit mean, if i was to put what i didn’t enjoy down to one thing, if you wanted to keep it all the same but just make one little change to make me a hell of a lot happier, please…consider the idea of having conversation that is not in song. I just…i just couldn’t get on board with that. I also learnt the reason why i only knew a few songs from this play because yeah some of them are beautiful and fabulous and gorgeous but some of them are just a bit “…okay?” and just singing every sentence i thought this isn’t even sounding nice and musical it’s just bloody annoying and it’s taking the emotion out of it for me big time.

So, 10 minutes of back story, go straight to “Stars” and 1832, do all that bit that’s lovely, especially Eddie Redmayne (he’s just really good at that acting stuff isn’t he?), TALK to each other and have some lovely songs around it. Like that “One Day More” is it? Where they all over-lapped? That was pretty epic. More of that.

Maybe i’ll watch a stage version some time and see how it compares.

Speaking of trailers…

Here’s a few!!

Firstly, as an addition to the Hobbit trailer from the other day, here’s a video posted on Peter Jackson’s facebook where Orlando Bloom, Evangeline Lily and Lee Pace (Legolas, Tauriel and Thranduil) watch a video of two girls watching the trailer. It’s super funny! If you want to see the full version of what they’re watching that’s on their facebook page too! (Bit of a warning they discuss upcoming parts of the film/book in case you’re avoiding spoilers or something)

Click!

“Man of Steel” has it’s premiere in London last night! I can’t say i’ve watched many adaptations of Superman! My friend and I used to watch “Lois and Clark” on coming home from school some days which was great! I mean all he did was slick his hair back and take his glasses off and he looked EXACTLY the same! Made us giggle. But i saw the trailer for Man of Steel in the cinema when i went to see Star Trek, and wow! It actually made me cry it was super epic…so i wouldn’t be against seeing this if the opportunity came up! Here’s the trailer…

Man of Steel

Actually, one of the first trailers for Man of Steel i saw, was this one below. They use the music from Lord of the Rings – The Fellowship of the Rings. A section from the end of the track “The Bridge of Khazad-Dum” as they leave Moria just after losing Gandalf. Beautiful music, i was much more focused on the use of that than the trailer i’ll admit!

Here!

Keeping with the superhero theme…sort of! Next is Wolverine! I only saw this trailer for the first time yesterday, and i admit i’ve not done a terrific job keeping up with all the X-Men things! I watched the X-Men 1, 2 and 3 films and really enjoyed them! Can’t beat a bit of Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart! But i haven’t seen all the other ones that kept popping up like X-Men Origins: Wolverine and X-Men First Class with Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy! They’re doing another too aren’t they soon? ‘Days of Future Past’ or something, which i believe will involve Fassbender, McAvoy AND Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen (of course other characters too, but i mean they must do a bit of jumping back and forth in the timeline of characters). This film i believe ignores the others a bit and comes after X-Men The Last Stand!

Wolverine

Coming away from that slightly! We have something i’m personally greatly looking forward too which is “The World’s End”. The 3rd in the rather oddly named ‘Cornetto’ trilogy with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. The first two being Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, but of which i’ve seen and (despite the seemingly random super gory moments! xD) i enjoyed them, they’re a good laugh and very well done, clever films! Simon Pegg of course i am a huge fan of he’s just fabulous, this feeling only being built on by seeing Star Trek recently. Also, as a VERY big fan of Mr Martin Freeman, i’m happy he seems to have a much bigger role in this one! Appearing at the beginning and end of Hot Fuzz, and pretty much popping up as an extra in Shaun of the Dead. I’d love to see Simon and Martin together more, you can see why they’re good friends! Out July 19th!

Prepare to be annihilated!!