Tomorrow I'll be seeing X-Men: First Class, and I'm really looking forward to it. I never got into the comic books, but I've enjoyed the characters in their film, TV, and video game offshoots. One of my earliest memories of the X-Men is sinking a ton of quarters into this game at a local mall:
The game is a side-scrolling beat 'em up a la Battletoads, Double Dragon, Final Fight, and about a million others. A few years later, when the mall decided to shut down the arcade, they put a $500 price tag on it. Me, my brother, and my four cousins tried to get our grandma to buy it for us for Christmas that year. There were six of us, and with six possible players, the arrangement worked out perfectly. Unfortunately she didn't go for the idea, and eventually, predictably, the game soon disappeared. And maybe the worst part is that they never ported the game to consoles, so the arcade was the only place to play it. Still, I'm not sure a port would've done justice to the experience.
I was also a big fan of X-Men: The Animated Series. I've posted the intro before, but it's so good (both the animation and song) that it's worth posting again:
And that brings me to the recent trilogy. I enjoyed the movies, though the third, which had a different director, was a letdown. I dug the cast, special effects, and story. Particularly cool is Nightcrawler's White House scene. The trilogy didn't impress me like Nolan's Batman movies did, but I consider them all solid. I had two issues with them, however, and again, I'm not familiar with the comics so I'm not knowledgeable of those story lines, but I didn't like how Gambit wasn't in them and Beast makes too late of an appearance. I never saw X-Men Origins: Wolverine, because I didn't think it looked that good, and apparently it's not.
Besides X-Men: First Class, I also anticipate seeing Green Lantern and Captain America: The First Avenger this summer. But Hollywood, can we get a superhero movie without a love story? Please?
7 comments:
I remember seeing the first movie and feeling incredibly letdown that they didn't buy the score from the cartoon.
I liked how Gambit wasn't in them because he may be the lamest comic character ever.
@ Jason: That would've been cool had they done that.
@ Bradley: You're dead to me!
I saw First Class on Monday and liked it. And yeah, the third movie was so-so, and Wolverine ... awful!
I'm looking forward to Super 8 tomorrow.
wv: moustf
I miss those old Marvel cartoons. The Spider-Man one was great too.
Dark Knight didn't have much of a love story.
@ Robert: I thoroughly enjoyed First Class--especially Fassbender as Magneto.
@ Ravi: That's true, I suppose. Rachel was in it, but not quite at the forefront.
Waves of nostalgia thinking about that old arcade game and the Animated Series.
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