Marvel’s Mutants in Movies Make Alteration Possible

http://www.ksunradio.net/?p=567

By
Shanks
– February 19, 2011Posted in: Exclusive New Articles

Since the late 90’s after the success of Blade, Hollywood has churned out comic movie after movie; some like Blade become surprising hits that opens up an obscure comic character to the masses, others just take up theater space until Tyler Perry can deliver one of his craptastic flicks. The thing with comic movies is that they need to be handled right. When Chris Nolan redid the Batman franchise nobody really cared mainly cause Joel Schmauker (probably not how you spell it but I’m lazy) had F*cked (that spells f&%$#&) it up so bad it couldn’t get worse. But Nolan played it smart, he used villains that weren’t the most popular and had Batman fight them in his origin story–that way he could jump into the mix when it came for the sequel. The end product became Batman Begins and the Dark Knight both I would say great comic films with Knight being a great movie in general. Then you have movies like Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Scott Pilgrim, Road to Perdition, 300, Kick Ass and Sin City movies that people didn’t really know were based from comics, while some of these weren’t the big blockbuster studios had hoped nonetheless these movies were treated by directors who loved the material and because of that love, these movies found their audience.

It seemed a formula was set as long as the movie was a labor of love it would find some sort of audience but someone forgot to mention that to Marvel Comic. It seems as though Marvel was more caught up in just putting out movies for the sake of getting a movie out. Movies like Ghost Rider, Daredevil, and the Ang Lee version of Hulk all just missed its mark often just being too watered down by studio heads or just the director not getting it. Regardless Marvel was able to find their flagships: Spiderman, Ironman, and most importantly X-men. All were great adaptations, but then studio heads f&%$#& up Sam Raimi’s Spiderman 3 and for whatever reasons butchered X-men 3 and Wolverine (I am biased and will say I liked X3 and Wolverine but the general consensus is that they sucked dick). Now Marvel has decided to reboot their Mutants with two film entries in 2011 with Matthew Vaughn’s (director of Kick Ass) X-men First Class and Darren Arfnosky’s (director of Requiem for a Dream, the Wrestler and Black Swan) The Wolverine.

X-Men First Class takes place during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It contains a whole new set of mutants that haven’t been on screen and some old ones like Prof X, Magneto, Mystique, and Beast. The problems that the movie is experiencing are that it’s under a hectic schedule to finish for a June 3rd premier which is just after having a finalized cast at the end of December. To make things bleak, a production photo was leaked to negative reviews and the news that Matthew Vaughn was in a different part of the country editing and some shoots were done without him being there, coupled with the fact that he is editing the film over the course of 3 days and you don’t get the biggest of hopes for this new X-men movie. But in all honesty after watching the preview I am not at all worried about this movie. Bryan Singer the director of the first 2 is a vocal producer that championed Matthew Vaughn for this project; he also has a big hand in the final product mainly to make sure it serves as a proper prequel. The production stills that were leaked I actually saw and I wasn’t impressed nor was I upset. I remember when the stills from the original X-Men were leaked and a then unknown Hugh Jackman looked like a goofy Wolverine. I thought wow this might be a shitfest, but now I don’t think anyone else could play Wolverine. The bottom line is the preview worked, it stirred my interest. This new X-men movie looks legit and it has a great cast full of Kevin Bacon and young stars Michael Fassbender, James Macavoy, January Jones, and Lucas Till. I honestly think that this might be the sleeper hit of the marvel brigade coming out; yet it might not have the fan fare of Captain America or the magic of Thor, but when your comic book is the greatest selling book in comic history, it shouldn’t have a problem finding an audience.

The Wolverine movie I feel is in a different light, the X-men movies all acknowledge the previous films. This Wolverine is basically like the Hulk, not so much of a reboot because they are keeping Jackman but more of an eraser to the 2009 Wolverine movie. This adaption is more like if you choose to accept the original go ahead but it doesn’t have anything to do with the stuff going down in the new film. “The Wolverine” has got two things going for it, first Arfnosky is a great director who is a comic fan but he is also someone who can get the best out of his actors. If you don’t believe me look at his track records with the exception of the Fountain every one of his theatrical releases carries at least 2 academy awards nominated performances. Second the adapted source is a story about Wolverine in Japan which to anyone that knows the Wolverine comics know that when he is in Japan that’s when the s$#! hits the fan–those are usually the best stories. But the strikes that I have against it are as follows: if Marvel is putting the rush job on Arfnosky I don’t think he can handle it like Vaughn did on X-men first class. Arfnosky is the OCD student he has to do it his way a hands on relaxed director that oversees his production much like Kurasawa did back in the day. I say everything is going to play out the way he sees it in his head. Vaughn is more like the ADD kid that is all over the place, yet turns into a great product. He loves the world of chaos and thrives in it. One other red flag I see is that the rest of the cast has not been announced, nor have any of the other villains that are going to be in it. Since the story will be in Japan I can do my best and use my fan boy knowledge to guess who will be involved: I got a hunch that Mariko Yoshida might be Wolvie’s ill-fated love interest no idea who will play her, next Lord Yoshida Mariko’s dad and head of a Yakuza like gang in Japan, this will probably be played by Ken Watanabe mainly cause he’s mainstream enough to be in this and I really don’t know any Asian actors who aren’t in martial arts movies. The next character I’m betting for is Ogun, Ogun is the dude who teaches Wolverine the way of Bushido I can only think of two names to play this role Beat Takeshi (the Principal in the great movie Battle Royale)or the great Sonny Chiba (he played Terry in the underrated Street Fighter series and was the sword maker in Kill Bill) either actor can pull off the teacher type, I personally want Chiba in it because it would be great to see him whoop some ass after a 28 year hiatus. The last character who probably isn’t going to be in it, but I think he should, is the Silver Samurai. He’s the illegitimate son of Lord Yoshida and the enforcer in the gang. He is a mutant whose power is to generate a force field that covers him and whatever he’s holding, usually his sword that allows him to cut through anything. He also is able to teleport, but I think that’s more towards technology rather than his power. He would be cool because he is honorable, disciplined, and skilled. But, will be going against Wolverine in a situation where it’s actually Wolverine who is being a dick head and he just gets stuck in the middle.

If they can drop Wolverine in winter and pair it with the Deadpool movie that should open in 2012, then I’ll be uber happy. The Deadpool movie is the one that I’m foaming at the mouth for mainly cause Deadpool is a character I think I can relate to. He is so crazy; it works almost to the point that his craziness makes him genius. He constantly fucks up every relationship, gets in his friend’s lives all disoriented when he’s around, and he is uber violent. The movie is getting a hard R with Ryan Reynolds set to star in a role he was meant for; the script will contain Deadpool’s crew of mercenary mutants that should make for a fun “b” team in Marvel. Basically if you think of the X-men as the cool kids at camp, then think of Deadpool and his ilk as the fat kids from Heavyweights (great camp movie). We have a novice director from Sweden whose claims to fame were Aphex twins videos (I think). We have a star that absolutely loves the character and we have a script that everyone who is involved with the character Deadpool but not in the movie, said it’s the most badass script ever. I have a feeling that if this movie is paired with Wolverine (meaning it’s the next marvel movie release after wolverine then it can open up a lot of doors). That being said if Avengers turns out to be the huge blockbuster, Marvel is gunning for them. They might be able to make an X-Men movie that will have the huge crossover appeal of putting Iron Man, Thor and Captain America all in the same movie. So in closing, remember when this summer hits and Cowboys and Aliens, Green Lantern, Thor, Captain America, and The Amazing Spiderman all hit the theaters, make some time for the X-Men, you’ll be glad you did.