I really don't understand the praise for this; I am starting to think that all of the X-Men movies are just so bad that when a seemingly OK one comes out, it's instantly the best in the series. The whole "you need to die Logan" angle from every damn character was so heavy-handed and directionless, I was thinking yeah, you should die so they don't make anymore X-Men movies of this iteration.

I will give it credit that the sequence from the funeral to the end of the Bullet Train was probably the best bit in the entire X-Men films.

You're describing the reaction for X-Men First Class, this is actually a really good movie that can stand on its own even outside of the X-Men franchise.

I agree. The final fight is a bit of a letdown but as an overall film I think it stands its own. First Class is a bit of a bore.

If he ever leaves the role, I nominate Nathan Fillion! No, not really.

I would actually nominate former WWE superstar CM Punk though!

Total opposite for me. Outside of X3, the X-men series is probably my favorite comic movie series... and yes I enjoyed Origins. Superman, Batman, Spider-man, Iron Man, MCU... all have their ups and downs. X-men with 7 films deep, one of which is a true dud (and one admittedly less than stellar one) seems like a better track record than any of the other franchises which are closer to the .500 mark.

The Wolverine and Origins feel like two halves of one whole to me. The Wolverine is a clear winner in the story, drama and acting department but fell short on action, while the action sequences in Origins were more frequent and fun.

I haven't see the new X-Men this summer, but First Class was for me easily the best one since X2. The Wolverine was good, but so utterly predictable, and doesn't really explore Wolverine as a character as much as I thought it would. There was also no one to really care about, including Logan. Still an enjoyable action movie, but far from great, but much better that Origins crapfest.

The problem with the franchise is that it fucked up the final chapter so badly that it's understandably tried to backpedal, but the whole thing has been so haphazardly planned, . If they'd actually plot out an arc for several films, it has more real-world relevance than almost any other superhero franchise and the potential for a fantastic, huge arc, but the logistics of it don't really allow for that and everything trips over everything else.

I guess my problem is that this series is constantly focusing on the whole "human vs. mutant" angle when there is so many more idea/storylines that could be used around the whole idea of a team with different superpowers fighting together.

Then when you add to the fact that we've all seen this story before 7 times, it personally doesn't allow for stupid plot ideas like "Logan you need to die, but before you do let me steal your power with an overly complicated father/son/granddaughter takeover plot" to entertain me.

Think about it, it's the same damn type of head fake that happened to Logan in Origins and I don't remember people liking that plot.

I'm pretty sure if you read through this thread, you'd see there is a lot of criticism of the plot. In fact we were just discussing the "overly complicated father/son/granddaughter takeover plot" like 10 posts up.

This movie worked for me because I generally like Jackman's take on the character and thought this was far and away his best performance in the role. I thought the overall tone of the film was spot on (ending excluded) and that the action sequences were some of the best of the series. It was also refreshing to see such a stripped sown, personal story coming from a big franchise movie. It's not a great film by any means (I would have loved to see Aronofsky's take. That might have been great.), but in the world of these big comic franchises, it stands out for being a little different and I appreciated that.

Yeah. It is a very nice departure from the genre norm.