Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar X-Men

Director Tim Burton’s latest film is a book adaptation, yet another in the deluge of young adult novels Hollywood has flooded us with as of late. They remain desperate in their attempts to find the next Harry Potter and shove it down our throats, but so far they continue to come up short.

The basic gist is that some children are born with special abilities. These gifted youngsters live in a special school where their headmistress teaches them to use their abilities for the greater good. A scrappy outsider named Logan Potter discovers the school, and is welcomed to their makeshift family. Professor X attempts to persuade Logan to join them. Logan doesn’t think he’s special, but over the course of the film realizes he has powers of his own.

X-Men Trilogy

X-Men

We love to wear black leather.

The first X-Men film is often credited with starting the resurgence of the superhero film genre, that is to say, treating the source material with respect and still crafting a great movie. I’d say it was Blade, two years earlier, but apparently I’m the only person who saw that one. Looking back on the original X-Men, it hasn’t aged well. Sure, there are many good points about it, but overall it’s pretty damn weak. The cast is probably the strongest aspect: Patrick Stewart looks like he came right off the pages of the comic as Professor X, Hugh Jackman is pitch-perfect as Wolverine, and Ian McKellan has the right amount of charm and menace to pull off Magneto. The rest of the cast also turns in good performances, like Sookie Stackhouse playing Rogue and Famke Janssen as Jean Grey.

The problems of the movie come with the story. There is a ton of groundwork to be laid, introducing the audience to the intricacies of the X-Men universe. Mutants are explained, anti-mutant governmental factions are explained, Professor X’s school is explained, Magneto and Professor X’s rift is explained, hell, the entire movie is a huge chunk of exposition. The story is told to the audience through the eyes of two newcomers, Rogue and Wolverine. While this was good to explain things, they spend too much time explaining. By the time everything is explained, the movie is in the final act. It almost seems like the setup to the X-Men movie rather than the actual movie itself. The plot, with Magneto trying to convert every human to a mutant is a little ridiculous, and seemingly not something you’d expect the first time out. It seems like this should have been used in a later story (like a subsequent film); it feels intangibly out of place here.

Looper Pooper

Sup, bros? I saw this totally rad movie over the weekend called Pooper. And by totally rad I mean it gave me the same feeling I have when I chug too much Jager and have to puke.

All my bros in film reviewing land had the exact same things to say about Pooper: “mind-bending”, “smart”, “scintillating”, “smart”, “creative”, “exciting”, “smart”, “very smart”, “high-concept”, “intelligent”, and “smart.” While my bros out there really liked this movie, I’m still wondering if they thought it was a smart movie. It’s hard to tell. In fact, I just typed “smart” so many times, it doesn’t even look like a real word any more. Don’t you hate it when that happens?