They are coming thick and fast — these superhero films from the Marvel Comics stable. In the last couple of months there has been Captain America: Winter Soldier , The Amazing Spider-Man-2 and tomorrow X-Men: Days of Future Past is coming out. The film is supposed to be sequel to the X-Men trilogy (2000 to 2006) as well as X-Men First Class (2011), which is a prequel to the trilogy featuring Magneto and Xavier as young men. It is the film where heroes past and present as well as director Bryan Singer (he directed the first two X-Men movies) reunite. Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is the common thread binding the films together. Apart from Singer and Jackman, there is James Marsden, Halle Berry, Anna Paquin and Famke Janssen reprising their roles as Cyclops, Storm, Rogue and Jean Grey from the trilogy. Patrick Stewart and James McAvoy play Professor X while Ian McKellen and Michael Fassbender play Magneto. Between playing Mystique in First Class and Future Past , Jennifer Lawrence has become quite a big star with The Hunger Games and an Academy Award for Silver Linings Playbook. While January Jones (we know her better as Betty Draper in the TV series Mad Men ) does not feature in Future Past , the telly is represented with Game of Thrones’ Tyrion Lannister, Peter Dinklage. He plays military scientist Bolivar Trask who is up against Richard Nixon. With all the to and fro time travel, here is a ready reckoner of the earlier X-Men movies.
X-Men (2000)Directed by Bryan Singer, the film tells of a world where some have super powers. The movie follows two mutants, Professor X and Magneto and their different approaches to the rest of the world. While X-Men had all the requisite pyrotechnics of a superhero film, it was also a meditation on prejudice and exclusion with the Mutant Registration Act and the climax being fought on the Statue of Liberty. Model Rebecca Romijn-Stamos made for a striking Mystique.
X-2: X-Men United (2003)Also directed by Singer, the film picks up where X-Men left off. Mystique is impersonating Senator Kelly, while Xavier and his friend-turned-foe Magneto have to join forces to fight off William Stryker (Brian Cox) who wants to wipe the earth clean of all mutants. This is the movie in which Hugh Jackson as Wolverine gets to kiss a bunch of lovely ladies as shape-shifter Mystique does her thing.
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)Singer left to direct Superman Returns and Brett Ratner (Rush Hour) took up helming duties. Jean Grey, who sacrificed herself in X-2, is resurrected as Phoenix, who is not a very nice mutant. There is also a project to inoculate mutants to suppress the X-gene that gives the mutants their super powers. Professor X’s X-Men and Magneto’s Brotherhood fight for Jean’s loyalty in an increasingly divided world. There are also outcast mutants Omegas in the mix. If mutants are outcasts, then outcast mutants should logically be mainstream.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)It is 1845 in Canada when a young boy sees his father killed by a game keeper. X-Men Origins: Wolverine goes back to the beginnings of the clawed mutant with adamantine exoskeleton. William Stryker is also around running Team X where he offers Wolverine a chance to become indestructible by injecting adamantine into his bones. The movie, directed by Gavin Hood, also traces the origins of Sabretooth, who begins life as Victor Creed, (Liev Schreiber) Wolverine’s half-brother.
X-Men: First Class (2011)Set in the 60s, First Class has Magneto (Fassbender) and Professor X (McAvoy) as young men. Directed by Matthew Vaughn, the film, like the comic book series, echoes Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X’s approach to exclusionism. Kevin Bacon plays the dastardly former Nazi, Dr. Klaus Schmidt and present leader of Hellfire Club, Sebastian Shaw up to no good as usual. Apart from all the eye candy, the game of chess between Magneto and Xavier in front of the Washington Monument had all sorts of homoerotic readings.
The Wolverine (2013)Helmed by James Mangold, while the article was a tad confusing, the movie was standard issue superhero fare. Based on the Japanese story arc, a sequel of Wolverine and Last Stand (welcome to twisted chronology) The Wolverine is set in Japan and has Hugh Jackman fighting the nasty hoards while brooding about Jean Grey and also being a prisoner of war during World War II.
The nuclear bomb and the fight in the bullet train are eye candy along with buff and beautiful Jackman.
