TheX-Menfranchise is the oldest ongoing superhero film series.
It ran out of gas before Marvel had a Cinematic Universe, before DC even tried to overextend itself.
Actually, you could argue that 20th Century FoxsX-Menseries is the oldestcontinuousfilm franchise in Hollywood now.
Twentieth Century Fox (5)
And at the start of this decade, theX-Menfranchise was, no question, in decline.
This is not the situation today.
If you include spinoffs, it was maybe healthier than ever, big box office, some Oscar talk.
(There are three X-family movies planned for next year.)
and then cherrypicked only the least coherent ideas about what the firstX-Mentrilogy was.
Errr, concentration camps?
It felt out of step with the times.
I didnt know how much I lovedFirst Classuntil the second time I watched it.
Vaughn infuses the material with style and swagger.
Vaughns movie staples the Cuban Missile Crisis into X-Men lore.
Then Singer himself returned to directDays of Future Past, a fever-dream hallucination of the 70s.
Witness the Kennedy era, come home to roost on Nixons lawn.
with a timeline reboot that suggests the futureandthe past are a mystery.
But it deserves more credit for its hysterical American-mythological revisionism.
Apocalypsefeels like Bryan Singers final statement on this franchise (to say nothing of otherrecentheadlinesabout the filmmaker).
All involved with next yearsDark Phoenixhave a clear angle on its perceived faults.
The sheer slipstream goofiness of the prequelizedX-films let them get away with so much more.
Pause with wonder to remember Magnetos Apocalypse-refracted semi-destruction of New York City.
But in two movies made in collaboration with director James Mangold, Jackman was something much, much more.
Some people dont like 2013sThe Wolverine.
Everyone loves this yearsLogan.
InThe Wolverine, Logans a piece of human wreckage living out in the country.
InLogan, Wolverines a piece of human wreckage driving Uber through a depressed America.
Credit Fox, too.
But its real virtue is larger, albeit more abstract.
Patrick Stewart or James McAvoy?
Is this material a little (whispers) transgressive?
Didnt the highest-grossingX-Menmovie ever feature an endearingly throwaway scene about strap-on sex play?
I dont even likeDeadpoolvery much, and Im yet Im more glad every day that it happened.
Especially today, when I have to ponder: Would Disney have madeDeadpool?
Im not wondering whether theyll make moreDeadpool.
But if Disney owned the X-Men a few years ago, would they have ever madeDeadpool?
Just this year, Fox allowed trendy cabler FX to handFargoweirdo Noah Hawley the C-level-iest X-Men character.
The result wasLegion, the first non-animated superhero show to aim for the wild psychedelia of 70s comic books.
Currently up in the air: That James Franco Multiple Man movie.
Stuff your fancy heroes, I prefer the mutations.
