GI Joe and X-Men

Summerhayes · Post by **Summerhayes** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 3:09 pm

I rewatched X-Men yesterday (and the far superior X-Men 2, but let's not go into that). A couple of weeks ago I sat through the GI Joe film again as well.

They're basically the same film, aren't they?
The two main characters accidentally get mixed up in the battle between the baddies and the goodies and the next thing you know, they're whisked back to the goodies' secret base.
All the colourful costumes were replaced with black leather.
Wolverine/ Snake eyes got all the coolest moments.

The only thing GI Joe didn't steal from X-Men was a reverential attempt to stay true to the characters. So, well done them.

I don't know if there was a point to all this. Just moaning.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 4:21 pm

GI Joe's just the most generic action film imaginable, to the point where you seriously wonder why exactly they bothered with the licence... The problem is that, unlike Transformers, GI Joe's central concept isn't especially imaginative, so once you've ****ed around with all the characters and basically made them nothing like they were in the source material (the Baroness as Duke's ex with colour-coded hair is probably the worst bit... even Heavy Duty and Cover Girl manage to be nothing like the originals, which is impressive considering they managed about three pages of character development between them back in the day...) you're basically left with a bog-standard post-9/11 popcorn shitfest.

Auntie Slag · Post by **Auntie Slag** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 5:56 pm

I love the first X-Men film. I think its simply because its an origin tale of sorts, and I love that kind of schmaltz. That's probably the number one reason I love the first live action Transformers film, because it can be (to an extent), boiled down to the story of a boy and his first car.

Nostalgia probably has a ton to do with it. One of my first Transformers comics (Collected Comics No.1) was all about Bumblebee befriending Buster.

Wolverine is Bumblebee in my odd analogy. He calls Cyclops a dick, Bumblebee's something of an incredibly cute psychopath.

Let that be a lesson for all you ugly psychopaths out there.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 6:02 pm

I still like the Joe film.

*Ducks*

The only real change that seemed a bit odd was the simplification of the Snake Eyes backstory, but having now read the increasingly convoluted way it developed in the comics (without apparently having reached the worst of it yet!) I think just parring it down to "Guy chose to be a mute and Snake Eyes is a tosser" was actually the most sensible option.

And hey, Larry Hamma consulted on it and he was in 'Nam, so it must all be true to real life military stuff.

I think the X-Men films have generally aged badly, they look and feel like cheapo TV films these days (the blatant Canadian filming doesn't really help) and it's only really the second one that really stands out as a great film in its own right. Basically all the stuff they brought to the super hero table has been taken and run with by better films.

Auntie Slag · Post by **Auntie Slag** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 6:08 pm

By Canadian do you mean the kids of Degrassi street loitering in Zaviers mansion?

I think the first two are great fun. Don't know what happened to the third. It should be great, but it's nowhere near as limp and lifeless Spiderman 3.

And I liked Wolverine being punched up through one bit of ceiling and falling back down through another bit.

And Picard's smile before he went poof!

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 6:13 pm

Auntie Slag wrote:By Canadian do you mean the kids of Degrassi street loitering in Zaviers mansion?

It just looks like every single American TV show filmed in Canada during the 90's, be it the Doctor Who film, The X-Files or even the Hoff Nick Fury: Agent of Shield film. They must rub maple syrup on the camera lense or something.

I think the first two are great fun. Don't know what happened to the third. It should be great, but it's nowhere near as limp and lifeless Spiderman 3.

I think the third one's perfectly watchable and about the same quality level as the first (and I should clarify that when I say they've aged badly they're just not as brainstormingly good as they felt at the time, they're still not terrible films). Other than the atrocious "And now it's instantly night!" I don't think it's anywhere nearly as badly directed as people say.

I do like them using all that expensive CGI to make Patrick Stewart look twenty years younger only to result in him looking exactly the same because the bugger never ages anyway.

Rurudyne · Post by **Rurudyne** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 11:11 pm

inflatable dalek wrote:I do like them using all that expensive CGI to make Patrick Stewart look twenty years younger only to result in him looking exactly the same because the bugger never ages anyway.

^ this.

The man is the new Dick Clark in that respect.

Wildrider · Post by **Wildrider** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 8:33 am

I think the G.I.Joe film was better in places than I imagined, the opening missile heist was done very well (plot hole none withstanding), but apart from a few giggle worthy incidents (Stormshadow cheap shotting a cowardly Joe in the Pit) it kind of descended into set piece after computer generated set piece, seemingly for set piece's sake.

I have no idea what the point of the exo-suit thing was, but the sheer volume of damage, death (The bodycount must be in the hundreds if not thousands) and comedy decapitations (There was a lot of head exploding going on.)kept me fairly entertained. I enjoyed mostly when I could at least anchor some of the action in reality, although Cobra Commander was hilarious. In a good way!

The X-Men films are a strange bunch, the first one is perfunctory as an origin/exposition tale and does what it says on the tin, the second one is a far superior affair, Brian Cox is a wonderful villain. Last Stand was a bit below par and left me disappointed, a few stand out scenes aside.

Wolverine Origins however is a total guilty pleasure, much more comic orientated and embraced a fun aspect that was missing from the first three X films, although that suffered from some ropey CGI and the supporting characters were far more interesting than the main story arc. But it stands up well to repeated viewings and actually improves, much like RotF.

Haven't managed to bring myself to watch G.I.Joe again yet, I will no doubt as part of my Stephen Sommers guilty pleasure back catalogue of 'Deep Rising', it's just a shame he hasn't managed to balance the dialogue, tone and pace of 'The Mummy'. I think he's way too dependent on CGI and his films often suffer from that artificial look, that under water battle in G.I.Joe is just a chaotic mess of a Death Star assault on fast forward, I'm not entirely sure what happened in the end.

Slayer-Fan123 · Post by **Slayer-Fan123** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 8:35 am

I generally enjoyed the first two X-Men movies. The third one should not have been done. And I think I'm the only person on Earth who somewhat enjoyed Origins: Wolverine...
The GI Joe movie flatout sucked. It just wasn't well done. I mean, they could have resolved all of the problems earlier in the film, and it just frustrated me the way the movie went on as long as it did...

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 12:52 pm

Wildrider wrote:I think he's way too dependent on CGI and his films often suffer from that artificial look, that under water battle in G.I.Joe is just a chaotic mess of a Death Star assault on fast forward, I'm not entirely sure what happened in the end.

Yeh, one of my big problems with GI Joe was that the CGI just seemed so poor - the exo suit chase (because, hey, Iron Man went down well, maybe we'll have a bit of that!) especially just looked shocking. The trick with "The Mummy" is that they had Brendan Fraser on the front of the thing, and he's a pretty charming, funny guy. GI Joe had a slab of formica in fatigues and a craaaaaazy black guy yelling "Yow, that shit is WHACK!!!" every fifteen seconds.

The acting was terrible across the board (from Cakebastard occasionally saying "Mon" when he remembered to the non-existent chemistry on show from, well, everyone), the plot was terrible, the film's plain ugly to look at, it does what it can to get lots of little things wrong (Cover Girl - model turned tough grease monkey who can handle herself > piece of Hawk's furniture), and it's actually quite boring once you realise that Sommers had most of the set pieces storyboarded in his head long before he even knew what film it was going to be.

Seriously, change a few names and that film could be about absolutely anything. Toyline was largely shite as well, until they started sneaking original-based Sir Not Appearing In This Film characters (Monkeywrench, Heavy Metal) in for the later waves.

I'm actually not sure whether I've seen X-Men 2 and/or 3, the first one was pretty shit and boring, a predictable Wolverine love-fest which basically ****ed every other character over - as someone who read the comics at the time, there was alreayd enough of it going on. Definitely saw Origins, and my main memories are that a lot of the little bits were great (the Weapon X raid, Gambit) but the main storyline about Wolverine was incredibly boring, trite and obvious.

Cotton off Scream was an awesome Sabretooth, though - much more intelligent casting than the slab of gristle they cast in the first one, and a really nice spin on the character for the most part. Having him as more of an evil Wolverine, capable of blending in a bit rather than being some twat in a jumpsuit with bodyhair issues, made him a lot more threatening... It's worth bearing in mind that Sabretooth is the Megatron of X-Men - everyone's heard of him, sure, but he's absolute ****ing rubbish.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 1:20 pm

I've gone off The Mummy Films over the years, much like with X-Men only with a bigger drop off, last time I tried to watch the first one I just got bored (despite as said, Fraser-and indeed the rest of the cast- generally being good value. Shame he seems to have dropped of the radar a bit). IIRC the second is a bit Revenge of the Fallen, the script basically being "Hey people liked this bit in the first one, lets do it again but turned up to 11".

Though it's always fun when the Mummy himself turns up in other things where you're supposed to take him seriously (24 being a great example).

Has anyone actually seen the third one? It seemed to suffer from being badly timed, most of the reaction seemed to be "Why do we need this now we've got an actual proper new Indian Jones film out?".

Apparently Summers isn't going to be back for GI: Joe 2 (though Storm Shadow will be despite the whole dead thing), which added to the general waves of apathy it was greeted with suggests more than ever straight to DVD. Recasting Cobra Commander and Destro with cheaper actors would be a piece of piss thanks to the "Now they wear masks all the time" ending (indeed, I'm betting whoever it was standing in for Destro when they CGI'd his head for the last few scenes wasn't Eccles. And thanks to Inception I doubt they'd have gotten Tommy back even if it were a proper cinema film) and of the rest of the cast Quaid and Miller are the only ones I can see not being likely to be affordable/willing to do an STD.

Post by **Blackjack** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 2:53 pm

I liked both films.

G.I. Joe was a lot of dumb fun. Since my knowledge of GI Joe is severely limited to the Crossovers comics with the Transformers, it was a good load of fun for me, albeit they relied too heavily on special effects, and that they completely botched up the finale. And, well, Hawk isn't just as engaging a hero as Wolverine or Rogue or even Sam Witwicky.

X-Men, on the other hand... well, the first one I watched was Origin, and even then with some knowledge of the X-Men from the comics, so I loved it. Nevermind what everyone said about it, it's got great action scenes and I kind of liked it. There's a lot of plot holes but it's a good load of fun. Wolverine and Sabertooth were really solid characters. The Deadpool bit on the end was unexpected and IMHO was a bit crappy, though.

The first X-Men movie never did it for me. In my head Sabertooth's the crazy Victor Creed from the Origin movie, so I was like 'WTF?' when I watched the first movie. It's got a solid plot, though. X2 was full stop the best ever superhero movie, Marvel or DC or otherwise. Last Stand... full of special effects and more build-up on characterization, but not as good as X2 with a rushed conclusion and lots of narmtastic moments at the end. But better than stuff like the rubbish Spiderman trilogy and the Superman films.

I watched the third Mummy film, because it's got Jet Li in it. Never watched the first two movies. I liked the CGI and good action scenes, but the plot was preposterous and had absolutely nothing to do with the first two movies.

Blaster · Post by **Blaster** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 6:04 pm

inflatable dalek wrote:It just looks like every single American TV show filmed in Canada during the 90's, be it the Doctor Who film, The X-Files or even the Hoff Nick Fury: Agent of Shield film. They must rub maple syrup on the camera lense or something.

Ultimately, I think it has a lot to do with trying to pass Vancouver off as New York or LA that has really made Vancouver harder to use when filming out doors and trying to pretend that it is somewhere else.

Vancouver just doesn't have the sky-line to pretend it is New York and is waaaay to green and mountainous to be LA. What this means, is when you have on-location filming, you're using a lot of the same places over and over again for different films.

Hell, SG-1 used Fantasy Garden as like 6 different worlds over the course of the series, which really doesn't make sense since they could have used just about anywhere.

I think that if you're filming in Vancouver and doing it on location, you really have to be set in Vancouver. The city is just too unique from other major cities to be played off as anything else, except maybe Seattle.

Ozz · Post by **Ozz** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 9:36 am

I don't get how exactly first two X-Men movies are "better" than the other two. Some of them (2nd, 3rd) I liked more than others (1st) on first viewing, but on rewatching all of them equally bored me and I just tend to fast forward to action scenes.

I prefer watching G.I.Joe than any of the X-Men anyway.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 10:36 am

I think the 3rd X-Men did as well as it could considering it was required by the ending of the second to do the Phoenix storyline. Considering it was both a poor fit for the overall outsider finding it hard to fit in and be accepted theme of the films (hence the "Cure" plot being added) and the original idea of a galaxy spanning adventure with aliens and whatnot not suiting the more grounded and "realistic" tone (not to mention the budget).

Simplifying the concept to a straightforward split personality pissed off the fanboys but it would have been a much worse film without it.

Summerhayes · Post by **Summerhayes** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 12:21 pm

I actually really enjoyed X-Men 3. I remember sitting in the cinema an watching Jean-Luc's death and thinking sh*t, this is actually epic. The music was great, the effects were spot on and it genuinely surprised me. It's a shame the film never really matched that scene thereafter.
I was disappointed Cyclops died Bit he was boring in the films anyway. They never made anything of him being a tactical genius.
But Collossus got a big role, which was cool.

There is a GI Joe 2? I actually got a kick out of the first one but I still can't still see a sequel being much cop, considering it looked pretty cheap with the budget it had.
Shame Tommy won't return, but always thought 3RFTS when I saw him anyway, even in Inception.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 12:37 pm

Summerhayes wrote:I actually really enjoyed X-Men 3. I remember sitting in the cinema an watching Jean-Luc's death and thinking sh*t, this is actually epic. The music was great, the effects were spot on and it genuinely surprised me. It's a shame the film never really matched that scene thereafter.

Yep, X dying like that was genuinely surprising (shame about the "We can bring him back played by a cheaper actor!" post credits bit), which it really shouldn't have been considering the whole thing was moving towards just being the Wolverine show.

I was disappointed Cyclops died Bit he was boring in the films anyway. They never made anything of him being a tactical genius.

Another outside constraint that should have hurt the film more than it did (the actor deciding to do Superman instead). Considering the plot was about the great love of his life going evil they couldn't just have him be elsewhere like they do with Nightcrawler so killing him quick in the two scenes they could fit into his schedule was easily the best bet.

I do think it's a more enjoyable movie that the Superman film Singer left the franchise to make, even if that has an obviously larger budget and more exciting set pieces. Well, one more exciting set piece. If the whole film had been less of a Donner love fest and more like the space plane bit it would have been a lot more fun.

There is a GI Joe 2? I actually got a kick out of the first one but I still can't still see a sequel being much cop, considering it looked pretty cheap with the budget it had.
Shame Tommy won't return, but always thought 3RFTS when I saw him anyway, even in Inception.

A sequel's been announced anyway, but other than the Director not returning and Storm Shadow being in it there's not been much other news. It could wind up going the way of the formally announced Red Dwarf, Independence Day II and Jurassic Park IV films...

Ozz · Post by **Ozz** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 1:23 pm

inflatable dalek wrote:Simplifying the concept to a straightforward split personality pissed off the fanboys but it would have been a much worse film without it.

Phoenix as Jean's other dangerous personality isn't even anything new, as the idea was being toyed with in Ultimate Universe.

On the similar note, I don't consider Deadpool in Origins ruined. He got his powers in a different way (and TBH, he's a secondary character in someone else's movie, so there's no time for delving into whole cancer thing), but in the end he's the ugly sob with insanely strong healing factor like in comics. All he needs is a costume and a codename.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 6:07 pm

TBH, I liked Reynolds, he had the right sort of cockiness for the role and that's basically more important to the character coming off that keeping his disfigurement, and most of those who objected were macrotards who'd have done so whatever they'd done. The whole Weapon X team bit was packed full of hits.

Cyclops' death really didn't bother me either... They'd already taken the Millar/cartoon route with him anyway ("Hey, how do we make Wolverine look cool? Make Cyclops the biggest twat imaginable!") from the first film, and it was kind-of a relief to not see him kerb-stomped for a whole extra film.

Broadly I think aside from the neutered Storm and Cyclops and the imbalance towards Wolverine, the films got most of the characters either right or wrong in an awesome way (Toad being vaguely useful, for example); it's just always going to be difficult to handle everyone nicely and have a good film going on, and they weren't up to it.

Thankfully there are plenty of good comics about them (unless you're a snob, anyway) out there, which is the thing I never really get about some of the more severe reaction to comic book films. Don't like Daredevil? Don't ****ing watch it, read some Frank Miller... It doesn't make the films any better, but it's not like a misguided attempt to make Rorschach a hip badass stops the original text from being any good.