Full Disclosure: I am not a huge horror movie enthusiast but I know many that are excited about this film.
Fox just dropped their first trailer for their upcoming Marvel mutant movie, New Mutants, which will be unleashed in theaters next April (2018).
The New Mutants comic books focused on a younger generation of students at Professor Xavier’s School For The Gifted who were just learning how to control their mutant powers and get by in a world that feared and hated them.
While is has been known for a while that Fox was planning on taking this X-Men installment into the horror genre, I don’t think many were expecting them to go full on American Horror Story-esque with it!
In the trailer, we see that the Xavier Mansion (an X- movie staple, even in Deadpool) has been replaced with a spook-tacular insane asylum where the teenagers are being experimented on.
Sort of reminiscent of the movie Sucker Punch, minus the sexy Sailor Moon outfits and hopefully a much better story.
Sexy girl in a sexy school outfit with a Samurai sword and a gun? Who needs a plot!
In the preview, we see Alice Braga (whom I loved in Predators) as Dr. Cecilia Reyes, appearing to draw blood from Danielle Moonstone while explaining to her (and the audience) the premise of the movie: that the young mutants are being locked up because their inability to control their powers makes them very dangerous.
From there, if it weren’t for the title, I would have had no idea if this was a preview for one of the Ring movies, a Conjuring movie, one of the Exorcist films or a season of American Horror Story.
The trailer just came off as very generic to me and made from the same recipe as every other horror trailer of the past 15 years. A loud noise accompanying each quick camera change, creepy cover of a classic rock tune playing in the background and, of course, faces pushing through walls…
The New Mutants in last year’s popular Logan film were created with experiments from vials taken from mutants, so there is some connection with the films there, but no word yet on how much the films will tie in together.
The stereotypical super-hero movie genre is getting over saturated recently so I give the studio credit for attempting to expand the Marvel properties into other genre’s. Marvel has already tried the revenge genre with the Punisher movies so the horror genre seems like the next obvious venue to try.
Maybe someday we will see a Marvel comedy with Hercules as a bumbling womanizer or a romantic comedy with Nathan Fillion as Wonder Man and Emma Stone as Black Widow II.
How excited are you to purchase your tickets to see the New Mutants?
Anyone that collected comics in the hay day of the early to mid 90’s is familiar awesomeness that was Wizard Magazine!
Wizard Magazine: A Guide To Comics originally launched in 1991, just in time for the rise of the independents such as Image, Valiant, Malibu and so on. Wizard magazine was the go to source for industry news, updates, exclusive previews, creator interviews and a monthly price guide. Comic enthusiasts like me read it cover to cover!
However 2000, between the comic book industry’s drastic slow down and the rise of the internet, magazine publication simply was not as profitable as it once was. Wizard ceased publication to focus solely on their conventions.
Who didn’t love the Joss Whedon/ John Cassaday run on Astonishing X-Men?
BleedingCool.com is reporting that someone has licensed the Wizard Magazine name and is preparing for a new publication launch!
If anybody would have inside info on a new Wizard Magazine, it would be Bleeding Cool, which was formed by Wizard alumni William Christensen and Mark Seifert.
There is still no word yet on if the new product will be a print magazine, a website, an app or some combination of the bunch, but I can’t wait to find out!
Remember Fairchild of Gen 13?
Wizard World Chicago is coming up at the end of August. Could an announcement be coming up?
The X-Men movie Logan has already grossed over $600 million dollars worldwide and could possible do more.
Director James Mangold hinted previously that when the movie is released on DVD, it would come with a black & white version of the film.
Per Comicbookmovie.com, now it looks like United States audiences will be able to see the black & white version in theaters later this May!
This is pretty interesting because to properly take a color movie and re-release in black & white, the film must be regraded. Not a quick or cheap process.
I would be curious to see what type of reception this version of the film receives at the theaters.
While I liked a lot of pieces of the movie Logan, I didn’t overly enjoy the movie as a whole. I just thought it was a little to depressing and led to a predictable, even more depressing, ending.
Between Strep Throat and Pink Eye tearing through the daycare and my wife’s crazy work schedule, I was pretty late seeing this movie. But it finally happened!
I had a ton of hype for this movie! With Hugh Jackman repeatedly saying that this was going to be his last time portraying Wolverine, we could all pretty much guess how this was going to end: Sadly for our favorite Canadian super hero. C’mon, other than Alpha Flight, who else do our friends north of the border have? Captain Canuck?
The movie is loosely based on the incredibly successful Mark Millar mini-series Old Man Logan (which was awesome!) but had to be changed around, mostly because FOX does not have the movie rights to most the main characters from the comic (Hawkeye, Hulk, Red Skull and so on). Part of why Millar’s story was so successful was because the villains coordinated together, utilized all their strengths and won by tricking Logan into killing most the X-men (he believed he was being attacked by villains) then luring the other heroes into a trap. This gave purpose as to why Logan chose to leave society and never want to use his claws again.
For the movie, it is never outright said but strongly implied that Xavier was responsible for the X-men’s demise (by way of a massive brain seizure). This results in the U.S. Government classifying Xavier as a weapon of mass destruction leaving Logan and Xavier hiding out in Mexico. Which leads to my first issue with the film…
Who was this film really about?
Who was this story of redemption really about? The killing off of nearly all the X-men is a huge pivot point in the X-men movie universe! Why re-work this so Xavier is responsible for this event and not Logan? Why take all the gravity off the title character of the film? At times Logan was the supporting character of the film and literally the chauffeur for Xavier on Xavier’s quest for redemption.
The character of Laura or X-23 (who was played expertly by new comer Dafne Keen) was a little confusing as well. Why make her mute for three quarters of the film, then suddenly have her speaking in Spanish? Then, after watching the ending of the western”Shane” on a television with Xavier, she is able to speak some English? At that point it would have been more impactful for the story to leave her mute, aside from the screams and grunts during combat. Speaking of combat…
The fight scenes were great!
All the combat scenes were fast paced and bloody! That is exactly what you expect from people fighting with razor sharp claws! I guess my only request is that there were more of these scenes. And an actual villain.
Why use a corporate putz like Dr. Rice? I loved the idea of using high fructose corn syrup as a mutant gene sterilizer (right now I am eyeing my can of Mt. Dew very suspiciously…) and the lab where X-23 was created was all about DNA and cloning. How could DNA mastermind Mr. Sinister not be the villain!?! Unless there are other plans to use him in a future “X” movie.
I liked the idea of bringing the Reavers (who once worked for Sinister by the way) in from the comics as the mercenaries. Although it was odd that lead Reaver Pierce (Boyd Holbrook) was seen repairing his cybernetic hand with no pain at one point, but was then in pain when the same cybernetic hand was shot later.
Overall, all the acting was superb. It is hard to image any actors other than Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart as Wolverine and Prof. Xavier. Dafne Keen, Boyd Holbrook and Stephan Merchant (as Caliban) were all great. Even Eriq La Salle turned in a great performance, although I still hear the tune of “Soul Glo” every time I see him. But that is my own issue to work out…
Long & Depressing
We all knew a sad ending was coming, but wow, it seemed like it took a loonnnggg time to happen. And I guess that is my main issue with the film.
Normally after watching a superhero movie, I can’t wait to watch it a second time to hunt for all the Easter Eggs I might have missed. But when Logan ended, I had no desire to re-watch it soon. The film reminded a lot of “The Road” with Viggo Mortensen. It was just a long sad story of a father and child traveling across a depressing dystopian country. It ends and you are like “That was good but I have no desire to re-watch it.”
The most distractingly depressing part for me was the slaughter of Will Munson’s (Eriq La Salle) family. Why? It served no purpose in the scene. The gravity of that scene should have been Xavier, the father of the X-men and reason they are extinct, being stabbed in the chest. Instead, that weight is distractingly distributed amongst him and a family we just met.
For what? So Logan can be reminded that anybody her cares about dies? Hasn’t that already been established in the previous 7 storylines?
Every beginning comes from another beginnings end
I did like how the movie wrapped up. It had good closure for Xavier and Logan while still setting the table for the “New Mutants”. This was the 9th time Hugh Jackman played Wolverine (counting the cameo in X-Men: Days of Future Past) so there is no re-casting of Wolverine anytime soon. This meant Fox needed to pass the adamantium claw on to a whole new character which they did successfully.
I previously read where some viewers were confused by where this movie fell in the X-Men movie timeline. I did not see the confusion since the timeline was more or less “re-set” at the conclusion of X-Men: Days Of Future Past. It’s not like The Flash were Barry Allen re-sets it 3 or 4 times a season.
In the end, I liked a lot of what the director wanted to accomplish, just not sure he was 100% successful. Like I said previously, I did not leave the theater with a desire to see the movie again.
Logan achieved a 3.5 on the Geeky Daddy Movie Rating scale and a sub Cannibal Holocaust on the Geeky Daddy Sidekick Scale.
Fox has released the trailer for it’s new series “Gifted” and it looks good!
The action looks good and I really like the story idea of a family on the run from the government. Sort of reminiscent of the old Incredible Hulk storylines with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno.
I do still have my concern about over saturation of comic book hero related shows. Between the CW’s schedule, Gotham, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Legion, is there still room or Gifted and other upcoming comic book themed shows (such as Cloak & Dagger which is premiering this Fall on FreeForm of all places)? We will soon know…
Producer Lauren Schuler Donner revealed on Twitter a cast photo and the tentative name of the new Fox/X-men TV series she is working on.
Per Cosmicbooknews, the series is titled “Gifted” and will focus on two ordinary parents that discover their children have developed mutant powers. They are forced to go on the run from the government and join forces with an underground group of mutants.
The solid cast will be headed by former True Blood lead actor Stephen Moyer as the father, Angel & Alias actress Amy Acker as his wife and Natalie Alyn Lind (best known as Silver St. Cloud on Gotham) as their daughter.
X-Men movie director Bryan Singer will also be directing the pilot episode.
I was worried when I first heard about this series just because there seems to be an over saturation of comic related TV shows currently airing or in development. But this sounds like a solid premise with a great cast and a talented crew behind the camera.
