111 - Mortified Nation

    A documentary about the success of the Mortified stage show.
    I think I heard about Mortified on This American Life.  I liked it then, but I’ve had a hard time finding more about it.  This documentary explains the show, and explains what is so appealing about it.  It doesn’t have a strong main character or any obstacle to overcome, but it’s a joy to see people sharing some very personal writings.
    I kept my journals for a very long time.  I had one terrible one that was from the point when I learned to write up through probably first or second grade.  Then I started actually keeping dated notebooks during fourth grade.  All of the stuff that these people talk about - misery, wanting a girlfriend, feeling rejected… what’s funny is that I was accumulating those records about two years earlier than any of these people.  Of course, I kept it going for a long time too.
    But I also got rid of my old ones.  I scanned all my songwriting notebooks from high school, but I threw out all of my notebooks from 1st through 8th grade.  I looked them over at some point, and realized that I didn’t want to remember this version of me.
    I wonder how much it’s because I feel embarrassed about it.  Sadly, I don’t know how much of it I’ve come past.
    There are a few stories shared in the documentary that are noteworthy because they’re much more unique.  There’s a guy who denies his homosexuality, even as he details having sex with another man.  I never struggled with my sexuality, but I found this to be the most honest portrayal of someone with this problem.

110 - Gone with the Wind

    Scarlett O’Hara is a manipulative, juvenile southern aristocrat, who manipulates people, and makes bad decisions.  She has a relationship with Rhett Butler.  Set against the American Civil War.
    I find this movie so incredibly dull that every positive element has about a dozen things that drag it back down.
    There are occasionally scenes that play well, or have comedic value.  But then there’s another fifteen minutes of slow southern cultural annoyances.
    Here’s where I actually show a certain amount of intolerance.  I simply don’t like this kind of southern culture.  Ignoring the racial elements of it, it’s pompous, and it involves people refusing to say things because it would be impolite.  The result is that people like Scarlett are created, who are completely dislikable.  She’s a jerk, she’s dumb, she seems to almost exclusively make bad decisions.  She shows some signs of growing up about halfway through the movie, then manages to undo it as soon as she has her wealth back.
    Rhett Butler is a peculiar character, because he seems to be the only one willing to tell Scarlett she’s a pain.  The problem here is that Rhett moves from being fairly likable to being a dislikable jerk by the end.
    Structurally, there are a bunch of strange problems.  Most of them stem from the format.  If the story ended about halfway through, it could actually be a more engaging movie.  Instead, the second half of the movie just drags and drags.  It’s hard to care about anything that happens.
    Despite my complaints, I actually did find the movie more watchable this time, compared to watching it during college.  It’s easier if you expect Scarlett to not have any redeemable qualities.  And it’s nice to see someone as cool as Rhett pick on her a bit.
    I have no idea why this movie is as successful as it is.  The only thing it seems to have going for it is that it feels like a uniquely American movie.  The Civil War accomplishes part of that, but the southern culture seems like a unique American creation.

109 - Willow

    Farmer Willow finds a human child in the reeds.  He makes a journey to return her to other humans.  Along the way, he discovers that she is a prophesied child, and he follows on an adventure to overthrow the evil queen Bavmorda.
    A real classic of the 80s.  I saw it in theaters.  I was enthralled.  I still enjoy it, even though a few of the sequences slow down a little.  This time, I watched it with more of a screenwriter’s eye and ear.
    The writing is actually structured really well.  There are little arcs, like Sorsha’s turn from evil to good that play out nicely (if a little unrealistically).  There are loads of callbacks, something I need to figure out how to do effectively.  There was one line I really hated - Bavmorda is bothered at her daughter’s betrayal, and she yells “I must despise you!”
    What really pleases me is how well the movie balances the tone.  There’s a consideration for younger audiences, but they still push the envelope a little.  The trolls are a bit menacing, but probably a little more than the flying monkeys.  But there’s an effect sequence where a troll’s skin peels off and it turns into a bloody mass of flesh that gets lit on fire.  This feels especially grotesque for children.
    I saw this in theaters at least once, possibly more than once.  I loved it, and I had the Marvel Comics adaptation.  I never felt like anything was disgusting or distressing.  I remember being completely fascinated by General Kael’s skull mask (which was based on the concept art for Skeletor).
    What sells this movie, and what has led to the longevity that it has, is Val Kilmer’s performance.  He’s completely charming, a little sleazy, courageous, and he has an inspiring arc.  He’s like Han Solo, it’s just a meatier part than Han had.

108 - Ripley's Game

    Tom Ripley maneuvers a neighbor of his into performing a hit for money.
    I watched this years ago, and I remember thinking it was really dark.  This time through, it doesn’t feel quite as dark.  It feels straightforward, and nowhere near as complex as The Talented Mr. Ripley.
    The production is cheaper.  The photography isn’t as sharp.  The music seems awkward to my ear.  Malkovich does a great job as Ripley, playing things cool, and handling himself well.  What seems more puzzling about the movie is that Ripley seems more like a supporting character.  Most of the interesting development happens with the man he’s shepherding. 
    The most engaging aspect of the movie is trying to figure out the truth of Ripley’s motivation.  It seems obvious, but his skill in lying and directing events makes it hard to feel positive.
    Both Cathy and I felt like this character wasn’t the same as the one in The Talented Mr. Ripley.  Damon’s Ripley is a sympathetic character, even as he indulges in his darker impulses.  In this story, Ripley doesn’t bother concealing his inclinations.  There’s less time spent on careful manipulations of other people’s perceptions.  No imitation of other people.
    See, that’s the difference.  My immediate impression of Damon’s Ripley was that he was a guy without an identity.  I viewed it as him latching onto Dickie because he liked his identity.  After reading more about it, I’d found that most people view the story as being about Ripley sneaking into high society.  This version of Ripley has accomplished that goal, and in that sense, the character is consistent.

107 - Contagion

    An illness sweeps the world, making a lot of people sick, and a lot of people dead.  The CDC works toward finding a cure.
    I showed this to Cathy.  I thought we had both watched it the first time I saw it, but I was mistaken.
    It’s such an unusual movie.  I can’t think of another that plays anything like it.  The movie centers around the virus, but it swirls around the world, following a variety of players, most of whom interact in some way at some point, but their stories paint a larger picture of how the world reacts to a problem that takes time to work out.  There are riots, looting, personal attacks.  There’s the opportunity to exploit hope for a cure.
    This time through, I felt like the movie was more bleak than I remember.  I think their eventual discovery of a vaccine was a big step toward making it feel like a happy ending, but there are so many dark things that happen.  The amoral crackpot blogger goes free.  The well-meaning CDC director winds up under investigation for advising his wife to get to a safe location before martial law.  What really weighs on me more is the way that the rioting goes down.  With the number of people dead, it raises a question about how likely it is that the nation would be able to get back to normal.  Plus, since everything seems to have been shut down for a long time, I imagine the economy would be destroyed.

106 - The Oxford Murders

    A young man goes to Oxford, in hopes of studying with Professor Seldom.  He finds himself embroiled in a murder mystery, as people connected to Seldom start dying.
    I don’t know what to think about this.  It’s interesting enough.  It holds attention well.  But it’s not quite there.  There’s a profusion of flowery dialogue, with the intention of sounding academic.  They try to make the story more palatable by having characters explain the fancier statements in broader dialogue.  I don’t like this.  It’s a bit distracting, and it pads out the running time.
    The actual mystery is a bit of a letdown as well.  I was looking forward to some intrigue, but the longer I watched, I realized that the movie doesn’t give you enough information to get curious about how things happen.  The primary mystery is the meaning of the symbols that are shown.
    There are still some nice elements.  The production values are nice.  Plenty of locations, well shot.  Good sound, lots of extras.  The girl playing the girlfriend is attractive.
    It’s not a bad movie, but it didn’t reach the level it should have.  I’m not sure what could have been done to make it play out the way I wanted it to.

105 - The Amazing Spider-Man

    Peter Parker gets bitten by an experimented-upon spider, and gains spider powers.  He deals with the Lizard’s plot to mutate New Yorkers into lizard-people.
    I can’t believe I re-watched this.  I was really disappointed by it the first time I saw it, and I’m still disappointed.  But I’m not as actively angry.  I’m more confused as to how they could make all the bad choices they did.
    First thing first.  They destroyed Peter Parker.  I’ve never been too attached to the idea that Peter would be an outright nerd, because the comics usually didn’t hold onto that too long.  In the Ultimate universe, they held onto it for about half a second, since he was in a nerdy relationship with Mary Jane in the first issue.  In the original run of Amazing Spider-Man, he starts off outcast, and they very gradually make him into a liked person.  He still has awkward interactions, but it’s clear that his classmates want to like him.
    The problem with how they handled Peter here is that he’s far too cool.  He skateboards.  He’s not rejected by his peers.  Gwen Stacy obviously likes him.  The extent of him being outcast is that Flash Thompson picks on him.  But Flash also seems to pick on everyone.
    The second problem.  The music is a serious annoyance.  Some of the score is actually pretty good, and fairly inventive.  But there are rock songs tacked on periodically, and this makes the movie feel dated.  Spider-Man is a timeless character, and deserves timeless treatment.
    The third problem: Peter Parker never learns a lesson.
    In the original version of the Spider-Man origin, he refuses to make the effort to stop the burglar, who goes on to kill Uncle Ben.  He’s not betrayed by the promoter, he isn’t doing this to get back at anyone.  He’s just an arrogant, self-absorbed teen.
    With this origin, it’s almost like a more extreme version of the variation on the origin that was done in the 2002 Spider-Man movie.  The difference is that Peter’s reluctance to act is entirely justified.  The person he would be helping is a jerk.  The jerk quality of the clerk in this one is just absurd.  It’s over-the-top, and that makes it seem even more like Peter is being a reasonable person.
    I have one other problem that bugs me, but it’s not as important.  In the comics, Captain Stacy came to like Peter, and as he was dying, he tells Spider-Man that he knows he’s Peter.  There’s no explanation of how he knows this.  But that’s part of the beauty of it.  He understood Peter’s motivation, and knew that he was a good person.  Class act, and it gave Captain Stacy a good note to go out on.  Here, Captain Stacy unmasks Spider-Man and is only willing to let him go because Gwen is in danger.  Turns him into a selfishly-motivated annoyance.

    I still hate the product-pushing that the movie does.  I find the crane operator stuff completely dumb.
    But much more than the first time, I found the movie boring.  A real shame.

    This time through, I also noticed how little time they devote to the webbing issue.  I’m really disappointed with this.  I didn’t mind either previous versions.  Organic web shooters is fine.  Mechanical web shooters are fine too.  In this case, they went with mechanical ones.  But Peter uses an off-the-shelf product from Oscorp.  This is bad, not just because it eliminates Peter’s genius, but it turns the webbing into something that’s not as destructible as the original webbing.  Spider-Man’s webbing is supposed to dissolve in about an hour.  This is a big deal, when you see him webbing up bad guys, and covering their mouths with the stuff.
    The problem may not have been a script issue.  It may have been meddling producers.

104 - The Talented Mr. Ripley

    Tom Ripley fakes being a school acquaintance of Dickie Greenleaf, traveling to Italy at the request of Dickie’s father, and attempting to persuade him to return to the US.  Ripley becomes obsessed with Dickie, and usurps his identity.
    This is one of those amazing movies that I’ve never known anyone to disagree with.  It’s a little slow for a younger viewer, but it’s mesmerizing because of the photography.  The story is fantastic, but it’s so nuanced that it’s hard to feel like you absorb everything with the first viewing.
    I saw this in theaters.  I’m not sure who was with me, but I remember that the first death is a remarkable shock.  Even now, after I’ve seen the movie several times, the way it plays out is amazing.  I remember feeling a little put off by the ending.  There seems to be an extra scene.  Everything seems to get put in the right place, then there’s an extra scene, which makes it clear that Ripley’s lies still can catch up with him.
    Now that I write about it that way, it make perfect sense.  I guess it’s a bit of a risk; if you identify with Ripley, and want to see him win, then the happy ending feels right.  If you want something a little darker, then suppose the last scene makes it work.
    This is also the first time I’ve watched it on Blu-ray.  It looks fantastic.
    Also, I’m in the process of listening to the audiobook of The Disaster Artist, which has a large portion concerning this movie.  It’s a nice pairing.

103 - X-Men: The Last Stand

    A cure is devised that suppresses the mutant gene.  Jean Grey comes back to life and threatens mankind as the Phoenix.
    What drives me to watch this movie is how weak it is.  It’s so easy to forget everything that happens in this movie, and that makes me want to pop it in and remember what happens.
    It’s weak.  But it’s hard to point to specific problems.  I was trying to focus on it, and there are a few things that stood out.
    1 - There’s a cheapness to a few sequences.  Some of the parts during Magneto’s bridge sequence near the end look really unfinished.  Juggernaut’s costume looks like it’s made out of styrofoam padding.  No real heft to it.
    2 - There are some script problems.  It’s not the actual structuring, which I think is pretty impressive for having to balance the stories and characters so much.  It’s the focus on using punchlines to end scenes.  I don’t mind that, but the line has to be good enough, and the performances have to be just right.
    3 - There’s a repetition to the movie.  When watching Days of Future Past, I realized how much I hated the shots of Storm activating her powers.  In this movie, there are at least three instances where she has a dramatic shot when she uses her powers.  Every one of them is annoying.

    In spite of all of these problems, I’m not too picky about it all.  It gets a bit dull, but it’s still a reasonably fun movie.

102 - Annie Hall

    A neurotic comedian examines his failed relationship.
    This is one of those legendary movies.  It’s considered to be the best project Woody Allen ever did.  And it’s good.  It’s clever, it moves around quickly.  There’s an elastic fourth wall technique that establishes itself, and allows for some unusual sequences.  The story isn’t told in a linear way, but it’s still mostly linear.  The occasional jumping around in time comes about in a way that feels natural - like it’s just a side effect of hearing the story being told.
    The content is interesting, because as much as I disagree with Allen’s character, I still identify with him.  I feel like Annie Hall is just as difficult to figure out as he does.  And she doesn’t play it as a difficult character.  She doesn’t try to be oblique.  It just boils down to the main problem that couples have; a basic incompatibility.

101 - Napoleon Dynamite

    Awkward teenager Napoleon and his peculiar family, friends, and acquaintances have a series of low-key adventures.
    I saw this in theaters with Cathy when it came out.  I remembered liking it.  I remember that she didn’t.  Since it’s been awhile, it’s interesting to see how differently I perceive the movie.
    It’s fun, but that’s about all.  The writing is good, but not great.  Most of what sells the movie is a combination of the editing and the performances.  I didn’t care for the writing as much as I used to.  Napoleon is an unusual character, in that he seems perpetually passive, but he’s mildly heroic at the same time.
    I realized that I couldn’t identify a sequence early on where we decide that he’s worth caring about, but his opening scene does establish a central theme for the movie.  When asked what he plans on doing today, he says “whatever I feel like.”
    Napoleon is interesting because he really lets things just slide off him.  Even when he’s unhappy, he doesn’t overreact.  He deals with Uncle Rico remarkably well, considering how sleazy Rico is.
    I can’t really decide what I think of this movie.  I enjoy it, but I also feel like it’s not quite everything it could be.  It’s an unusual movie, because it deals with unique characters in a very dull existence.

100 - Barton Fink

    A playwright is hired to write movie scripts out in Hollywood.  He struggles with his assignment, and with getting accustomed to Hollywood.
    Man, I have no idea what to say about this.  This is one of the strangest movies that the Coen brothers have made.  There are some very enjoyable sequences, and most of the material with John Goodman is wonderful.  But it’s a real mystery, and it’s so inscrutable that I don’t think anyone can figure it out.
    It’s fascinating, and the direction is beautiful.  The photography is fantastic.  But the story is hard to tell if it qualifies as a story.  Maybe… an extended surrealist collection of metaphors?
     The ending stuff with the flaming hallway is remarkable, especially amazing since they used real flames.

99 - Scream

    A preppy suburban town deals with a serial killer that seems to target high school kids.
    It’s been a long time since I saw this.  I probably saw it once after it came out on video, but ever since then…
    This movie should be a love letter to people like me.  It’s packed with references to horror movies.  It talks a lot about how horror movies are structured.  It has a great reputation, and it revitalized the horror genre for the late 90s.
    Sorry, but I just hate it.  There are some very well-handled scenes.  The opening kill is still wonderfully done, and it sets a great tone for the movie.  But after that, the movie feels dated, and derivative.  I know that Kevin Williamson was praised for this script, but what sets the script apart is packing it with references to other horror properties.  It’s easy to toss references in.  I’d rather that the references weren’t as obvious.  If the movie relied less on referencing other work, and instead worked at creating something more interesting…
    I’ve realized that most of the fun of the movie comes from trying to figure out who’s doing the killing.  After the first viewing, you’ve learned it.  Once you know it, there’s nothing new to appreciate in the story.  There’s no real subtext.
    All of the tension building that happens is a mix of good and bad.  There are loads of terrible jump scares, and most of them are cheap ones.  There’s one useful development that happens in the story, and it’s a later one - when the boyfriend is killed.  That’s a very clever dashing of expectations.
    But the dialogue really rubs me the wrong way.  It’s a bunch of post-college age kids acting like they’re in high school, and the script gives everyone constantly witty lines.  The characters have specific traits that they hammer home.  If this were unknown, I might think that it was fairly clever, at least plot-wise.  But the dialogue feels as dated as Clueless.

98 - Erik the Viking

    Erik the viking persuades his fellow vikings to go on a quest to end the age of Ragnarok in hopes of bringing a woman he loved back to life.
    This is considered a Monty Python movie, although it doesn’t feel quite like one.  There are some inspired bits, but there’s a lot of material that mostly seems confusing.  This is probably caused by the remarkably poor audio.  Some of the dialogue is perfectly clear, but there’s a massive dynamic range, and there’s a lot of whispered material that I can’t quite pick out.
    The pacing varies.  Some sequences are nice and tight, and the laughs play out right.  Some sequences are strangely overlong.
    The weirdest part of the movie is that it came out in 1989.  It feels less polished than Holy Grail or Meaning of Life, and yet it was released years later.  It feels like a dry run for Time Bandits or Adventures of Baron Munchausen - but those movies were before it.
    Very peculiar.  But there are some very fun bits, mostly on the island.  The ending seems like a step down from the excitement that had been cultivated beforehand. 

97 - Joy Ride 3

    Evil trucker Rusty Nail stalks and kills a group of people making their way to a car race.
    Sigh.  I normally like these movies.  I typically thrive on these cheap franchise movies.  But for some reason, I’m bored with this.  As I was watching, I was curious if it was a Canadian production, because of a handful of Canada references.  I looked up the director.  I found that he was involved in Wrong Turn 4 and Wrong Turn 5.  This explains a lot.
    I finished a second script awhile back, and I used a fairly evil character.  But I attempted to make him realistically evil.  When I watch this, I don’t mind some of the superior things that Rusty Nail is able to do, but I do mind that he seems able to anticipate every character’s actions.  I know that the audience is supposed to be focusing on the hero being able to outsmart and defeat the villain, but somehow, it just doesn’t feel like that’s possible.
    Maybe the problem is a lack of being able to identify with, or even care about the good guys.
    Ignoring this stuff, the movie is still pretty dull.  The opening scene is a bit stronger, reminding me a little of Rob Zombie’s stuff.  After that, it just tapers off.  The big finish ending seemed especially boring, and really disappointing.  If I don’t feel like there’s any chance that the villain was defeated, how can the hero be so dumb?
    Notable problem - there are a few cops in the movie.  Both of the primary cops act like complete jerks.  They curse an inordinate amount for the situations they’re in.

     A weird little thing about the cover for this.  The implication is that the subtitle is "Roadkill"  But IMDB doesn't say that it is.  I found a few other variant titles online, since there was some kind of contest about the cover art.

96 - Superheroes

    A documentary about real-life superheroes - people who dress in costume and patrol for crime.
    I wasn’t positive what direction this documentary would take, but it actually balanced, in a strangely unbalanced way.  The specific problem is harder to pin down, and it’s mostly that the movie groups into themes, and this unbalances the movie.  It starts off seeming a little more like an effort to take a comedic view of these people.  By the end, it circles back around to being more inspirational.
    I expected some coverage of Phoenix Jones, who has been one of the higher profile heroes out there.
    Instead, I find myself identifying with these people.  I’m not sure exactly how, but they do reflect the same thing that comic heroes do for me.  Their intentions are great.  Some of them have figured out effective ways of contributing.  Some of them are mostly just a presence, since it can be very difficult to find the appropriate crime to stop.
    One of the groups comes across as being very well-managed.  The New York Initiative has a group of four people - sharing an apartment - but they actually work at staying in shape.  They get the gear they should have.  They plan their actions.  We don’t see them actually handle any violent crime, but we see them manage a drunk driver and a homeless guy who gets his foot run over.
    The other one who has found a niche that seems to work is a guy who works with a camera operator.  They get footage of drug deals going on in a park at night.  The guy confronts the dealer, tells them to leave, and warns them that they have footage of the deal.  It doesn’t go through perfectly every time, but it still seems more effective than some of these other heroes.
    Some of the heroes seem like they aren’t quite all there, but they never seem dangerous or stupid.  One of them seems a bit delusional, but there are implications that being a hero is one of the things that keeps him productive.

95 - Axed

    A father is fired.  He snaps, and takes his family out on a trip to the countryside, where he intends to kill them and himself.
    I was fairly happy with this movie up until a certain tipping point in the third act.  The set-up goes well.  We get a sense of the contempt he has for his family.  There’s a problem with this, but it didn’t become clear until later.  All we get exposed to are the things that bother him.  It would help if we had a sense that he actually loves his family.
    At the core, the movie is about the pressure that patriarchs face to keep their households in order and provided for.  By losing his job, he hasn’t just failed at providing; he’s failed at everything.  That’s where one of the problems is - by making the family only represented with the worst traits, it takes away from the core part of the story, and pushes it into the same territory as something like The Stepfather.
    I liked most of the movie, but there was a point… around the time that the father gets injured and captured by the kids… that the story seemed to be abandoning most of the heart.  It no longer mattered that this was their father.  It could have just as easily been a nameless maniac.
    Technically, the movie is okay.  There are lighting issues all over the place, and it’s more obvious because they were shooting on a digital camera.  Most of the early footage is really solidly done.  Once they get out into the country, some of the interior shots are grainy because there isn’t enough light.  Some outdoor shots are grainy for the same reason.  A lot of the forest shots at night are lit in a weird way.  They seem to be strongly lit from one angle.  It doesn’t look right.

94 - Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy

    A documentary about the making and impact of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise.
    This is a long documentary.  It’s about four hours long.  I started watching it on a whim, but it’s remarkably engrossing.  Since it’s covering a large number of movies, the subject matter always is moving forward, and time isn’t spent treading water on the same stuff.  Seeing this has increased my appreciation for the work that went into the Nightmare movies.
    The effects work is remarkable.  Most of the work they did on these movies involved practical effects.  With the low budgets involved, some of this was really incredible.  The rotating room set is amazing.  They worked with a variety of first time directors, which created some great careers.
    They aren’t broadly supportive of everything that happens with the movies.  They acknowledge bad decisions that were made - especially with Part 2.  If anything, this documentary has made me want to watch Part 2 and New Nightmare again.
    I’ve always remembered The Dream Warriors as being a good entry, but it’s another one of those ones that I’ve forgotten.  It’s easy for me to put off watching them as long as there’s more new stuff out there for me to watch.

93 - X-Men: Days of Future Past

    In a ravaged future, the remaining X-Men send Logan’s consciousness back in time to the 70’s, where he can persuade Professor X and Magneto to unite to prevent an assassination that leads to the terrible future.
    Heavily modified from the original story, but this movie is a remarkable feat, even as it isn’t quite as engaging as First Class was.  The script is remarkably tight, and I’m impressed with how well they handled time travel elements.  They manage to give enough time to many lesser characters.  They reduce the role that Storm plays.  Overall, it’s very pleasing.
    There are minor things that bothered me, but they weren’t often.  I felt like there was a tendency to use some very predictable lines, and that’s started to feel lazy to me.
    My biggest issue was actually with Magneto’s end game.  He manages to manipulate the sentinels so that he can control them.  This is great.  He interrupts their unveiling and has them attack the audience.  This is great; it actually seems like a pretty good idea.  But then he decides that it’s a good idea to attack the president, and make his identity and motives announced?  This works against his goal.  If he had kept his identity quiet, and just made the sentinels go berserk, that would have been a perfect ploy.  I suppose that his extra grab for power was useful to establish him as being a more firm villain.
    I have less affinity for some of the less classic X-Men characters.  Blink, Sunspot, Warpath… even Bishop is a little too modern for my tastes (though I suppose the 90s are about twenty years ago now.)
    The movie is an impressive feat, and I’m very interested in finding how well it stands up to a second viewing.  Still, I’m glad that it was created, and it’s nice that the X-Men property is getting back on track.

     There are massive differences between the source material and this story, and most of them are okay, even if they were clearly done for commercial reasons.