X-men

News, Reviews & Features
  • Review: X-Men: Dark Phoenix is an unevolved end to a once super franchise

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 10th June 2019

    So now the X-Men franchise comes to an end. Since that first ensemble movie was released 19 years ago, the property has launched 12 films (13, if you count the still-to-be-unshelved The New Mutants) and has not only become a staple of the superhero genre in the process, but helped set the template for how to do this kind of movie well. And here we have the last instalment; the final chapter that, surely, the entire saga has been working towards for nearly two decades: a fourth-film reboot set in an alternate timeline remaking the same story from the third film of the original movies. It’s the only conclusion we’ve ever really wanted!

  • The nine most embarrassing X-Men marketing fuck-ups

    Movie Feature | Ali Gray | 12th October 2018

    You can always count on the X-Men for a laugh. While the Marvel marketing machine runs like a well-oiled machine and the DC marketing machine is basically a Xerox of the Marvel machine, the Fox marketing machine is more like a dodgy office printer, old and busted and producing wildly erratic and inconsistent results because no one really knows how to use it properly. The X-Men franchise is arguably the biggest name in superhero cinema - so why can't Fox ever seem to sell the movies without, excuse my language, fucking up like cack-handed twats?

  • Logan

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 9th March 2017

    There only three things that are certain in life: death, taxes and the fact that someone is hard at work writing a sequel to the X-Men movie you're currently watching. Logan, the third Wolverine standalone movie after X-Men Origins: Wolverine and The Wolverine, is the exception: it is the last in its series, because Hugh Jackman says so, and not just because they've run out of ways to name Wolverine movies. Buoyed by the success of 15-rated Deadpool and supported by Jackman's desire to leave a lasting legacy for his defining role, Logan is that rare superhero movie that feels like a full stop rather than a comma. Intentionally distanced from the rest of the X-Men universe and its frankly Gordian timelines, Logan stands alone as the best of the series: a bleak, bold and mold-breaking masterpiece of the genre.

  • X-Men: Apocalypse

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 19th May 2016

    Forgive me for sounding like I'm on the company payroll, but have Marvel movies ruined superhero movies for everyone else? I fear they have. The Marvel Cinematic Universe made its own space in the superhero sphere; it owns the area marked 'fun'. DC, as a countermeasure to all the lousy fun everyone was enjoying, staked their claim on the 'serious' space; heroes with grim faces carved out of rock, pre-tantrum lip-wobble expressions lashed with rain. Where does this leave the X-Men? I'm sure I don't know anymore, because X-Men: Apocalypse attempts to be all things to all people and ends up being neither overtly fun or remotely serious, just entirely ridiculous. It feels like a superhero movie back from when no one really knew what that was supposed to mean, or, as a friend of mine put it so perfectly: "It's like a shit superhero movie from the nineties".

  • Channing Tatum turns up for X-Men practice in homemade costume

    Movie News | Ali Gray | 17th May 2014

    Channing Tatum arrived early on the Fox set for his Gambit movie wearing a crude homemade X-Men costume which he hoped would impress producers. Or maybe it's just a still from Foxcatcher, whatevs.

  • How can it be that X-Men's William Stryker isn't a Stifler by birth?

    Movie News | Ali Gray | 15th May 2014

    Scanning the X-Men: Days Of Future Past cast list reveals the actor behind William Stryker to be Australian Josh Helman, who - unbelievably - is no relation to Seann William Scott, Steve Stifler or even Stifler's Mom. The scene in X-Men where Stryker accidentally eats a donut full of semen just accentuated the visual similarities.

  • X-Men: Days Of Future Past

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 13th May 2014

    Have you seen all of the X-Men films? Including the First Class prequel and both Wolverine movies? AND all of the mid-credits and post-credits stings that were tagged on to the end? Good. Then you may proceed. Welcome to X-Men: Retcon. I hope you've been paying attention.

  • Dry, flaky scalp?

    Movie Feature | Ali Gray | 5th April 2014

    As Wolverine knows all too well, washing your hair in the shower can be agony without a proper medicated shampoo. (Alternate title: yes, fine, this X-Men: Days Of Future Past poster is very nice).

  • Eight astonishing things on the new X-Men: Days Of Future Past poster

    Movie Feature | Ali Gray | 24th March 2014

    The X-Men don't historically have a lot of luck when it comes to cool poster designs - who could forget 9/3/11? - and that trend continues with this mental new one-sheet for X-Men: Days Of Future Past. Featuring: ALL OF THE THINGS.

  • Unfortunate Empire X-Men cover image/strapline juxtaposition

    Movie News | Ali Gray | 27th January 2014

    Biggest EVER? Could have fooled me. (Empire are revealing 25 X-Men: Days Of Future Past covers on the hour. Go dribble on them here).