Movie Monday -- X-Men & World War Z

June 16, 2014 01:47 PM Posted by juliannadouglas

I love a good story, but stories don't always have to come in the form of books. If you've read my bio, you know that one of my hobbies is watching movies. I usually watch at least one movie per week, but I'm not much for going out to the theater to see new releases. I typically wait for them to come out on DVD or Netflix. I'm also always on the prowl for older movies I might have missed. With that being the case, my musings in this column might not be the most up to date, but since I'm sure there are others out there like myself, I figure my comments are still relevant.

This past week, I managed to watch two movies, and the first, I actually went to the theater to see. It was a special occasion, you see. My hubs and I finally got to celebrate our twentieth anniversary nearly two weeks late. The actual date was the day of our son's high school graduation, and I was publishing my book that same week. As exciting as those things were, we sadly had to postpone our own festivities. With both our kids out of town at summer camp last week, we finally had some quiet time to ourselves, and to kick things off, we went to see X-Men: Days of Future Past.

OMG, what an amazing movie! I've loved every movie in the X-Men franchise. The fact that they've somehow been able to maintain such high quality throughout several movies is phenomenal to say the least. I keep worrying that one of these days they'll falter, but so far, thankfully, they haven't. X-Men: Days of Future Past was also of extra interest to me because of the time travel aspect, which I love. It can be difficult to maintain the complexity of elements in this type of story without confusing the viewer, but this X-Men movie did that perfectly IMHO. I was thoroughly engaged and had my mind sufficiently bent without being befuddled. And I loved all the little twists and turns, especially the ending.

The actors did a wonderful job with each of their roles. Hugh Jackman was fabulous as always in the role of Wolverine. As an aside, the man is also gorgeous as sin, and I can't get enough of looking at him (and...ahem...his naked backside ;-)). I was also wowed by James McAvoy as the young Professor X and Nicholas Hoult as the young Beast. It doesn't hurt that they're easy on the eyes too, as is BooBoo Stuart as Warpath. Of course, who doesn't love the veterans, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan. Then there's the brilliant Peter Dinklage, who always makes up for his lack of stature with huge stage presence. My husband made the interesting observation that this is the first time he can recall Peter's size not being mentioned in the story, which I think perhaps says volumes about his talent in playing a role where size truly wasn't relevant. My hubs would be hugely disappointed if I didn't mention some of the female talent as well. Jennifer Lawrence dazzles me with her acting ability, as does Ellen Page. These are two incredibly talented young ladies. He also took note of Bingbing Fan as the teleporter Blink. He loved her ability, as did I, and wondered if they might have been drawing on the video game Portal to create her character. All in all, this was a wonderfully well-rounded cast, and a very entertaining story, with plenty of eye candy for both me and my hubs.;-) Five big stars.

As I said before, this was a rare two-fer week for me on movies. The second movie we watched over the weekend was World War Z. I like Brad Pitt well enough, but I've never been a rabid fan of his like most ladies seem to be. Yeah, I know I'm an oddball among women, but I haven't even seen many of his movies. I will say though that I very much enjoyed his performance in World War Z as the intrepid U.N. investigator and devoted family man. He pretty much carried the movie himself, which definitely shows his talent. Supporting actress, Daniella Kertesz gave a stand-out performance too as the young Israeli soldier. This was an intense, nail-biting thriller that kept me on the edge of my seat and the mythology was interesting. Overall, I thought this was a really well-done movie without being too scary. (I don't do scary.) Four and a half stars.

Categories: Movie Monday

Tags: Brad Pitt, Ellen Page, Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Peter Dinklage, World War Z, X-Men