X-Men: The Last Stand

I normally like to do a sports post after doing a superhero post, but there aren't any sports happening right now, so I'll just have to stay on the superhero genre for a while. Today, I am finally concluding my quest through the X-Men movies.

X-Men: The Last Stand was directed by Brett Ratner and stars Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen and all the same main cast from the other two movies. I was really excited for this one when it came out in 2006, but I was a bit disappointed with the end result. In fact, this was a rather difficult film to review. Some parts of it were pretty awesome, but other parts ... well, not so much.

It's always nice to start a movie with Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, even if their faces do look a little too plasticy to be younger-looking. I would have liked to add a point here, but I was really put off by Jean Grey. Why was she such a jerk? It seems these movies can never get her right, no matter what age they make her.

I will add a point, however, for the second flashback at the beginning. It was a shocking scene to see little Angel cutting off his own wings. This really shows how traumatic it is for kids to discover they're mutants. Unfortunately, Angel did very little in the rest of the movie, but this scene sticks with you, and for that, the score is now a 6.

The next scene is a good representation of the whole film. It's the X-Men training in the Danger Room. There's some nice action, but it's brought down by a few lame things. We do see Colossus, but he does little and says even less. We do see the head of a sentinel, but not the whole body for some reason. There's also some really lame dialogue, especially when Storm gets really mad at Wolverine for destroying the sentinel for some reason. Wasn't that what they were supposed to do? Sadly, the whole movie is just like this. Kinda good, kinda lame, overall just bland.

I will add a point for Kelsey Grammer's portrayal of Beast. He looked perfect, sounded perfect and acted perfectly. They even got the little things right like having him read books upside down and the design of his old uniform. It really is a terrible shame that we may never see him play Beast again.

Now it's time to start taking away points. The first deduction is caused by the super-lame "class" system they invented to rank mutants. What the heck is a Class 3 mutant? We've never heard that terminology used before or since. It was much worse than the mitichlorians in Star Wars. I really think they did a good enough job of showing how powerful Jean was without shoving the Class 5 thing down our throats.

Another point is deducted because of Cyclops. I know James Marsden couldn't get much screen time because he was filming Superman Returns at the same time, but what they did with his character here was just awful — especially after he did practically nothing in X2. So sad. In this movie, we see him whine for about two minutes, shoot one pretty pathetic-looking optic blast into the water, and then get killed for no reason. If you're going to kill a main character, you have to do it heroically, like Mace Windu, not Boba Fett. Hmm, I think I need to watch Star Wars now.

Before I take off another point, I will add one for the fresh take on Phoenix. This is one of the rare situations where the movie did better than the comics. Phoenix in the comics is super abstract and super confusing. In the movie, it is simply a split personality in Jean caused by Xavier locking away a majority of her power. That's logical enough for me. So our score is back up to a 6 now.

But the praise doesn't last long. It was a little annoying when they introduced hundreds of "mutants" who don't look like mutants and have lame powers, but it was a tragedy when they brought on the Juggernaut and practically ruined him. He was way too small, had a stupid-looking outfit, and suddenly became Australian for no good reason. They also explained his powers with a lame, "Once he gets some momentum behind him, he becomes unstoppable." So stupid!

We also lose another point for the nasty sex scene with Jean and Wolverine. In a way, it kind of makes sense with the Phoenix being loose and wanting to experience ... things ... but the way they showed it here was just plain wrong. Especially when Jean started ripping into Wolverine's skin. Gross, gross, gross!

Xavier's death scene should have been more powerful than it was. The problem with it might have been the unimpressive fight scenes with Juggernaut, Wolverine, Storm, and the other two lame mutants. Some parts looked quite strange, like when Juggernaut threw Wolverine up into the ceiling and he immediately fell down into the next room. How does that work?

But I will add a point for Magneto. He was one of the few characters the movie producers understood in terms of power, looks and attitude. I loved it when Pyro complained he couldn't kill Xavier and Magneto immediately rebuked him and defended his old friend. Perfect. Our score is now an average 5 heading into the final battle scene.

Like I said earlier, this was mostly bland. There were a few nice and interesting things, but they were immediately countered by boring, dumb things. Magneto lifting the Golden Gate Bridge was nice, but most of his mutants were just lame. Juggernaut chasing Kitty Pryde through walls was an interesting concept, but it was weird seeing she was shorter and younger-looking than the kid she was trying to save. We see Storm kill someone (which I guess fits into her character), but it takes her forever to do it. Maybe it was an overkill? Really, she was just too violent in these movies and probably could have gone evil in the fourth, had it been made.

I do have to take away a point for the cheesy climax. To hearken back to the suddenly important Danger Room scene at the beginning, Wolverine said, "We work as a team." And Storm said, "The best defense is a good offense." Why do these scenes never work with Storm? Is Halle Berry really just a bad actor or is the script that bad?

So the movie ends with several main characters dead — Cyclops, Jean and Xavier (but not really) — and the main villain, Magneto, deprived of his power (but not really). If they wanted this to be the final installment of the trilogy, which I think they did, hence the Last Stand, then they needed to end it in a conclusive, fulfilling way. This was just a depressing ending that seemed to point toward another sequel that would be impossible to pull off because they painted themselves into a corner. For this failure, I take away another point.

Overall, this is not a bad film, just a bland one. It lacked the emotion from X2 and didn't do a good enough job tying directly back into the previous movie. They did try, like with Rogue and Iceman and Pyro, but those plot lines weren't given enough time to develop and came off as rather annoying when they tried to force them in. I thought it was really lame how Rogue assumed that all Bobby wanted was to have sex with her, even when he said several times that wasn't the case. The introduction of Kitty Pryde also came out of nowhere. We did see her briefly in the other two movies (played by different people) but now all of a sudden she's a full-blown X-Man? Also, they failed to say what happened to Nightcrawler after he seemed so eager to join the team in X2.

So many complaints add up to a rather disappointing end for a franchise that hasn't quite ended thanks to the two new prequels. I guess I still need to review X-Men: First Class before I can say I'm done with this series. In the meantime, I think I'll begin to put some much-needed DC on this blog.

Final score for X-Men: The Last Stand: 3 out of 10.

Movie Review: X2

Well, I finally got back to blogging about superheroes, and to keep up with my random trek through X-Men, I decided to watch the best X-Men movie yesterday. I really forgot how much I loved this one, and I still do consider it one of the best superhero movies ever made.

X2 came out in 2003. It later took the subtitle X-Men United, but it's official title is X2, which is what everyone (including myself) calls it. It was directed by Bryan Singer, and starred Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman and Ian McKellen. It picks up right where X-Men ended and brings back all the same main characters. Like my other reviews, I start with a score of 5 out of 10 and add and take away points during the movie.

The movie immediately jumps to a 6 thanks to one of the coolest superhero moments ever. Simply put: Nightcrawler + Mozart = Super cool. It was such an awesome way to open the movie. Every X-Men fan had been dying to see a live Nightcrawler, and they finally got it with him beating up the White House security staff to the tune of Mozart's Requiem. It truly was his finest hour. Unfortunately, it was the only cool thing he did all movie, and he has yet to appear in another movie. Sigh ...

One thing I like about X2 is how it directly ties in to the first movie. We ended X-Men with Wolverine heading to Alkali Lake, so we start this movie with him arriving there and looking around. We also find out that after their fight with Magneto on the Statue of Liberty, Jean Grey's powers have not only become harder to control, but also more powerful. I think this makes sense. Magneto's machine somehow broke through some of the barrier's Xavier put in Jean's mind.

One scene that used to bug me was Xavier freezing everybody in the food court. Now I don't mind it anymore. If he's supposed to be powerful enough to be able to kill 6 billion people by concentrating too much, then it makes sense for him to be able to freeze 50 people for a minute. I also really liked his line there: "The next time you feel like showing off, don't."

Strangely enough, I found myself rooting for Mystique, even though I really didn't like her at all in the first one. But they improved her so much here, I'm actually going to raise the score to a 7. It was fun rooting for the bad guys here, and I liked some of the subtleties with her powers, like how she got Lady Deathstrike's palm print by shaking her hand, and how she got Stryker's voice by just talking to him. There's also a nice scene with her and Nightcrawler later on, where she explains that she shouldn't have to hide her true form, which is played up in First Class. So yeah, they made Mystique interesting and understandable — a big upgrade from the first movie.

I always love the scenes in the mansion with the little mutant kids casually using their powers to change the TV channels by blinking or to frost a soda glass by blowing on it. All of the X-Men movies needed more scenes like this. I think it's the little uses of their powers that add depth to the film more than the big uses.

Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen were amazing in the first movie. If at all possible, they were even better in this one. After we've sufficiently calmed down from Nightcrawler's spree in the White House, the film picks up again when Xavier visits Magneto and they're gassed. Magneto delivers two awesome lines here: "War has begun." and "You should have killed me when you had the chance!" The score goes up to an 8 right here because we feel like the world is collapsing.

And it really is collapsing with the cool invasion of the school. Yeah, Wolverine's keen senses are a little slow, but he makes up for it by brutally stabbing a guy through the chest and into the fridge. I also like the little girl Siryn screaming to wake everybody up and it was nice to see Kitty Pryde running away (even if she didn't do anything else). It was wonderful, yet painful to see Colossus for only two seconds. He offers to come help Wolverine, but he stupidly refuses it. Come on! It's the mighty Colossus! You need him! I also really didn't understand why Pyro went with Iceman to find Rogue. What does he care? Does he like to just look at the girl he can't touch?

But this is an awesome scene and it just gets better when Colonel William Stryker comes into play. When he's played by Brian Cox, he is one of my favorite villains. He's smart, conniving, manipulative, and ever so slightly sympathetic, but never to the point where we stop hating him. He's also not just a Washington lobbyist or scientist, but he is a soldier, out there leading his men on the front line. This scene easily pushes the movie to a 9.

I'm actually going to bump the score up to a 10, thanks to one of my all-time favorite scenes — Magneto's escape. It was so brutal and awesome to see him pull the iron out of the guard and then destroy his prison and kill the other guards with just three small iron balls. So, so cool!

Now, sadly, is where I start to drop points off. I really wasn't a big fan of the scene at Bobby Drake's house. One, how did his family not know he was a mutant? Wouldn't they have seen him accidentally freeze something? Wouldn't he have at least once frozen the toilet water before he learned to control his powers? Two, why was his brother so mad? What it just that Bobby was a mutant or he didn't like seeing other people wear his clothes, or he was jealous of Bobby getting to go to a fancy private school, or what? It really doesn't make any sense for him to call the police on his brother and his friends.

And then the cops show up and it gets even lamer. The cop is 10 feet away from Wolverine and shouts at him to drop his knives. Can't he see they're actually blades sticking out of his hands? But then Wolverine stupidly decides to not retract his claws, but instead says he can't drop them and tries to show the cop what he means. Then the cop shoots him in the head! Why?! Why didn't he shoot him in the arm or leg? Just because you think a guy is holding six knives does not give you an excuse to kill him so quickly. He had no idea Wolverine would survive that shot. That cop needs to be court marshaled or whatever they call it. Terrible. All these complaints drop the score to a 9.

We then get a lackluster scene of the X-Men getting chased in their jet. From inside the plane, Storm can create about 20 tornadoes to take out the other jets, but she can't summon one bolt of lightning to get rid of the last missile? Instead she just sits there and screams at Jean.

Speaking of Jean, I now see why my dad hates her so much. She really does nothing in this movie. I think Famke Janssen did a poor job of playing her and I think the character was poorly written. Why do you keep kissing Wolverine and leading him if Cyclops is your boyfriend? Maybe she forgot about Cyclops, which makes sense because he's only in this movie about 10 seconds longer than Colossus was. But seriously, that love triangle was forced too much. I would have been fine if it was just Wolverine hitting on Jean, but having her continue to deny him. But it wasn't just one-sided. Maybe you could say it was the Phoenix starting to come out of her, which led to these strange moments of flirting with Wolverine, but I still think it's kind of dumb. For the character of Jean Grey, the score drops to an 8.

One of the strangest parts of the movie takes place in their camp when Mystique comes into Wolverine's tent disguised as Jean and starts making out with him. Why did she do that? Did the producers just feel they needed a sex scene? It was lame, but not lame enough to drop a full point, mainly because some nice fight scenes quickly came up afterward.

Lady Deathstrike was put in this movie to be good foil for Wolverine. He finally had someone he could slash and stab all day and also be slashed and stabbed by all day. It was a nice fight scene, but not nice enough to give a point back to the score, mostly because the aforementioned random sex scene.

The ending of this movie was very strange and very dumb. I'll start with the X-Men on the outside of Cerebro, trying to figure out how to stop Xavier from killing all the humans in the world. For some reason, they think it's best to have Nightcrawler teleport Storm in there instead of Jean Grey, who is a telepath and experienced with using Cerebro. No, no, we don't need you, Jean. It'll be a lot easier if Storm just goes in and makes it really cold.

I think they did this because they wanted to follow up on Storm's earlier conversation with Nightcrawler about pity and faith. But that scene in itself was lame because Storm came off as an angry, human-hating mutant who should team up with Magneto. So because that scene failed, this scene also failed when Storm said she believes in Nightcrawler.

So they teleport in and they only see Jason Stryker disguised as a little girl. Now I like Jason in here, he's really creepy and tragic, and I understand why he would be a little girl to trick Xavier, but I don't know why he was a little girl for Storm and Nightcrawler. Did he really expect them to say, "What a minute, there's just a little girl here. Nightcrawler, you took us to the wrong room!" Very weird. Also, why did making it cold stop him? I guess a psychic battle between him and Jean would have been too abstract to show.

Then we get to the worst scene in the whole movie. They can't start the jet and dam is breaking, so Jean decides to leave the jet to turn it on and stop the water, while preventing everybody from leaving the jet, somehow stopping Nightcrawler from teleporting, and taking over Xavier's mind to say goodbye. Why couldn't she do any of these things from inside the jet? They could have had it work that way and still have her go into Phoenix mode, I think. Also, why didn't they have Iceman try to stop the water? That would've been a cool visual effect and it would have added something to a character that they spent so much time building up.

Here's how I think it should have happened. Bobby sees the water coming, runs out to stop the water, but collapses because it's too much, Nightcrawler saves him, and then Jean runs out to stop the water and lift the plane and turn into Phoenix. It's not the best fix, I know, but it would have been a whole lot better than having her stand out there for 10 minutes while Wolverine yelled at everyone else to do something and having everyone say Jean was stopping them. Ugh ... We're now at a 7.

I also didn't like the final scene with the president. Why did they need thunder and lightning in the background? Isn't that just a bit over the top? Why did they let Nightcrawler in the room? Wouldn't the president fail to agree to anything they say when he sees the same mutant who attempted to assassinate him with them? Oh well, these last few complaints aren't big enough to lower to score anymore. It is still the best X-Men movie ever made and probably the main reason they keep making X-Men movies.

Final score: 7 out of 10

Good-bye NBA!

Well, the NBA is officially in lockout mode now and it sadly seems like some or even all of next season will be canceled. I don't think I'll be able to really enjoy hockey, so hopefully college basketball will be able to hold me over. Until then, let's remember one particularly interesting 2010-11 NBA season.

The Decision

Everything got off to a kickstart last summer with the most anticipated free agency class in NBA history. This was largely because LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh decided five years ago that they wanted to play together. Everyone knew LeBron wanted out of Cleveland, but nobody knew where he wanted to go, so we saw teams frantically trying to clear up cap space to sign him. New York, Chicago, and even Los Angeles (Clippers) would have been legendary choices, but instead the two-time MVP decided to be the sidekick to someone who was drafted four spots behind him. But it wasn't just that he went to Miami, it was how he did it.

I remember his hour-long special on ESPN started half an hour before I had to go to work, and I almost was late because he dragged it out for so long. I was surprised that he never once thanked Cleveland or the fans for the seven years he spent there, and instead just seemed angry with everyone who didn't support him with his decision — an attitude that would carry over throughout the season and especially the post season. The most beloved basketball player in the world instantly became the most hated basketball player in the world in just one hour. Things only got worse with Miami's big party the next day, with the theme "We Did It!" as if they needed to justify themselves to the world. They partied like they already won the title and LeBron famously said they weren't going to win one, or two, or three, or four, or five, or six, or seven championships. He still might be right — they might end up with zero.

Everything went wrong for the Jazz

We started the season with bringing back the old original logo and giving it better colors, which was very nice. I love the Jazz note, which is the letter J, a music note and a basketball all in one — truly a brilliant design. Then came the roster changes. We were very happy to see Carlos Boozer leave, a little sad to see Kyle Korver go, and really sad to lose Wesley Matthews. But we did bring in Al Jefferson and Raja Bell, and actually got off to a good start for the season. We had a 15-5 record and put together a string of impressive comebacks against tough teams like Orlando and Miami. But as nice as it was to see how resilient we were, it was a little troubling to see us constantly falling behind by 10 and 20 points in almost every game. Memo Okur missed most of the season, came back for a couple of games and looked really good for a few minutes, but wasn't able to sustain it and had to go back to the injured list. Millsap played great, Jefferson was OK, but still learning the system, C.J. Miles would occasionally light it up, but the team really belonged to Deron Williams. He was our most consistent player, but he started to slowly annoy me and a few other fans. He didn't really seem to make any of his teammates better and often blamed others for the Jazz's poor performance. Everything fell apart around Martin Luther King Day.

From what I've heard, Jerry Sloan was sick of D-Will's attitude and wanted to punish him, but Greg Miller would not hear of it. When Sloan realized he wasn't getting anymore support from the office or the players, he left. He stayed with the same team for 23 years, but D-Will and Greg Miller were finally able to drive him out. This broke my heart. The Jazz stopped being the Jazz for me at that point. Luckily, I had the Jimmer to keep me entertained during this, so I wasn't even fazed when D-Will was traded. Although I do think it was the right move, I still think it was odd that we couldn't have convinced Sloan to wait for two more weeks until we traded Williams. Oh well.

The season dragged to a disappointing conclusion, where we became the first team in NBA history to start 15-5 and fail to make the playoffs. To make matters worse, we won too many worthless games at the end to hurt our lottery odds. We did get the No. 3 pick from the New Jersey trade, but if that No. 12 were a couple of spots higher, we could have drafted Jimmer. Again, oh well.

Changing of the guard

Another interesting thing in the NBA this year was the decline of several old dynasties and the rise of some new ones. The first was the San Antonio Spurs, who finished with the best record in the West, but got knocked out of the first round by the young, upstart Memphis Grizzlies. Then the defending champion Lakers got swept in the second round. The Boston Celtics also went down with very little fight to the new-look Heat. The only exception to this was the Dallas Mavericks, who won the title in probably their last chance with Dirk and Kidd. Among the new dynasties this year were the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Chicago Bulls, who won the most games last season, despite the incompetence of Boozer.

Back to LeBron

We have to end where we started, with the most intriguing player in the NBA. In the Eastern Conference Finals, LeBron handled the scoring load while also shutting down the MVP, Derrick Rose. But in the NBA Finals, LeBron played terribly, and disappeared for large, important stretches of the game. Unfortunately this overshadowed everything Dirk and the Mavericks did.

So now I have to wait and see how long it will be before I get to watch Jimmer in a Kings jersey and see the Jazz's new rookies — a center who didn't play at all last year and a shooting guard who can't shoot. Sigh ... Is it football season yet?

Movie Review: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

About a week or so ago, my roommate decided to show X-Men Origins: Wolverine to his friend for the first time. I needed to write another superhero post for my blog, so I decided to watch it with them. During the movie, about 10 people walked in and out of our apartment (everybody does that here) and almost all of them have never seen this movie before. This totally shocked me — how could you go so long without seeing this movie? Maybe a lot of them were on their missions when it came out, or maybe it's just a really bad movie. Maybe a combination of the two. So anyway, here I go with another superhero movie review, starting with a score of 5 out of 10 and adding or taking away points during the movie.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine came it in 2009. It was directed by Gavin Hood, and starred Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Liev Schreiber as Sabretooth, and Danny Huston as William Stryker. I remember enjoying this movie as much as I hated it when I first saw it. And I've also discovered that I am very picky about my X-Men, so be warned.

Right off the bat, I am going to take a point off for its stupid title. It's clunky, confusing, and probably one of the reasons nobody saw it. It also almost destroyed the X-Men film franchise. To be fair, it had a hard time coming after X3, which painted itself into a corner, but this movie ultimately killed at least two other movies. After X3, there were plans to make a movie about Magneto's origin and two movies about Wolverine's origin — the first about him becoming Wolverine and the second about him training in Japan. Fortunately, they were able to modify the Magneto story and come out with X-Men: First Class, despite the failures of Wolverine.

The starting was a bit confusing and rushed. After reading the comics, it makes a lot more sense, but they really should have spent more time on this in the movie. It's actually a really good story and would have brought some much-needed emotion to the film. However, it would have meant more screen time without Hugh Jackman, which is something they tried to avoid at all costs possible. The first time I saw this, I was a little annoyed that Wolverine is over 200 years old, but after watching the first X-Men again, I heard them explain that his healing power keeps him young looking, and they even guess that he is older than Xavier. So that takes away my complaint. But it does remind me of a general rule I have with some comic book characters. As much as I like origin stories, there are some that I like more because they're ambiguous — like the Joker. Wolverine also falls under that category. I think the less we know about his past, the better. So really, I kind of wish they never made this movie, but instead did a Magneto origin or an X-Men 4.

I'm now going to take off another point and drop this down to a 3 because of William Stryker. He was my favorite character in X2, and here they ruined him. Why couldn't they get the original actor, Brian Cox? Did they just want someone younger? Then why didn't he look more like and act more like the original Stryker? They tried to make this a direct prequel to X-Men, but their continuity is flawed with inconsistencies. Are we also to assume that the Sabretooth we see in X-Men is a completely different person than the one in Wolverine? Or did he also lose his memory and suddenly grow taller?

One minor complaint: Why does Wolverine hate flying? He's Wolverine! The toughest guy in the world! (Practically invincible in this movie.) He's also been in every war since the Civl War. Shouldn't he be used to planes by now?

This movie does go back up to a 4 thanks to the performance of Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson. He was funny and cool, especially his line: "OK ... people are dead!" Unfortunately, they had to ruin his character later on, but I'll get to that later.

The score goes up to a 5 thanks to the cool death scene of Bradley, played by Dominic Monaghan. I liked the lights going and his scream transitioning to Wolverine's scream.

I have to bring it back down to a 4 because of the dumb story Wolverine's wife tells him about a wolverine howling at the moon. I know they wanted to explain the name Wolverine, but wolverines don't howl at the moon. Wolves do.

There is a cool scene where Stryker swears on his son's life, but he's really lying, which works because he hates his son. The characters in the movie don't know this, but the geeky fan boys like me do.

It is a little annoying after they put the adamantium in Wolverine, Stryker says they've made him invincible. But two seconds later, when Wolverine escapes, Stryker tells Agent Zero to take his head off. How is he supposed to do that? You just made him invincible!

The special effects really failed in an important scene. When Wolverine is in the old people's bathroom, he has his first chance to examine his adamantium claws up close. Unfortunately, his claws looked very CGI and cartoony, effectively killing what could have been a nice scene. This was enough of a distraction to drop the score another point, bringing us to a 3.

I'll give a point back because of the great scene with the old man and Wolverine. The old man says those who go looking for blood usually find it. And when Wolverine says his choice has been taken from him, the old man answers with a harsh, but awesome, "B.S." (Only he actually swore.) I also liked the sudden deaths of the old people. Great stuff.

But I take away another point for a few more leaps in logic. Wolverine tells Stryker he'll find and kill Victor, then kill Stryker. Why not kill Stryker first? You know where he is! Also, I don't mind him killing Agent Zero, but it was a rather strange way to do it. Striking the ground to light the gasoline on fire to eventually blow up the helicopter? I just can't suspend my disbelief enough for that one.

It's nice to see Scott Summers, but why doesn't he have a doctor's note to allow him to wear sunglasses? He's a good kid, he'd do that. I guess they just really wanted to put him in detention so he'd be alone when Sabretooth came for him, but there still should have been some people there.

The score falls to a 2 because of Gambit played by Taylor Kitsch. We were so happy to finally see him, but they messed him up. First off all, he had really vague powers that only kind of resembled what we've seen in the comics and cartoons. Secondly, his accent was never consistent. Thirdly, he starts fighting Wolverine because he thinks he works with Sabretooth and wants to take him back to Stryker's facilities. That makes sense. But then he sees Wolverine fight Sabretooth and continues to fight Wolverine. Ugh ... what a disappointment.

Another quick quibble: Why do they say "Weapon X?" I know they say it's the Roman numeral 10, but they also say Weapon 11. So there's Weapon 8, Weapon 9, Weapon X, and Weapon 11? It doesn't really work for me.

The movie score goes back up to a 3 thanks to a rather neat plot twist of having Wolverine's wife still be alive. I really didn't like her at all, or how she and her sister were Emma Frost split into two people, or how Wolverine continued to love her after she betrayed him. I mean, if she wanted to save her sister, why didn't she use her invincible husband to free her? However, finding out she was still alive was neat enough to add a point.

But, I'll take away another point because of the sin they committed with Deadpool. Why seal his mouth? One of his most distinguishing characteristics is his mouth. He's constantly talking, joking and breaking the fourth wall in the comics. Why change that? I also didn't like them giving him powers he didn't have, like Cyclops' optic beams. Cyclops can't control them, so why can Deadpool?

Another dumb part: How does Stryker know an adamantium bullet will erase Wolverine's memories? I don't mind that happening, but I do mind having Stryker intentionally shoot Wolverine with the express purpose of erasing his memories. So dumb. Also, what a stupid punishment to give Stryker. Walk until your feet bleed and then keep walking. Oh no! He's going to be so uncomfortable! Come on, he's an old army man, who's fought with and against mutants. That's not going to bother him.

The cameo of Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier was cool enough to bring this movie back up to a 3. As a whole, this movie wasn't unwatchable, just frustrating. The biggest problem with it is that only geeks can truly appreciate it, yet they hate the flaws in it.

Final score: 3 out of 10

The Jimmer Show now playing the waiting game

(This is my Jimmer story I wrote for The Daily Universe that appeared on the front page today. It very quickly became our most popular story online. I owe special thanks to Brandon Judd and Kirsten Bowe.)

The workouts are done. The interviews are over. All that’s left for former BYU star Jimmer Fredette is to wait.

“I’m excited to sit back, relax and watch where I go,” Fredette said after his final workout, with the Utah Jazz on Wednesday.

The past couple of months have been hectic for Fredette. After leading BYU to the Sweet 16 and being named the national player of the year, Fredette has been focusing all his efforts on convincing NBA teams that he has what it takes to make it in the next level.

Fredette described the pre-draft workouts as a long, but fun, process.

“It’s very time-consuming and it consumes your mind, as well,” he said. “You think about it all the time.”

Everything started with the league’s pre-draft camp in Chicago on May 19.

ESPN’s Andy Katz reported that Fredette helped himself in front of all the NBA teams.

“He made shots, he didn’t look like he was out of place athletically and, as always, he interviewed well,” Katz said.

Fredette’s first official workout with an NBA team came on May 31 with the Indiana Pacers, owners of the 15th pick of the draft. Indiana seemed impressed with Fredette, posting positive reviews and videos, including one where he made 18 of 22 NBA 3-pointers.

On June 2, Fredette auditioned for the New York Knicks, then with the Sacramento Kings on June 10 and for the Phoenix Suns on June 12. Each workout only brought more positive reviews.

Everything culminated with his final workout for the Utah Jazz against former UConn star Kemba Walker on Wednesday.

Jazz coach Tyrone Corbin said he was impressed with Fredette’s quickness and competiveness. He also said Fredette played better defense at the workout than he did in the game films, and noted that there’s more to him than just scoring points.

“Everybody knows him for putting up numbers on the board,” Corbin said. “But I think he’s a more complete player than a lot of people give him credit for.”

Last Wednesday was the first and only time two of the premier college guards got to compete against each other in front of an NBA team. Walker was a contender for national player of the year honors and led Connecticut to the NCAA championship.

“The country always wanted to see Kemba and Jimmer play,” Walker said.

The former Huskies guard also took time to praise Fredette a little bit.

“I absolutely think he could play the point guard position on the next level,” Walker said. “Him scoring is just a plus. He made some pretty impressive passes as well. I think he’ll be great.”

Fredette also had kind words for Walker, describing him as “obviously one of the best guards in the country.”

Unfortunately, another one of the best guards in the country, Brandon Knight from Kentucky, didn’t work out with Fredette and Walker, but elected to work out for the Jazz by himself the next day.

Despite working out alone, the Jazz seemed impressed with Knight, and many mock drafts predict him being taken at the No. 3 pick by Utah.

“He showed himself very well,” Corbin told reporters. “He did a really good job. I mean, it was one-on-zero, but [he was able] to show his talent level.”

Fredette admitted that the pre-draft workouts were more stressful than tournament games, comparing them to job interviews. While NBA teams focus on determining players’ athletic abilities, it’s also common for them to conduct personality interviews with their potential picks.

However, he isn’t worried about his performance in the workouts.

“I thought I did very well throughout the process,” Fredette said. “So it’s great to have that type of confidence going into the draft, knowing that you did all you could.”

So now the question remains: Where will Fredette end up this Thursday in the NBA Draft?

Many early mock drafts predicted Fredette to be taken at the end of the lottery or lower. But after receiving positive reviews from each workout, Fredette’s stock has risen.

He did work out with the Knicks, who have the 17th pick, but he also worked out with the Kings, who own the 7th pick.

ESPN’s NBA draft guru, Chad Ford, reported that Sacramento fell in love with Fredette during the season and “had to press hard to get him into the workout.”

Ford also believes that the owners of the Kings, the Maloof brothers, could pressure their GM to select Fredette at No. 7.

So while many Jazz fans are hoping Utah will pick up the former Cougar at No. 12, he might not still be on the board by then.

And despite his solid performance against Walker last week, it is highly unlikely the Jazz will use their No. 3 pick on Fredette.

But as Fredette said, “You really have no idea, it just depends on who’s there and what trades happen. You really can’t tell until June 23.”

Movie Review: Thor

I figured I needed another superhero post to balance my last sports one, and what better movie to do that with than Thor? I recently saw it for the second time and I loved it just as much as the first time. This post will probably be rather short, as I don't have much to complain about.

Thor came out on May 6, 2011. It is directed by Kenneth Branagh, and stars Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Natalie Portman as his girlfriend, Jane Foster, and Tom Hiddleston as Loki. Remember, I start with a score of 5 out of 10 then add or take away points throughout the movie.

The movie had a fairly standard starting, but things really didn't get cooking until Thor and his friends got into a fight with the frost giants. I loved Thor's exuberance in battle. It was also pretty awesome when Thor smashed through the back of the monster's mouth. For that, we go up to a 6.

Now, I really don't know much about Thor. I've mostly know him from a few random cartoons and a comic or two that I've happened to read. Maybe my lack of knowledge of Thor made this so enjoyable for me. That said, however, I do know that Volstagg is supposed to be really fat and constantly eating. He wasn't really fat in the movie, which is OK, but we never really see him eat. We see him pretend to eat, which really bugged me. We see Thor snarf down three pancakes, but Volstagg can't eat? I know this is a minor complaint, but it distracted me during the movie, and for that it loses a point.

But I'll give that point back for the wonderful humor in the movie. It was genuinely funny and never over-the-top. It's rare and refreshing to have an action film where the comedy doesn't take away from the action.

This movie jumped up to a 7 thanks to the performance of Loki. I never really believed anything he said, truly hated him, and yet felt just a little sympathetic for him. He was the perfect villain, and reminded me of all the great Batman villains that make you feel sorry for them, but still despise them.

I'm also adding a point for the Marvel continuity seamlessly interwoven. One of the movie's main goals was to set it up for the upcoming Avengers movie. It also had to introduce everything to a new audience, while keeping us geeky fanboys satisfied. It truly succeeded on all counts. The great thing about the continuity was none of it was in your face. Most of it was just small, quick comments about Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. Those paying attention got to see Hawkeye, and those really familiar with Thor knew his fake name, Dr. Donald Blake, was Thor's secret identity in the comics. Plus Stan Lee cameos and end-of-credit teasers are always a positive.

The movie gets another point to push it up to a 9 for its powerful ending. Who knew swinging a hammer around would be so cool? They made it cool and I want more. Which, I suppose, is a good thing.

So, all in all, I really didn't have much to complain about. Yeah, I couldn't remember or understand half of everyone's names, but I got the important ones: Thor, Loki, Oden, and Jane Foster. I don't know anyone who's a huge Thor fan, so I'm not sure if they committed any comic book sins, but overall, I was very impressed with it.

Final score: 9 out of 10

Jimmer Workout Wrap-up

Today The Jimmer worked out with the Jazz, and I got to go! If you look very closely, you will see me standing by the door in a dark blue shirt. I'm looking at the stands. Anyway, I will be writing a real story for The Daily Universe, but it won't come out till Monday, so in the meantime, I will describe the actual event.

The first thing I found out, which was a little disappointing but not surprising, was that the media doesn't get to watch any of the workouts. Instead, we all sat around in the press room of the Jazz's practice facility, (which is very nice by the way) and waited until the players finished. There were six players working out, but only two that mattered, Jimmer and Kemba Walker. Jimmer and Kemba battled each other all year for the National Player of Year title and now they're battling for the title of best point guard in the draft behind Kyrie Irving and Brandon Knight. (Knight was supposed to be at the workout, but unfortunately backed out at the last minute. He'll work out with the Jazz tomorrow.)

The Jazz told us the players would be ready for interviews at 10:45, but they kept us waiting for about half an hour. Finally, they opened the gym doors and let us take pictures of tired and sweaty players shooting free throws. After a couple of minutes of this, Jimmer was whisked away for exclusive interviews with KJZZ and KFAN, while Kemba was left to the swarming media mob. I was too slow getting over there, and didn't get good enough position to record him. This part really frustrated me. There's about 30 of us media people, all wanting to talk to the same guy at the same time. We all have the same questions and we'll all use the same quotes. Why couldn't we have Kemba come into the press room and sit at a table with a microphone while we all recorded and asked questions. I know why. Because it's boring on TV. They want to show the sweaty player still on the court, surrounding by tons of microphones and recorders to show how popular he is.

Anyway, Kemba was a terrible interview. I couldn't hear a word he said and I heard someone describe him as a dog with peanut butter on the roof of its mouth. Kemba slouched and mumbled and didn't really seem that happy to be there. Who could blame him? Almost every question he got was about Jimmer. However, Kemba did say all the right things, but everybody only says the right things nowadays, thanks to all the PR handlers everyone has.

So Kemba left and everybody pounced on Dave Rose while we waited for the Jimmer. Coach Rose really didn't have anything interesting to say. But it was kind of neat to see him there, as well as Frank and Scott Layden, Jeff Hornacek, Tyrone Corbin, etc. There are also some "luxury suites" above the gym that were filled with season ticket holders who did get to see the whole workout. Pretty much anyone who was anyone was there. The gym is pretty cool, too. It has two side-by-side courts painted just like the court in the ESA, and all the banners that hang in the ESA are painted on the gym's walls. The halls in the facility are also filled with neat decorations, like real jerseys for Stockton, Malone, Hornacek, etc., and some iconic pictures of famous Jazzmen, like Malone posting up on Larry Bird and Mark Eaton guarding Hakeem Olajuwan.

Finally, The Jimmer appeared. I was standing right next to the door when he walked in, and followed him closely, as his handler moved him toward center court. I was less than two feet away from him, but his handler said, "Give him room," which I did, but then was quickly shoved out of position. A pushy reporter from FOX 13 kept shoving my arm into someone else's throat. I felt bad and kept apologizing, but there was nothing I could do. I came here for Jimmer and Jimmer only, and I was not going to get shoved away completely. Fortunately, my recorder is powerful and caught everything just fine.

Comparing Jimmer to Kemba was night and day. Jimmer kept his head up, projected so everyone could hear him, tried to always answer in complete sentences, and laughed and joked a bit. He was incredibly confident and relaxed, even though he said pre-draft workouts are more intense than NCAA Tournament games. Everyone came there for him, he knew it, and he delivered.

So what's next for Jimmer? He goes back to his hometown of Glens Falls, N.Y., tomorrow to rest for a few days before the draft on June 23. He didn't say, but I'm guessing ESPN will want to shoot him in a few promos and that sort of thing. So he does have some work to do, but the meat of it is behind him. He's done working out and interviewing with teams, and now has to wait to see which team calls his name.

After Jimmer left, we got to talk to Tyrone Corbin for a bit, and he only had good things to say about Jimmer. He was impressed with his quickness and competitiveness. When someone asked Coach Corbin what he thought of Jimmer's defense, he answered, "It's a lot better than what we saw in the films!" He also said that almost every college kid has to improve their defense before they can join the NBA. This helps debunk the myth that Jimmer can't make it in the NBA because he can't play defense. It's not that he can't play defense, he just didn't play defense his last year at BYU. Most likely because Dave Rose told him not to, so he'd stay out of foul trouble and save his energy for offense. Also, how many point guards in the NBA really play defense. Rajon Rondo, Jason Kidd, maybe Derrick Rose, and ... that's about it. Chris Paul gets a lot of steals because he plays off his man and stays in the passing lane. (Remember, Jimmer averaged 1.3 steals per game last year.) NBA point guards can be pretty good without playing any D — just look at Deron Williams.

My final take from this is that Jimmer's stock is on the rise. He's had five workouts and has been impressive in all of them. Today, he reportedly outshout and outplayed his biggest competition, Kemba Walker. Although Kemba's team won the national championship, NBA teams can't draft the whole UCONN team. Meanwhile, Jimmer was the national player of the year, and some people are speculating that another team will take Jimmer before the Jazz can grab him at No. 12. No matter how good he's looked so far, it still seems highly unlikely for Utah to take him with the third pick.

Now, this may be the BYU fan in me, but I really believe Jimmer can succeed in the NBA and would help out any team that takes him, especially the Jazz. Depending on where he ends up next week, The Jimmer could be considered the big steal of 2011.