Tag Archives: Matthew Vaughn

X-Men: First Class (2011)

When you look at the scope of the Marvel Universe in regards to the films released in the last decade, it’s all a bit of a mess. There’s no shortage of disjointed timelines, relationships and character arcs, and to top if all off, Marvel productions seem perfectly content taking massive liberties with their own mythology. It’s not a deal-breaker, for me or apparently for most, as X-Men: First Class stole it’s opening weekend, but the discordance isn’t so minor as to be invisible; a fact made even clearer when trying to reconcile the 1960s version of Magneto with his significantly more haggard 2000s self. Despite all that, Director Matthew Vaughn has put his own spin on an X-Men tale, and in the process made a film that, at the very least, stands with the best of the franchise.

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Kick-Ass (2010)

After Ebert’s less than enthusiastic review of Matthew Vaughn‘s Kick-Ass, I was both anxious and a little nervous to see the film.  I like Roger Ebert, and I respect his opinion.  It wasn’t luck that brought him to the status of Senior Film Critic in Chief.  But I read the books, and I loved them, and I loved them for the things that Ebert found so disturbing.  The absurdity and the violence.  The pure extremism of this entire scenario, and Mark Millar‘s through line that somehow keeps the thing from going too far.  It follows then that I should like the movie, with the two interpretations arriving so near one another, and Millar Executive Producing.  But there is a difference.  A few in fact, and it’s these differences that, on occasion, distort Kick-Ass the movie from silly entertainment into something dramatic, and intense, and on occasion, not particularly fun to watch.

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