Brian Singer's X-Men Are Bad

I don't know why this guy has fans. And when you look at how well the X-Men movies do financially compared to the Marvel and DC movies, it becomes apparent that he doesn't have very many. Even the "critically acclaimed" Logan movie is going to be the lowest grossing CBM of this year. Seriously the only good X-Men movie is X-Men: First Class.

X-Men

This is a highly overrated movie. It didn't start of the "new wave" of CBM's, Blade did, all Singer did was follow. It was evident from the beginning that Singer couldn't do action, and the story telling was boring. Richard Donner, Tim Burton, and Stephen Norrington were all innovative in the CBM genre. Brian Singer brought nothing new to the table.

X2: X-Men United

This has got to be one of the most overrated CBM's of all time. This movie was painfully boring. I don't know how anybody got through it without falling asleep. Having one good opening scene doesn't make something a good movie. And of course, he turned it into a Wolverine movie, probably because Hugh Jackman was the only halfway decent actor in the cast. Famke Janson and Halle Berry were terrible, and Cyclops was boring, but looking at Cyclops' source material, it's hard for him to be anything but boring.

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Now we're at the most overrated CBM of all time. I don't know why this movie gets any love at all. It was essentially a Terminator 2 rip off that had major plot holes. On top of everything else, the movie was boring. Once again Singer has to shove Jackman into the spotlight and the time travel plot was just not very good.

X-Men: Apocalypse

This is Singer's worst of the worst. He didn't even try to make the X-Men a team, he made Apocalypse look ridiculous, and he made Mystique the team leader. This movie was worse than Fantastic Four (2015). It's no wonder it failed at the Box Office.

X men apocalypse is one of my most hated cbms starting with horrible new cast and a really lame villain that was like ultron only worse and I thought Ultron from AOU was bad enough.

I actually didn't like first class but this commentary was spot on. I don't see how anyone can be a fan of xmen comics can come out of those movies loving it.

wow just wow. It's your opinion though. Everyone has different opinions.

I agree.

Woah woah woah put it in reverse for thirst lol

When you look at how well the X-Men movies do financially compared to the Marvel and DC movies remember that Disney doesn't advertise the X-Men like they do with the MCU. Ask yourself how much X-Men merch is available? Walk into a toy isle sometime and you will see an abundance of Avengers stuff. No X-Men stuff. You see people doing "X-Men themed birthday parties"? Probably not because if you search "X-Men party supplies" on partycity and you get like 3 results. That's going to affect movie sales because kids typically like superheroes and are no doubt the target audience for the MCU movies. Bad DO sale, just look at Age of Ultron and Suicide Squad. Seriously suicide is cancer but it made 745 million. To compare Wonder Woman made 746 million. So yes Suicide Squad is just as successful as Wonder Woman...let that sink in.

The X-Men movies were made in a different time when the general audiences considered comic book characters "childish" You can say that Blade started the "new wave" but remember Blade was a safe bet. It could pass as a action movie with vampires. Look at the other comic book movies around the time. Blade. Spider-Man. Batman. Superman. Comic book movies were mostly about a single character. The X-Men was about a team and undoubtedly paved the way for the modern comic book movie.

What I find funny is that every X-Men movie that did well in the box office and is liked is "overrated" to you. I personally think the Avengers movies are overrated. You have a bunch of nothing going on most of the movie, a few "funny" one liners then watch the earth's mightiest heroes fight a faceless mob to hide the fact they have no real villain then have a post credits "teaser." to which the audiences react with "OMG 12/10 BEST MOVIE EVOR!!!" Those movies are both critically acclaimed and made a ton of money at the box office.

Since I'm already speaking blasphemy against the "sacred cow" known as the MCU I guess I'll end with saying last year out the month Captain America Civil War, Batman V Superman and X-Men Apocalypse came out...I enjoyed X-Men Apocalypse the most. Apparently I'm in the minority that liked the movie that somehow is rated lower than the abomination known as X-Man The Last Stand on Rotten Tomatoes. Yeah Avengers 2.5 had the 6 vs 6 skirmish at the airport but everything else was a borefest and was a poor adaptation of Civil War (which is really just applying the mutant registration act to superheroes in general) Avengers 2.5 was better than Age of Ultron but I mean...that's like saying Spider-Man Homecoming is better than the Amazing Spider-Man 2...not really a high bar lol

@robert2928: I agree with everything you said on MCU

3/10

Your opinion becomes invalid when you write a paragraph on every movie but one, without offering actual evidence to support your statements beyond vague critiques like "this is overrated".

Your asking how he can have fans without making a very convincing argument for not being a fan....and there are plenty to be made.

I think for fans who follow xmen it is inconceivable to me how these fans could like the movies. The only two xmen who were given major screentim and development have been Logan and Xavier and the other two Magneto and Mystique are actually villains. All the other characters are minor and inconsequential to the story. What fox has not done well, which marvel has been able to effectively do, is tell good stories about teams and do justice to each member of the team without making the story central to one character. The xmen movies predominantly have focused around Wolverine. Characters that didn't fit around that narrative were shafted. The Marvel movies stories are centered around threats so it allows for organic moments where each member can shine. That is why the Xmen are overrated and I'm glad the sales demonstrate this.

I tend to agree mostly with the op on this. Though I'd be a little more specific as to why

X-Men Apocalypse and X-Men (2000) were average. X2 and DoFP were good. Logan, Deadpool, and First Class were also good.

X-Men Apocalypse made three times it's budget and is getting a sequel. So it didn't fail at the box office.

@butterflykyss: You're seriously saying Jean Grey was a minor character and inconsequential to the plot? She had around as smuch creentime as Mystique and Magneto.

@snowpiercer: Really? Because Apocalypse was a much better threat than Ultron.

Honestly my feelings on the X-men movies has always been that they were average movies overall. And while i can say i like them in general...they are not at all good representations of the franchise or examples of story telling overall.

That's being generous.

@invain: LMBO!!!! Omg, I'm dying!!

On topic, oh look, an opinion, now I will totally hanged my opinion to match yours.

Honestly, if anything, they are about average like Kiays said. I'm saying this as an X-Men fans who like the movies aside from X-Men The Last Stand, Origins, and First Class. Seriously, First Class was utter garbage to me. Emma Frosts characterization was horrid, Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique was painfully differing from Rebecca Romijins Mystique, whom was awesome. I'm not crazy about Wolverine being front and center, either in most X-Movies and Jen Laws Mystique is much worst, but I still look past it and see the good in those movies, especially Apocalypse.

Apocalypse by no means failed at the box office and you saying it's worse than Fant4stic makes me question on just how open minded you really are, not good when trying to convince someone who clearly likes the movies. Compared to the MCU villains, Apocalypse was more of a threat, not only agreed by these forums battles to own most characters, but nearly accomplishing his goal of domination over the world, were not not for Jean. Not to mention the end of Apocalypse had shown that they are gonna give more accuracy by the looks of the costumes, the apprearance of the Phoenix, the Weapon X costume, and how well done the new X-kids accents were. (Obviously I mean Storm and Nightcrawler)

@pyrofn: Fantastic Four (2015) was the most comic accurate CBM that Fox has ever made. Read Ultimate Fantastic Four: The Fantastic by Mark Millar and Brian Micheal Bendis and actually watch the movie, then you will see that for yourself. It may of been a bad movie, but at least it made a few fans of the source material happy. X-Men Apocalypse was not only a bad movie, but it also gave the middle finger to fans of the source material.

Singer was pretty good during the early 2000s. I think a lot of people's problems is when they compare his early movies to today's CBM's. When you compare them to their competition from the time period, they were easily among the best out there. I don't think I know anyone who watched X2 in the theater when it was new who's jaw wasn't on the floor from watching Nightcrawler. They don't really hold up as well compared to the movies of today, but with DoFP Singer showed us that he was capable of evolving with the times. DoFP not only is a good CBM, it was a good movie. I think Singer lost a lot of favor with Apocalypse. As soon as fans saw the design of Apocalypse, fans started to turn on him. Then when the movie came out, it felt like it could of been released in 2003, like Singer did fail to evolve with the times. He has developed such a negative stigma with his reputation in recent years, that I think the franchise would be better off without him.

@poundyourass: If there were happy fans, there were definitely much fewer than you say, because nearly no one liked that movie. You want to see Box Office numbers tank, look at that movies box office. Being the most lore accurate does not say much in comparison to their other movies. Even the most lore crazy fans hated that movie with a passion and kept everyone else from seeing it.

I could watch the movie and see that you're right about the accuracy, but that doesn't change that it's a bad movie and no lore accurate comic book movie fan would accept that unless they really did like what they did with the movie and so far, no one did.

Not saying I disagree completely, but I just wanted to address a few of your points.

- I disagree about X2. I think it still holds up today as one of the best CBMs in terms of the story, writing, and balancing of the characters. Villain was great, and everybody (well, except Cyclops) got a chance to shine. Even the action scenes are still good to go back and watch even today. That Nightcrawler scene is still, IMO, the best opening scene in a CBM.

- IMO, DOFP is the best CBM, so I disagree with Singer not being able to evolve with the times. He came back to the genre even stronger than when he left it.

- I still don't know what went wrong with Apocalypse. It was literally the same team that did DOFP. I thought the movie was far too "comic-booky." That's not Singer's style. Felt like he was trying to appease to those kinds of fans rather than doing what he does.

- The design of Apocalypse would've been forgiven if the character was written better and the movie was good. Look at how people reacted to Quicksilver when the initial photos of his DOFP look came out. People wanted to hang Singer, but when the movie came out, everybody shut right up and they love the guy now.

- But yeah, Singer did lose some favor with Apocalypse. I don't think one blunder means the franchise is better off without him. He's made the best movies in the franchise. I think he's an excellent CBM Director, but you won't find too many fans on his side these days. They're very fickle.

They haven't aged particularly well. But then most superhero movies don't.

In my opinion Batman Begins and The Dark Knight have. Good thing they stopped after only two films.

@ashetdust: psst.....psst.....pssssst. The Dark Knight Rises is a movie.

@poundyourass: Question: Did you read the original Horsemen of Apocalypse storyline which the movie was based on?

@imnotbendis: 2003? It felt like a lot of superhero movies that came out in the 2010s. The whole destroy the world plot wasn't really much of a thing back in the 2000s.

@peterparkerjr: I'm not saying that the franchise is better off without him because of X-Men Apocalypse, but because there seems to be a lot of people who simply don't like him. As long as Singer is attached to the movies, there will be a portion of the audience that refuse to watch them. Look at all of the YouTubers that constantly bash him. That is where kids today get their opinions from.

@peterparkerjr: Singer just wasn't the right guy to adapt the Horsemen storyline. I remember reading an interview about how he's not too comfortable with mass destruction or something. Which would explain why you don't really see people die in the chaos.

As for Apocalypse...well...he was written like Apocalypse. The problem was that he got too much screentime(he had as much as Xavier). Apocalypse is too one dimensional of a character to be given main character level presence. Which is one of the reasons why he's basically been out of the X-Book for almost two decades. Kinberg even acknowledged that flaw.

I see what you're saying. The fans continuously dump on the guy despite him delivering consistently quality films with literally one misstep. I think what it boils down to is that Singer is a great storyteller, but the fans that bash him are the usually the MCU "Give it back to Marvel" crowd. They're the ones that want the X-Men to be more like the Avengers -- flashy, colorful, humorous, more light-hearted, little substance, and a lot of high action.

I figured as much. That kind of stuff isn't Singer's forte. He's really more about the small scale and personal stories, focusing more on characters. He should've let somebody else do Apocalypse and then come back and do Dark Phoenix. Sorta redeeming himself for not doing it over a decade ago.

I don't know, even though Oscar Isaac did a good job with the acting ("Tower of Babel" line) I found him to be underwritten at times, and his "only the strong can survive" could've used more fleshing out.

@DevilMayehm666: It's not that he was less a threat than Ultron it's just that his character seemed underdeveloped and wasn't too memorable. Also Oscar Isaac is a good actor but he didn't really fit the role of Apocalypse

They are all entertaining enough to be interesting for both core X-Men fans and movie fans which is probably as good as it's going to get but it could be worse.

Otherwise I agree with Professor Thorgi on Youtube that it hits some X-Men fans hard because what they fail at is actually making movies about the X-Men. The only thing that defines these characters (other than Magneto, Wolverine, Mystique and Prof X) are their powers, they have no personality and are just there as a nod to us fans or to look pretty. Whether you like the Marvel movies or not you gotta admit they get their characters right or at least make them interesting. Side characters like Hawkeye had more character development than Jean, Storm and Cyclops combined in the first two movies. Fox makes it obvious they don't care who they are with how much they change from the source material and throw in fan favorite characters for a few seconds and pretend they where a major part (Psylocke & Jubilee). As superhero movies they are okay, as movies portraying the actual X-Men they come up short.

@snowpiercer: Apocalypse didn't even have backstory until 12 years after he debut. Apocalypse is often used as a macguffin.

@DevilMayehm666: It's okay if you thought he was a good villain I respect that. But to me he just wasn't as well presented as well in the movie as opposed to other villans who had no definite backstory e.g.Darth Vader or The Joker.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@invain: lol right before DOFP, some dude claimed he could!

I like them more than the MCU movie. They're not as formalic, and are not afraid to take risks. And with team movies, it is only natural for three or four characters to get development. The Avengers movies did the same thing. The only difference is that their characters would have solo movies, or appear in other peoples solo movies, where they would get development there, making them feel more well rounded. A complaint can be made with the characters that the X-Men movies chose to develop.

True about Fantastic Four being the most faithful to the source material movie that Fox has made. It is actually over-hated, in my opinion. It's bad, but it's only like Daredevil (2003) bad. It's not Catwoman bad. Still worse than Apocalypse, though.

The thing is, I actually read the source material, which made it more enjoyable to me. The problem is that Ultimate Fantastic Four wasn't that popular. Nowhere near as many people read it as Ultimate X-Men, Ultimate Spider-Man, or the Ultimates. So many Fantastic Four fans never read the story that the movie was based off of.

The main problem, besides the second half of the movie, was the acting. Too many of the cast felt like they didn't want to be there. They all gave a performance akin to what Jennifer Lawrence gave in Apocalypse, and there wasn't anyone like Michael Fassbender or James McAvoy to save the movie. The shift in tone after they got their powers also felt awkward and didn't fit in well.

Actually, if you go back to 2014, many of the people who bash him now we're singing his praise when DoFP came out. Maybe he could turn it around again if he makes another good movie, but I agree that a portion of the audience will likely always hate him.

I don't think that it's just the MCU fans. Even with Logan, which is as far away from a MCU movie as you can get, a few people were saying, "it's so much better than that Brian Singer shit." Then again, that can also be because people seem to be looking at him like he is only as good as his last movie.

He's far from perfect, that for sure, and I also find First Class a far more superior movie than DoFP and it generally to be a movie not really worth its praise, so to me his return wasn't ever anything good, but with all that said what OP is doing here is laughable. Criticizing him is legit, but whatever that was simply isn't legit criticism, sorry.

Oh, and by the way, First Class' box office was pretty poor, and by today's standards simply a failure. It didn't stop it being awesome. This box office idolatry has to stop.

OP hasn't answer my question. So I assume he didn't read the original horsemen story.

The movie had nothing in common with the original story in X-Factor. If anything it had more in common with the Apocalypse story from Ultimate X-Men, but it still messed that up.

@poundyourass: Wrong. The Ultimate story didn't have Apocalypse gathering the Horsemen. You don't remember Warren's story arc? The movie gave it to Magneto. Read this link for a comparison.

http://stay-tuned-true-believers.tumblr.com/post/150911716157/x-men-apocalypse-compared-to-the-comic-books