3 X-Men Villain Castings That Rocked (And 3 That Didn’t)
The initial X-Men films which were made, have a place among the best comic book movies ever. Marvel Studios would definitely add their own elements to the franchise soon. But Fox did a great job too. The recent additions weren’t that great compared to the previous films. Here are a few of them
1. Rocked – Ian McKellen as Magneto
You know it’s going to be amazing if Sir Ian McKellen is portraying a character. That wouldn’t require him to try to get our attention, as he already would have it all. And when it comes to him portraying Magneto, the scene where he is playing chess with Professor X (Patrick Stewart) was one of the most gripping scenes in the entire franchise. And that’s a big thing considering there was not a single action scene there.
Ian McKellen is the one who brought depth into the character which we just see in the comics. He humanized the character who just wanted the same thing as Professor X; freedom for all mutants. He just had comparatively more violent ways to achieve it.
2. Didn’t – Oscar Isaac as Apocalypse
X-Men fans were looking forward to witnessing mutants’ most powerful enemy on the big screen, but their expectations went down the drain. The villain did very little considering he has limitless powers.
Apocalypse can grow and shrink as he likes, can shapeshift, read minds, teleport, fly, use his mind to move things, even teleport through alternate astral dimensions; pretty much do anything. But the movie shows his mundane abilities like killing people with sand and learning about information from the news. This was just not fair. That’s on the writers, but even Oscar Isaac is way too likable to play a villain. Moon Knight will hopefully give him the Marvel fame he deserves!
3. Rocked – Peter Dinklage as Bolivar Trask
Peter Dinklage rocks every character he plays, even if it is a cameo. And when he portrayed Bolivar Trask, it was not surprising to see him do such a great job with the role of the inventor of the Sentinels.
The movie shows the Sentinels fall under the threat of Trask since he is the one who created them. And to be honest, the Days of Future Past had scary Sentinels. The Sentinels could adapt to any mutant’s abilities, which made the X-Men powerless against them. They dominated a horrifying future timeline where all mutants were locked up in prison camps.
4. Didn’t – Ed Skrein as Ajax
Ed Skrein lacked a certain natural charm you would expect from a villain to match Deadpool. The hilarious thing about Ajax was that his name was Francis and they just beat that gad to death. For all the things Deadpool got to the genre, it still had a villain problem. And Ajax probably should have been a part of a mediocre superhero movie and not Deadpool.
5. Rocked – Rebecca Romijn As Mystique
Mystique was played by Jennifer Lawrence and she did a great job with the character but then she soon became a big star. So it was pretty obvious that she could object to the hours she had to put in the makeup chair and maybe she even got tired of the character and didn’t want to portray her anymore.
However, Rebecca Romijn has also done a spectacular job as the femme fatale who uses her abilities as a shapeshifter to trick people (mostly men). Rebecca’s version was pretty much shown as a minion of Magneto which was very less complicated compared to the version of Jennifer Lawrence. But in her defense, that was what made her character fun; she did revel in doing the wrong thing.
6. Didn’t – Michael Fassbender as Magneto
Michael was a great casting choice to portray the character and could have rocked it too; under different circumstances. But the writing didn’t do justice to his acting skills. He was given a family in X-Men: Apocalypse that was killed off before he could even learn their names. They gave him a disposable family.
The writers made Magneto kill millions of people, and they just “shrugged” it off with a playful barb at Charles Xavier when they became friends again at the end of the film. But Fassbender didn’t really feel like a threat as Magneto!
