RIP Sir Patrick Stewart

News has sadly broken of the passing of Sir Patrick Stewart at the age of 86. Stewart was considered one of the finest Shakespearean actors of his generation, with a dedicated love of the theatre. In later years he reinvented himself as a science fiction genre icon, through roles in Dune, the X-Men movie franchise and, by far his best-known role, as Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation and numerous spin-off projects.

Patrick Stewart was born in Yorkshire in 1940. The youngest of three brothers, his early life was blighted by domestic violence from his father. He was encouraged to study drama by a teacher at primary school and made this his main area of study in secondary school. During an extra-curricular drama course he met and befriended his fellow soon-to-be-iconic British actor, Brian Blessed. After leaving school he worked as a reporter for a local newspaper, though he would frequently skip an assignment to instead attend theatre performances. He had to leave the job after his boss challenged him over his dedication to the role. Stewart received a grant to attend the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, where he renewed his acquaintence with Blessed.

Stewart started appearing on stage in 1959, joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966 and getting his first screen role in 1967 on British soap opera Coronation Street. His reputation in the theatre was already impressive and led to him being recruited by the University of California, Santa Barbara to teach Shakespeare to American students, in the early 1970s. This accompanied his first appearances on Broadway.

Stewart made numerous small appearances on television before making his breakthrough by playing Vladimir Lenin in Fall of Eagles (1974) and Sejanus in the storied BBC adaptation of I, Claudius (1975), alongside Blessed as Emperor Augustus. This led to more roles, such as in the legendary BBC adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979) and playing Leondegrance in John Boorman's lavish period drama Excalibur (1981).

Though Stewart was open to any acting challenge, he had a lot of scepticism towards the science fiction genre. In the late 1970s he expressed surprise when an actress acquaintence,  Lalla Ward, accepted a role on Doctor Who (playing the Time Lady Romana; she later married co-star Tom Baker), not considering the genre to be challenging. He overcame his reluctance when offered the chance to work with cult director David Lynch, who was planning an ambitious and lavish film adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel Dune (1984). Stewart was cast in the role of Gurney Halleck, the commander of House Atreides's military forces. Though some of his scenes were cut, Stewart made an impression in the film with his military bearing and some quotable lines. He also may have inadvertently created one of the earliest screen memes for the scene where he charges into battle inexplicably holding a pug, which numerous magazines reprinted.

Stewart's newfound admiration for science fiction quickly saw him cast in Lifeforce (1985). His forays into Hollywood were briefly disrupted by a name dispute with an American actor of the same name; Stewart atypically refused to change his name and instead paid the other actor off to release the rights.

Between films, Stewart gave dramatic readings at the University of California, Los Angeles. Robert H. Justman, a producer of the original Star Trek who was working with Gene Roddenberry on a revival project, saw him at one of the readings and suggested they call him in to audition for the role of the lead. Stewart was sceptical but needed a better-paying job and his agent strongly recommended he attend the audition to make himself known to the casting director, if nothing else. Roddenberry was impressed by his reading and said, "he's a very nice guy, but a bald Englishman is not going to be the successor to Captain Kirk." Other producers in the room, including Justman and Paramount's representative, Rick Berman disagreed and worked on convincing Roddenberry. Roddenberry eventually agreed to let Stewart audition for the Paramount executives, thinking they'd shoot down Stewart for not being an action-oriented leading man and would also be sceptical of him being bald. Stewart had to have his own wig flown in at great expense from the UK to audition in. The Paramount execs were impressed by Stewart but told him to lose the wig when they offered him the role.

Stewart hesitated to accept the offer, and his colleague Ian McKellan advised him against taking the role for fear of typecasting. However, Stewart's agent argued the show would almost certainly fail after just one season and Stewart would be free to choose his own acting roles with the substantial fee and residuals gained from Trek. Stewart initially struggled to adapt to the rigours of American episodic filming and was initially distraught at his younger castmates' more relaxed attitude to shooting, cracking jokes between takes. At one point Stewart said on set, "we are here to work, not have fun!" which he quickly realised was incredibly pompous. The press kept calling Stewart, "an unknown Shakesperean actor," which his costars felt was extremely funny, at one point pinning such an article to Stewart's trailer door. An important bonding moment came during the shooting of the third episode Code of Honor, which the cast unanimously called "the racist episode," leading to the writer being blacklisted from the show and the director quitting halfway through. Stewart quickly relaxed in the role and went from being the most straight-laced actor on the show to one of the most likely to get into hijinks.

However, Stewart also took his role as the de facto leader of the show and a mentor to the younger actors very seriously. He also advised the other actors on representation and the value of their work, often intervening with the producers when he felt they were being exploited. The other castmembers admitted that Stewart gave them all a strong work ethic, including making sure they always turned up on time with their lines memorised. Stewart also relished the episodes which stretched his acting muscles and pitted him against worthy sparring partners like John de Lancie as Q, Mark Lenard (in Sarek, where Picard dealing with Sarek's emotions is sometimes cited as Stewart's finest scene on the show), Paul Winfield (in Darmok) and his favourite guest star, Andreas Katsulas as Romulan Commander Tomalak in several episodes.

Stewart also exercised his power as the show's lead to have his friend Gates McFadden, who played Dr. Beverly Crusher, reinstated after she was fired at the end of Season 1 after falling out with producer Maurice Hurley. Hurley quit in turn as a result at the end of Season 2, allowing Michael Piller to take over as showrunner. This resulted in an immediate, swift upturn in the show's writing and popularity during its third season. Stewart found his opinions being given more weight and gleefully exploited this. One of his favourite gags was to tell new writers on the show, "remember, Picard needs to do more shooting and more f---ing!" Ira Steven Behr took this to heart by delivering Captain's Holiday, an episode in which Picard went on leave to the pleasure planet Risa, foiled an intergalactic heist and got the girl (in more ways than one, with Stewart having a brief fling with co-star Jennifer Hetrick), to Stewart's immense satisfaction. Piller then wrote the cliffhanger episode The Best of Both Worlds, in which Picard is kidnapped by the Borg and converted into their spokesman, Locutus. Stewart realised the impact of Trek for the first time when he was shouted at by fans driving past him on the freeway, "great episode man!" and people asking if he was going to be killed off.

Stewart used his increased profile and wealth to fund personal projects, such as a one-man performance of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol (starting in 1990). Stewart initially reacted poorly to coming out on stage to find some of the audience in Starfleet uniforms but then decided to make it a virtue by refusing to sign autographs until after the performance, "forcing" the Trek fans to sit through the full show. He was pleased when many of the fans stayed for the whole thing and enjoyed it.

Stewart was happy to reprise his role as Picard in the first episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (relishing playing an antagonist role against Avery Brooks's Sisko, whose wife had been killed by the Borg), for an enhanced fee as per his agent's advice. He continued in the role of Picard in the movies Star Trek: Generations (1994, alongside William Shatner and Malcolm McDowell), First Contact (1996), Insurrection (1998) and Nemesis (2002, with a young Tom Hardy). He considered Nemesis to be an underwhelming film and a disappointing finale to the Next Generation saga. From 2020 to 2023 he reprised the role in the CBS All Access/Paramount+ series Star Trek: Picard, with the final episode featuring him once again commanding from the bridge of the Galaxy-class USS Enterprise-D, surrounded by his friends and costars of over thirty years' standing.

After The Next Generation finished in 1994, Stewart found getting screen roles tricky and his reduced presence on the stage had seen roles dry up on that front. Stewart remained philosophical and was sought out by Bryan Singer to appear in his superhero film X-Men (2000). Stewart had long been a dream fan-casting for the role of Professor Charles Xavier, the founder and leader of the X-Men organisation, and Singer had not seriously considered other actors for the role. Stewart was wary of doing another big franchise but was keen to work with Singer and also his friend Ian McKellan, who had been cast as Magneto. The film was a huge success, in part due to the immense chemistry between Stewart and McKellen. They reprised their double act in X2 (2002), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014). Stewart returned in the role solo in Logan (2017) and Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022). He will reprise the role, now for presumably the final time, in Avengers: Doomsday (2026). Assuming neither Wesley Snipes nor Hugh Jackman reprise their Marvel movie roles in Doomsday or later, this should also solidify Stewart's position as the longest-running Marvel actor.

The X-Men experience saw McKellen and Stewart bond as best friends, with McKellen officiating at Stewart's wedding. They performed onstage together in 2014 in a touring version of Waiting for Godot and No Man's Land, publicising the project by recording themselves appearing around New York City in bowler hats.

Now an established screen star, Stewart was happy to poke fun at himself, appearing in an episode of Extras in 2005 as a perverted version of himself where he writes a film script which involves his female co-stars' clothes falling off "instantly," allowing him to "see everything." Co-star Ricky Gervais was almost physically unable to get through the shots without losing his mind laughing. He also co-starred with William Shatner in the documentary The Captains (2011) where they compared notes on their respective Star Trek experiences. Shatner had initially been wary of The Next Generation's success whilst Stewart had been concerned about the earlier show's cultural dominance, but the two actors got on very well.

Stewart benefited from both writers and directors who had been fans of Star Trek beginning their careers in the 2000s and 2010s, leading to a multitude of TV, film and voice actor roles. In particular, Seth MacFarlane, a colossal fan, cast Stewart in many of his projects, including a regular role on American Dad, guest roles on Family Guy and providing the voice-overs for the Ted movie duology.

In 2006 Stewart made his first major appearance in a video game, playing Emperor Uriel Septim in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Despite dying in the opening sequence, Stewart's role was acclaimed and popular with players. His vocal lines were re-used in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (2025).

Stewart's roles and profile made him a British national treasure and icon. In 2010 he was knighted for services to acting, and in 2012 was one of the people to carry the Olympic Torch during the opening ceremony of the London Olympics.

Stewart had extensive charity connections, frequently raising money for Amnesty International and speaking out on the importance of being a positive male role model, citing his own unpleasant experiences with his father. He has also campaigned for Combat Stress, which seeks to raise awareness of combat-related PTSD, which he blamed for his own father's experiences. Stewart was a big fan of dogs, owning and fostering several pit bulls and campaigning for animal charities.

For personal interests, Stewart was also a lifelong fan of Huddersfield Town football club and an avid motor enthusiast, regularly attending the British Formula One Grand Prix at Silverstone and making an appearance on the TV show Top Gear racing a reasonably-priced car around the show's airfield racing track.

Stewart was married three times and had a son and daughter. His son Daniel is also an actor and appeared alongside his father in the all-time classic Star Trek episode The Inner Light. In 2023 he published a successful autobiography, Making It So: A Memoir.

Sir Patrick Stewart was easily one of the most iconic British actors of the past fifty years, with a wide-ranging number of roles on screen, in voice-over and on stage. He will be overwhelmingly remembered for Star Trek and X-Men, but his numerous, powerful guest roles on other projects and his tremendous theatrical record should not be ignored. He championed many great causes, stood up for his fellow actors and creatives, and developed a sense of humour about himself and his own image. He would acknowledge his own failings, particularly about romantic relationships and his own arrogance when starting work on Star Trek. He was loyal to his friends, standing up for them against more powerful producers in Hollywood. He was happy to acknowledge fans whilst ensuring he was not just a performing monkey for them.

It is a tremendous understatement to say that he will be missed by not just fans of science fiction, but also anyone who enjoyed seeing a great actor working on the screen.

Marvel changing plans to recapture the zeitgeist

In an in-depth article for the Hollywood Reporter, it has been revealed that Marvel Studios is pivoting hard as it tries to overcome a series of recent obstacles to recapture the zeitgeist it imperiously commanded for over a decade.

In 2008 Marvel Studios launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe, an interconnected series of superhero films which shared a single continuity, canon and cast of characters, who could pop up in one another's movies and occasionally team up for big "event" pictures. From 2008's Iron Man to 2019's Avengers: Endgame, a mind-boggling run of twenty-two films, the series rarely put a foot wrong. It dominated the box office and the cultural discourse of the time. Even its weakest entries, like Thor: The Dark World or Iron Man 2, remained watchable.

Since 2019, the franchise has faltered. Box office receipts have fallen - The Marvels became the first Marvel movie to definitively lose money at the box office in November 2023 - and critical acclaim has also dropped off sharply. Eleven further films have been released since Endgame and only a few of these - particularly Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) - have garnered the type of critical and commercial success the franchise once wracked up almost automatically. There has been much discussion over why the franchise has suddenly started faltering so badly, with several problems identified:

• The loss of the franchise's most charismatic and best-written characters and the actors going along with them, most notably Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) in Endgame.
• The failure of most of the succeeding new heroes in making an impression that they can pick up the slack moving forwards.
• An increasingly tiresome inability to break free from the "Marvel format," namely a lot of quips, some action, some moderate character development and then a large setpiece CGI battle at the end, which is rarely outstanding. The few films which did experiment with this, such as Eternals adopting a more serious tone, ended up doing poorly with audiences.
• The conclusion of the mostly straightforward and well-defined Infinity Stones storyline with a well-realised villain (Thanos) and their replacement with the much murkier, more confusing Multiverse storyline and a lower-key villain (Kang) who has not resonated as strongly.
• Simple superhero fatigue: thirty-three films and ten TV series (sixteen, if you include the recently canonised Netflix series) in sixteen years is a lot, not to mention dozens more films and TV shows about superheroes from rivals DC and numerous other studios and streamers.
• An over-expansion into television as part of the streaming wars and then during COVID, bombarding audiences with new shows every few months.
• The increasing feeling that keeping up with the MCU requires having to do "homework," watching shows and films that don't appeal to you because they're going to be referenced in the next Spider-Man movie that you do care about.
• Plans to use the always-popular Spider-Man as a lynchpin for the next generation of movies hit a snag with the Sony/Marvel legal disagreement of a few years ago, which means Marvel can't use Spider-Man as a key character moving forwards when they can lose access to him at almost any time.
• The relatively rapid transition of films from the cinema to Disney+ now means that people can sit out films that look uninteresting or middling until they hit streaming, rather than having to see them in the cinema or risk falling behind the curve.

Marvel has also had to contend with a major problem from one of its tentpole actors for the next slate of films. Actor Jonathan Majors had debuted in the TV series Loki as Kang, a charismatic villain who exists in millions of different incarnations and versions across the Multiverse, a multitude of parallel universes and different timelines. The development of the Multiverse has been a major focus of the films since Endgame and has allowed Marvel to rule that other movie series using their characters - such as the X-Men and Deadpool film series from Fox and the Spider-Man and Amazing Spider-Man films from Sony - exist in the same Multiverse. Kang was supposed to be the lynchpin of this story moving forwards, as different versions of the character appeared in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Loki's second season, setting up a confrontation between Kang and the Avengers in two big movies coming down the pipe.

But in March 2023 Majors was arrested for assaulting his ex-girlfriend, whom he had met on the set of Quantumania. Marvel refused to take any action whilst legal action was ongoing. In December he was found guilty of two misdemeanour counts of assault and harassment. Marvel quickly confirmed they had terminated their relationship with the actor. Despite initial speculation that the character would be recast - previous different versions of characters across the Multiverse had been portrayed by different actors, with three versions of Spider-Man showing up in No Way Home to great success - it now appears that Marvel is moving away from the character and storyline altogether, minimising him in future projects and pivoting to another villain (speculated in other sources to be Doctor Doom) to be the "big bad" in the next two Avengers films coming down the line.

According to the HR article, Marvel are taking a number of further steps to address their issues. The first is a reduction of output: 2024 will see the release of just one Marvel movie, Deadpool and Wolverine, which will introduce the Merc With a Mouth to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and also cement the Multiverse connections between the older X-Men films and the MCU. Only one more TV show is expected this year, Agatha: Darkhold Diaries. 2025 is expected to focus hard on the arrival of Marvel tentpole characters the Fantastic Four in the MCU, with Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn recently announced in the starring roles for the film. Marvel is hoping that the integration of the Fantastic Four into the MCU, followed later by new versions of Blade and then the X-Men, will give their franchise new legs as it - improbably - heads towards its third decade of production.

Whether these steps are going to be enough to right the ship remains to be seen, or whether at some point Disney and Marvel will have to accept that the MCU's time has simply run out and it needs to be rested for a few years before the inevitable reboot with new actors playing Iron Man, Thor and Captain America.

Slugfest: Inside the Epic 50-Year Battle between Marvel & DC by Reed Tucker

In 1961 DC Comics was the biggest comic company in the United States. Its superhero comics - Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman - were the most popular in the world and it had absolutely no competition of note. But that same year Atlas Comics was branded Marvel and its editor Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby released a new comic called The Fantastic Four. Within a decade Marvel had displaced DC as the biggest comics company in the US and snatched away a lot of talent and critical acclaim that had gone to DC. DC fought back, starting formidable Superman and Batman movie franchises and releasing a series of artistic, critically-acclaimed comic books in the 1980s and 1990s from the likes of Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. But in the early 2000s Marvel finally entered the movie scene in force with X-Men and Spider-Man, and never looked back.

This non-fiction book looks into the 50-year competition between DC and Marvel, the two titans of comic book publishing. Reed Tucker has exhaustively interviewed many key players involved and scoured the archives for interviews with those who are no longer with us. The result is a potential interesting book that examines the corporate battle between the venerable establishment figure and the plucky upstart newbie.

Or at least it's a potentially interesting book that tries to do that. The opening chapters expand on this, detailing how Stan Lee took over a moribund company and injected some 1960s inventiveness, irreverence and character development to win over young fans from the older, more moribund publisher. We're told that Marvel focused more on the characters' internal lives, on the distrust with which they are treated by the government (helping young readers identify with similarly confused and mistrusted characters) and gave their writers and artists much greater freedom to express themselves, throwing away the style guides DC saddled their readers with. Marvel also used real locations, particularly in and around New York, which excited readers more than stories set in completely fictional locales like Gotham and Metropolis.

All of this stuff is great, but Reed never really moves on from this basic assumption: Marvel was the plucky underdog with greater creative energy and freedom, and DC was the staid old man taken by surprise by what the youngster was doing and whose attempts to replicate it by "getting down with the kids" were embarrassing. That applies very well to the 1960s and the early 1970s. However, some of Reed's conclusions and anecdotage are questionable: he challenges the wisdom of DC poaching Jack Kirby from Marvel and putting them on the Jimmy Olsen comic book, but this was both Kirby's own choice (so he wouldn't cost anyone a job on another comic, as the Jimmy Olsen book didn't have a permanent artist at the time) and also allowed him to set up his own, more original books later on by introducing characters like Darkseid.

By the time the 1980s have rolled around, Reed is still expanding on Marvel being the plucky underdog beating the boring old figure of DC, but seems to contradict himself by then talking about DC's artistic achievements with books like Swamp Thing, Watchmen and Sandman, as well as how Marvel had become the biggest-selling comic book company, making DC the underdogs. Aware that this is getting repetitive, he switches to studying the film business and how DC got some great movies made whilst Marvel flirted with moderately successful TV shows but otherwise couldn't get a decent movie on screen until twenty-two years later. This is interesting, with some great stories of bizarre behind-the-scenes battles and the film companies not "getting" comic books at all, but again it lacks depth.

The book is ultimately a bit constrained by its premise, and it's to Tucker's credit that he remains laser-focused on the interrelationship between Marvel and DC. It would have been very easy to get sidetracked in the internal history of the two companies and discuss more creative decisions, but Tucker stays on point throughout. This does mean the book veers towards the more corporate side of things rather than the creative one, which I think will be of less interest to those keen to learn more about the origins of superhero characters or how the books developed. But it has some value: this is an under-told aspect of the comic book story and Tucker keeps the story ticking over nicely.

Slugfest (***½) is a readable and intriguing book about the titanic competition between the two biggest comic book companies in the United States. It's also a bit on the repetitive side, with not as much depth as perhaps might be wished, and a lack of information on the creative choices as opposed to business ones. It's still a good story, well-told and interesting, but one for hardcore comic book fans only. The book is available now in the UK and USA.

Patrick Stewart officially retires as Professor X

Patrick Stewart has announced that, at the age of 76, he has retired from playing the character of Professor Charles Xavier in 20th Century Fox's X-Men series of films.

Stewart debuted in the role of Professor X in the movie X-Men (2000). He reprised the role in X2 (2003), The Last Stand (2006) and Days of Future Past (2014), as well as brief appearances in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) and The Wolverine (2013). His final role as Professor X comes in Logan (2017), which also marks the final appearance of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine (although Jackman hasn't completely ruled out a comedic cameo in a future Deadpool movie, given his online banter with Ryan Reynolds).

Stewart's decision to leave the role is unsurprising. Given the events of X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) and the ongoing rewriting of the X-Men film continuity over the last few films, as well as Jackman's decision to retire, it's clear that Fox will taking future X-Men films in a different direction, perhaps leaning more on the new cast with James McAvoy playing the role of a somewhat younger Professor X, or even contemplating a full, from-scratch reboot after twenty years of the current, increasingly convoluted continuity.

Stewart was given the role by director Bryan Singer in 1999 following a fan campaign to have him cast in the role. It gave Stewart his second popular Hollywood role following his performance as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation from 1987 to 1994 and four spin-off films: Generations (1994), First Contact (1996), Insurrection (1998) and Nemesis (2002). During the making of the X-Men films Stewart met Ian McKellan and the two distinguished actors formed a strong "bromance" that has continued ever since (with McKellan officiating at Stewart's wedding).

Although Stewart has departed the role of Professor X, he will continue working as an actor on screen, on stage and in voiceover work. His next role will be as, er, Poop in the animated Emoji Movie.

Deadpool

Wade Wilson is a smart-talking mercenary who takes a lot of small-time jobs warning off stalkers and helping people (for money). He meets Vanessa, the love of his life, but then discovers he has cancer. Fearing losing her, he accepts an offer from a shadowy surgeon named Ajax to grant him superpowers of healing to get rid of the cancer, in return for working for Ajax. When it turns out that Ajax is a lunatic and only gives Wilson his powers after disfiguring him for life, Wilson is "unimpressed" and seeks revenge, becoming the crime-fighting lunatic (and constant thorn in the side of the X-Men) Deadpool.

Conventional wisdom is that superhero movies are for, if not kids, then all the family. People in funny costumes running around and blowing things up? Definitely something mainly for children that adults can also enjoy. That assumption has driven the marketing and budgets of almost every superhero movie since the original Superman in 1978, but it has certainly been the dominant market stance since Iron Man in 2008. The occasional attempt to make a superhero movie for adults like Watchmen and Kick-Ass, complete with swearing and more graphic violence, has met with relative financial failure. If you have an adult-oriented comic and want to see it faithfully on screen, your only bet has been to get it on TV instead (the route chosen by Preacher and The Walking Dead).

Ryan Reynolds doesn't do conventional wisdom. A long-time fan of the Marvel Comics character Deadpool, he finally got to play the role in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. After an extended cameo, the character had his mouth sewn up and turned into a lobotomised bad guy. Reynolds wasn't impressed and neither were the fans. So began a seven-year campaign to get the character on screen, taking in multiple script runs, test footage, leaked test footage, last-minute budget cuts and a genius marketing campaign. Finally Reynolds and comic fans everywhere have had their patience and faith rewarded: Deadpool got rave reviews and took just under $300 million in its first five days on release. The R-rated action movie may have just had the shot in the arm it needs.

Deadpool is a gloriously demented, funny action move about a dude who gets disfigured for life by a British villain and then spends ages trying to get revenge, only for it to be upset by the X-Men (well, two of them). He then spends a bit more time trying to get revenge, the bad guy kidnaps his girlfriend because reasons and there's a big showdown on a beached aircraft carrier. The stakes are surprisingly low, the action fast and brutal and the one-liners never stop coming. Deadpool is a very, very good action film and superhero movie as well as a satire on the genre. This is what helps make it successful.

The other thing is timing. Watchmen isn't a terrible movie, but its heavy, metafictional commentary on superhero movie tropes didn't resonate very well in 2009 when the superhero movie genre was still in a relatively early stage (there'd been loads of them, but it wasn't until the Marvel Cinematic Universe took off that it became all-encompassing). In 2016, with a new superhero movie coming out every five minutes, Deadpool's fourth-wall shattering commentary on the genre works a lot better. Plus Deadpool is genuinely funny, the result of a tremendous script and some excellent ad-libbing from the cast.

The cast are phenomenal. This is the role that Ryan Reynolds was born to play and his delivery of hilarious, foul lines is perfect. More importantly, he can also sell scenes of anger and emotional distress. His Wade Wilson is a flawed human being, not just a delivery mechanism for dick jokes. TJ Miller is equally hilarious as his friend/barkeeper/confidante Weasel, whose ad-libbed responses to Wilson's new appearance may form the best part of the film. Ed Skrein doesn't have a lot to do as villain Ajax, lacking any kind of backstory or motivation, but then that's kind of the point. Stefan Kapičić turns in a great vocal performance as Colossus, whose role in this movie is to try to make Deadpool become a hero (mainly by boring him with unnecessarily long speeches), and Brianna Hildebrand brings the requisite teenage moodiness as Negasonic Teenage Warhead. Particularly well-cast is the Tony Award-winning, Emmy-nominated actress Leslie Uggams (noted for many prestigious film and stage roles in the 1960s and 1970s) as Blind Al, Deadpool's somewhat reluctant housemate. One performer who starts out brilliantly but then drops off (due to the script, not her) is Morena Baccarin (Firefly, Gotham, Homeland). Baccarin plays against type as a foul-mouthed escort who matches Wilson's verbal quippage and wins his heart, but ends the film reduced to a damsel in distress (a line lampshading this in the trailers is, slightly oddly, removed in the film), which is a bit disappointing.

What helps the film is its short running time, its focus on a relatively straightforward story and the clarity of the stakes. Alongside last year's Mad Max: Fury Road and Ant-Man, it certainly makes another argument for action movies where the scale is more personal and the fate of the whole world is not at stake. It is certainly a vast improvement over the leaden and overblown pomp of films like Age of Ultron and Man of Steel.

Deadpool (****½) is fast-paced, well-written and tremendously well-characterised. It's a funny movie but doesn't rely on just being funny, remembering to bring heart, satire and thunderous action as well. It is, in a rather bizarre way, charming under all the filthy one-liners and sexual references. It is on general release right now, and a sequel has already been greenlit.

Trailer for X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST

A trailer has been released for Days of Future Past, the next X-Men film. This film will combine the original cast of the 2000-2006 trilogy of films with the cast of First Class, playing their younger selves. Time travel will be used to bring the two groups together to face off against a greater threat.

Returning are Patrick Stewart and James McAvoy as Professor Xavier and Ian McKellan and Michael Fassbender as Magneto. Hugh Jackman also returns as Wolverine (thanks to his immortality, they only need the one actor). Anna Pacquin, Ellen Page, Nicholas Hoult, Jennifer Lawrence and Shawn Ashmore also return as Rogue, Kitty Pryde, Beast, Mystique and Iceman respectively. Peter Dinklage (Tyrion from Game of Thrones) is the film's most notable newcomer, playing Professor Bolivar Trask. The Sentinels will play a role in the film as well. Bryan Singer, the director of X-Men and X2, returns to direct. The movie is loosely based on the highly-regarded graphic novel of the same name.

The film will be released on 23 May 2014.

X-Men: First Class

Here's a knotty problem for a studio to face. What happens when you decide to make a fourth film in one of your biggest franchises, but without any of the three major actors who made the first three films so watchable (particularly when your third movie was a bit of a dog and only saved by their performances)? The decision to make X-Men: First Class as a prequel to the existing movies that was fully open to newcomers was a canny one, allowing 20th Century Fox to effectively reboot the series without throwing away the continuity of the previous films, but the side-effect of losing Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen must have caused some consternation in the office. However, by bringing in director Matthew Vaughn, hot off the acclaimed Kick-Ass, and casting James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender as the younger Stewart and McKellen, the studio showed some good judgement (which they could have done with on the third movie).


First Class is set in 1962, roughly forty years before the events of the existing movie trilogy. Fassbender's Lehnsherr, a survivor of the concentration camps (the memorable first scene of X-Men is cleverly recreated and expanded on in the opening of First Class), is scouring the world for Nazi criminals and in particular Klaus Schmidt, the Nazi scientist who experimented on him to find a use for his mutation. Schmidt turns out to be a mutant himself, now going by the name Sebastian Shaw (a strong performance by Kevin Bacon), who has attracted the enmity of the CIA and their new mutant consultant Charles Xavier (McAvoy) by orchestrating the rising tensions between the USA and USSR. Lehnsherr agrees to join Xavier's team of 'X-Men' to help stop Shaw's plans, but in the process finds himself questioning whether mutants and humans can ever live together peacefully. Caught in the middle is Xavier's adopted shapeshifting sister, Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) who is conflicted over whether she wants to be 'normal' or be true to her mutant nature.

The inner conflict within the primary characters gives the movie an unusual depth of character for a superhero flick and is true to the themes of tolerance and identity Bryan Singer raised in the first two movies in the series (and handled somewhat more ham-fistedly by Brett Ratner in the third). It also gives us the strongest scene in the movie, as the vengeance-obsessed Lehnsherr confronts two former Nazis in a bar in Argentina in a scene that Tarantino at his best would have been proud of (and the presence of Fassbender speaking German to Nazis in this scene gives viewers of Inglorious Basterds a sense of deja vu). Fassbender's performance throughout is excellent, and he has a great rapport with McAvoy which sells you completely these are the same people as Stewart and McKellen, just younger. That said, the later movies indicated that they were friends and allies for much longer than the few weeks this movie suggests was the case.

Elsewhere McAvoy plays the young Charles Xavier to perfection, respecting Stewart's performance but bringing youthful, idealism and a spark of mischief to the character that makes him sympathetic, even when he is appearing to be naive. Scenes where Xavier has to overcome the wearying cynicism of his team-mates are given weight by McAvoy making it clear that Xavier knows that his attempts to forge peace may be doomed, but the attempt must be made anyway. Lawrence's performance is solid, but her conflicted journey is not as handled as well as it could be, with her decision on what side to join not being sold completely successfully (and there are some continuity issues based on her character's behaviour in the first three films, though nothing too bad).

The film is well-paced, with a solid use of the old standbys of montages, voice-overs and exposition used to effectively a complicated storyline involving a relatively large cast of characters. A slight failure is the depiction of the bad guys: whilst Bacon's Shaw and January Jone's Emma Frost get plenty of screen-time and dialogue, Riptide and Azazel have little to do and nothing to say, and come across as flat as a result.

Elsewhere, the film has effective and impressive action sequences, a rather clever use of real history (though somewhat altered from our own) to enhance the narrative and some nice uses of 1960s imagery and visuals (particularly in the credits sequence). The action sequences are earned by good performances, strong direction and an enjoyable script that is a bit more complex and interesting than many superhero films. There's also a rather cool easter egg for fans of the other movies to watch out for.

X-Men: First Class (****) could have been a potential mess, but it emerges as the second-best movie in the franchise to date (after the splendid X2) and one of the best reboots of a superhero franchise to date. The move is available now in the UK (DVD, Blu-Ray) and USA (DVD, Blu-Ray)