Ed Ranks the Movies he Watched on that Airplane

I recently got off an airplane and watched four movies on my flight. Mind you, I’ve been on a LOT of airplane movies in the last month. So most of the newer, bigger movies I’ve already seen on past flights.  I’m just going to rank these four, random, movies I watched because I had already gone through all the others.

A police force about as trustworthy as
the one on The Shield.

4.  The French Connection

How is Popeye Doyle ranked #44 on the AFI’s “100 Years… 100 Heroes” list? Popeye Doyle is not a hero. He’s not even a marginally good cop. He’s, perhaps, the WORST POLICE OFFICER IN FILM HISTORY.  His only competition might be his partner, Cloudy. In fact, everyone on this police force is terrible. 

Just think about when they tear the car apart looking for the heroin smuggled in from France. They know the car has to have hidden drugs somewhere because its weight doesn’t match.  Then that shitty police mechanic is like, “Well I don’t know where it is! We tore the entire car apart except for that one place in it where we didn’t look yet!” And so then the cops open up the one place of the car where they didn’t look and find the drugs there. GUESS WHAT… YOU SHOULD HAVE LOOKED THERE TOO.  Dumbasses.  I thought the drugs being hidden would be more ingenious than that. They specifically showed the heroin being converted into a liquid format for testing purity earlier in the film. Because of this, I was sure they would have done something like transform the heroin into a liquid and then soaked it in the cloth lining or seat cushioning of the car (or something like that). THAT would have been ingenious. But no. It was just hidden in somewhere that the police “didn’t look at first.” Then the police did look. And they found it. What an amazing smuggling scheme you have there, French idiot heroin smugglers. You HOPED that the cops just wouldn’t look in that one place where you put the drugs. The only thing you had going for you was JUST HOW BAD AT THEIR JOBS THESE COPS ARE.

Now, back to Popeye Doyle. He’s awful. He’s racist. He treats women like shit. He’s an alcoholic. And there is some unseen backstory where he gets another cop killed. Which is why some other cops hate him. Including a federal agent who continually reminds Popeye how terrible of a cop he is for getting that other cop killed. Then you know what Popeye does at the end of the movie? He "accidentally" kills that federal agent who is always reminding him about how he’s a terrible cop for getting cops killed. And that’s not the only person who Popeye gets killed. There are about 20 or so other civilians and police officers in this movie who are brutally gunned down due to some dumb shit that Popeye Doyle essentially caused.

You know that famous scene from The French Connection where Popeye is trailing Frog One / Alain Charnier on the subway? They keep jumping on and off the subway. It’s supposed to be so cute and funny, with them trying to out-fox one another. Well, it’s actually very annoying and stupid. And it takes place at a part in the movie well AFTER it has been established that Popeye Doyle knows that Charnier has “made” him.  Guess what you’re supposed to do after someone you’re following has already “made” you, Popeye Doyle? You’re not supposed to follow him anymore. You’re supposed to send in another agent/officer to follow him.  And yet despite the fact that Charnier already recognized Doyle, and Doyle KNEW that Charnier knew… Doyle continued to be the one to follow him. WHY NOT SEND IN ROY SCHEIDER INSTEAD? His character was pretty much useless in this film. He doesn't even inform anyone that they should have gotten a bigger boat.

The movie ends with a pile of dead bodies, as well as title cards stating that, A) most of the bad guys got off with light sentences because it was a shitty case to begin with, B) Charnier got away and was never caught, and C) Doyle and Cloudy were reassigned for being such shitty cops.

The worst part… this was all based on a true story. A true story about a NYPD Officer named Eddie “Popeye” Egan. You’d think Egan would be somewhat ashamed about how he is characterized in this movie, what with him being a terrible, incompetent, racist cop who gets other cops killed. But Egan wasn’t ashamed at all. In fact, he was so unashamed that he actually STARRED IN THE MOVIE HIMSELF, playing Popeye’s supervisor.

And seriously... this film SWEPT the 1972 Academy Awards. Really?

3. X-Men: Days of Future Past

Hey look, it's a movie!

Yes, indeed I am saying that the 2014 7th installment of the X-Men film franchise is better than the 1972 Academy Award-winning Best Film.

Days of Future Past is surprisingly good, especially with how much of a cluster it was for this film to even happen. First of all, the third X-Men film (X-Men: The Last Stand) was so awful that it essentially destroyed the entire franchise.  So for the next eight years after,  the X-Men franchise only did “side stories” (the equally bad X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and the underrated The Wolverine), and also a prequel (X-Men: First Class).  It seemed like setting any main X-Men story after The Last Stand was never going to happen, other than the vague references to the dead Jean Grey haunting Logan in The Wolverine.  But X-Men: First Class was great! It was a reboot set in the past that cast young new actors in the roles of Professor X and Magneto.  What X-Men: Days of Future Past did was actually pretty sweet. It served as:

1. A prequel to the original three X-Men movies (e.g. it was set in the 1970s, before X-Men)
2. A sequel to X-Men: First Class (e.g. it was set AFTER the 1960s origin story)
3. A sequel to X-Men: The Last Stand and The Wolverine (e.g. it was set in the near future and finally continued the story which hadn’t really been followed up on in eight years)
4. A reboot to the X-Men franchise (e.g. the events of the film forever change X-Men history after the 1970s, thus allowing for an in-continuity reboot of the universe where the horrible continuity of The Last Stand are nullified and therefore no longer happened... which is great because that film sucks)

This is all pretty sweet. The movie is not perfect. There are some glaring plot holes… like how is Professor X still alive in the future? And there are some pretty weak excuses are made for hand-waving away stuff from First Class (e.g. characters are killed off between movies and Prof X can suddenly walk again/no longer has psychic powers for… uhh… reasons). But in the end, the whole thing is satisfying.  When First Class was made, most people were pretty sure that the franchise was rebooted and that was the last we’d see of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. But Days of Future Past showed us a movie where an in-continuity reboot could actually mean that the two could be essential parts of the story, along with their younger cohorts - James McAvoy and Michael Fasterblender (whatever, I'm not looking up how to spell it).

It’s also great that the story is told from Wolverine’s perspective. Wolverine didn’t play this role in the comics, but that’s okay because Wolverine is the money character and it’s better if it’s done with him rather than anyone else. And the reason why they use him because of his regenerative powers actually sounds reasonable in the film. 

Also, Peter Dinklage. And that other guy who plays Quicksilver.  Quicksilver is far superior in the X-Men franchise than his Avengers counterpart.

But the main thing I have to say about Days of Future Past is this:  I have worked at RFK Stadium and I have worked at the Pentagon. It is absolutely insane that this movie made specific plot points to destroy the hell out of two specific places that I have worked.  That’s crazy.

2. The Lion King

A film about Zazu the hornbill, and also some other characters.

I was running out of time on the flight, so I needed a shorter movie. Disney/animated movies are usually a sure way to go when you have less than two hours left on a flight. You know that even if the movie time is less than the flight time, then you’ll still be cutting it close because all those times they cut into the flight’s PA system to make announcements in multiple languages about boring crap like using the bathroom and putting on your seat belt. Ugh. Why bother announcing it? People should be smart enough to put their seat belts on. Anyone who isn't smart enough... well... that's just culling the weak from our populations. The circle of life.

So, The Lion King is obviously a classic. You can’t argue with that. Even if it is just “Hamlet in Africa.”  I’m not sure how much I can talk about The Lion King. I’ve talked about it before, afterall, when I ranked Disney Villains by Evilness.

Not to repeat too much of what I said last time… but seriously man… are we REALLY going to blame that drought on Scar?  Yeah, Scar might have killed his brother and tried to kill his nephew in order to become the new king. That’s admittedly a shitty thing to do.  But after he became king and the kingdom fell into darkness with drought and famine… how exactly are we supposed to blame Scar? Droughts happen.  Below-average rainfall in the African Savannah cannot be controlled by the actions of one particular lion at the head of a pride. If anything, when Mufasa was ruling the lions were enemies with the hyenas, and being at war is not a good thing. Scar ended that by making peace with the hyenas. Shouldn’t we remember Scar for his visionary peace treaty? #MakePrideRockGreatAgain #Scar2020

But The Lion King isn’t the Scar story, so I suppose I can talk about Simba too. I mean, I guess he’s okay. Or something. I dunno. And where were the other male lions when Simba and the female lions were fighting to win the pride back? Are there any other male lions? How is this civilization at Pride Rock going to thrive with no other males? Can I go back to talking about Scar now? I really like Scar.

1.  Logan
 

Yes. I am aware this is the wrong poster.
I'm just fucking with you now.

Logan is probably the greatest superhero movie ever. I love Logan. This was the first film I watched on the flight, and I only watched Days of Future Past after I had watched this.

Superhero movies are always so “big” and try to get “bigger” with every one. More special effects. More cities being destroyed. The world and all of existence in peril. The fate of the universe. There is only so much of that bullshit I can take before I’m tired of it.

Logan is a deeply intimate superhero flick with a small cast. Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart return for a final time as Wolverine and Professor X when they are (essentially) the last mutants left on earth (again, essentially… nobody gives a shit about Caliban).

The plot starts out not that much different from Days of Future Past. It’s the near future and the war between man and mutants is pretty much over with mutants now almost extinct. Considering that Days of Future Past was, like, just one movie ago… you’d think that it would be annoying that this plot is happening AGAIN. Especially after Days of Future Past had its happy ending where all the terrible stuff got ret-conned out (Jean Grey, Scott, and all those other are back to being alive and happy).  Logan throws all that happiness away for another depressing, horrible future where the X-Men are wiped out. Which begs the question, “Which continuity is this happening in?”  The creators of this film seem to only provide one answer: They do not care. By this point, the X-Men film franchise is so convoluted and messed up, that not caring about continuity is basically the only option we have to go with.

So now Logan is old and dying, with his regenerative powers no longer working.  And Professor X has Alzheimer’s or some sort of other neurological disease. Which is, quite frankly, an AWESOME plot point. Professor X is the most powerful man in the world because he’s a psychic whose brain can control other minds. What happens when that mind goes bad? This movie asks this question, and the answer is nothing good.

Rather than going on an epic adventure of saving the entire planet from a huge, evil, powerful threat… this story is simply about two old guys in a shitty future who try to help get a young girl get to safety across the Canadian border (Wolverine is Canadian, after all). The villain isn’t some super powerful world destroyer. It’s just Richard E. Grant in a lab coat, and he’s responsible for science stuff that helped to get rid of the mutants. But really he doesn’t want to get rid of mutants. He wants to control them. And it winds up that the little girl is actually just, X-23, Wolverine’s daughter/clone (taken from a DNA sample of him) who can kick ass too.  And Richard E. Grant also has X-24, another Wolverine clone that is Hugh Jackman. So that he gets to fight himself. Sweet.

And, spoiler alert, both Professor X and Wolverine die. Because that’s really the only way this story could go.