30. Havok
As Alex Summers, it’s unclear if this character is related to Cyclops as he is in the comics — chronologically it wouldn’t make sense, but this is movie comic logic so you never know — but it matters little. In “X-Men: First Class” Havok is really just a character to be trained and have laser blasting abilities for whatever action he faces. Other than being a little cocky, Havok (Lucas Till) serves little to no function in these movies that often just love to pile on the mutants because they can. Havok appears in “X-Men: Days Of Future Past” to essentially set up what could be spin-off films for other characters, but it’s hard to see any real appeal for a guy that looks fresh off “High School Musical” and actually has to embarrassingly shimmy-shake to deliver his power.
29. The “Days Of Future Past” Crew Of Warpath, Sunspot and Bishop
Unlike Blink, who has a unique and relatively new-ish special power, Warpath, Sunspot and Bishop are the muscle of “Days Of Future Past,” but they are all essentially security guards. They probably have a line here or there, but they’re just special effects, brute force against a wave of Sentinels who repeatedly dominate and brutalize them. Harsh, but at least they have their defining traits: Bishop absorbs power and carries a massive gun, Warpath brandishes a massive knife, and Sunspot is basically the opposite of Iceman, taking flight and shooting flames. All three exist to be pawns, and they succeed admirably, though it would be cool to see a sequel where they all have something to contribute beyond violence.
28. Blink
There are a dizzying array of characters introduced in the first few minutes of “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” but the character with the coolest powers has got to be Blink (Fan Bingbing). Blink’s nifty power, realized through incredibly expensive visual effects, is the ability to create little portals. This opens up the sequence, quite literally, and allows for the characters to teleport around via these glowing black holes that zap them from one location to another. (Very handy when you’re battling the silvery Sentinel robots that want to kill all mutants.) While her character doesn’t have a whole lot of depth (none of the future-mutants do, really), she looks really stunning, with hieroglyph-like tattoos and jet-black hair and her power is nearly hypnotic. What makes Blink’s abilities even more fun is that the other mutants are able to utilize it as well, leaping through the portal to arrive in another place altogether. It makes the teamwork of the future mutants feel alive and well -ehearsed, like they’ve been doing it a long time. And, thanks to Blink, it’s just so, so cool.
27. Sabretooth
We’re still unclear if there are two completely different Sabretooth characters in the “X-Men” universe. The first one is played by Tyler Mane in “X-Men” and is simply a growling beast henchman, one who tangos with Wolverine enough to steal away his dogtags: this would have more significance if this Sabretooth was at all talkative, but instead he’s limited to posing and brawling. But in the ‘70s-set “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” Liev Schrieber plays the villain, Wolverine’s half-brother, as a demented bully, a grunt beset by jealousy that his little brother gets all the attention. It’s sort of a part without dignity for Schrieber, and he doesn’t get a chance to use his snark or physically impress, as the movie’s just forever desperate to move from one set-piece to the next. Sabretooth’s actions are evil, if unnecessarily convoluted: Schrieber’s performance, meanwhile, seems irritated, dismissive, like he’s trying to screw Wolverine out of a promotion, not actively murder him.
26. Gambit
Taylor Kitsch, we barely knew ye! It looks like we’ll be getting a new Gambit, thanks to Channing Tatum’s weirdly overwhelming hard-on for the character. As such we’ll be ignoring Kitsch’s performance as the Ragin’ Cajun in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.” The crimes this movie commits are many, and some are against Gambit: his New Orleans location looks just like a crappy back alley, he wears a stupid hat, he inexplicably owns a private plane and gets knocked out of an action scene with ease. Kitsch isn’t to blame for any of this, as he brings a sexy drawl to the character, making Gambit the smooth criminal he should be. And the way the film visualizes Gambit’s ability to charge cards and throws them is imaginative, turning Gambit into more of a musician instead of a card shark who read “The Game” way too much. As much as the entire human race wants to pretend “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” didn’t happen, we wouldn’t have minded seeing Kitsch return as the card-throwing thief.
25. Banshee
One of the many kid “X-Men” that didn’t exactly excite audiences, Banshee represented something a little different amongst the many tortured mutants: a sense of excitement. Unlike Ben Foster’s dour Angel from “The Last Stand,” who looks as if he’s flat-out shitting his pants as he flies, Caleb Landry Jones’ Sean Cassidy is absolutely tickled to take to the skies. He does so using sonic waves that come from his voice-based superpowers, a sensible power on the page, but fairly odd once you see it on film. It’s interesting that Jones has gone on to such dark and demented roles in movies like “Antiviral” and “Byzantium,” because as Banshee, he represents one of the few mutants actually having a great time with his powers, bringing some lightweight energy to the ‘First Class’ threat of mutually assured nuclear destruction. Jones is not around for ‘Days Of Future Past,’ but we hope that future films will remember that Banshee was a pivotal member of the “X-Men” mythology and he’ll be back in those yellow gliders soon.
24. Juggernaut
Not so much a character as a blunt instrument, Vinnie Jones’ Cain Marko is an invincible force. His membership in the Brotherhood Of Mutants is contingent upon him being the muscle, blindly charging into battle and punching everything that stands between Magneto and the goal of total mutant domination. Juggernaut has a great comic booky look, all straps and bold red, with a ridiculous phallic helmet to protect Jones’ memorably gnarled mug. They aimed low with this character in ‘The Last Stand,’ and one could argue they certainly hit their mark: the characters’ single purpose at one point is to run straight into a sea of security guards, batting them off like flies to clear a path. Juggernaut doesn’t get a proper send-off, but he does live, which means there could be plenty more stuff to break in the near future, provided Jones stays his ornery, paycheck-seeking self. There’s also time to get him into a scrap with Wolverine and Colossus, FYI.
23. Blob
Oddly enough, the one person to emerge unscathed from the shit-show that was “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” was Kevin Durand. Massive, sexually raw and with a troublemaking sneer, Durand would have been a natural for any comic book movie. Instead, the first portion of “Wolverine” has him as the bulky tough guy Fred Dukes, an immovable force who enters situations and gets them unscrewed in a hurry. It’s only in the latter part of the film where we meet his true incarnation, the bloated, grotesquely obese Blob. The girl that Dukes had casually mentioned as his lover has left him behind, and now that he’s no longer a part of the Canadian government kill-squad, he’s got no one and nothing to call his own. Underneath those thick slabs of makeup, Durand is somehow able not only to emote, but to engender sympathy as a once-unstoppable behemoth that has permanently gone to seed. His performance is so weirdly sad that it’s almost unpleasant to see that the only purpose he serves in the narrative is to be bullied by our clawed hero until he releases key information.
22. Angel Salvadore
In one of the many moments in “First Class” nodding to the kinky history of the comics, Magneto and Professor X skeevily pick Angel Salvadore for the team by visiting her at a strip club and watching her private mutant show. As one of only two major “First Class” mutants of color, the catty remarks about her wings seem to especially cut her to the bone, and when she responds to them by defecting to the side of Sebastian Shaw, it speaks to her inner conflict as both Latina and black: here she is, working alongside Xavier in an arrangement with a government that, during the sixties, was memorably hostile towards her kind. Director Matthew Vaughn’s flying sequences with the character are different from the way other characters in these films take flight, her insect-like appendages fluttering softly and quickly, cutting through the air with grace as she attacks in a halter top and go-go boots.
21. Beast
The “X-Men” films have done a pretty good job as far as casting decisions, picking a few no-brainers for certain roles like Patrick Stewart as Professor Xavier. But none have been as obvious as Kelsey Grammer as Dr. Henry McCoy, known to die-hards as Beast. Grammer’s turn as the furry blue hero is unfortunately undone by obvious writing, terrible makeup and costuming, and Grammer giving a fairly ineffectual performance. You just can’t squeeze an acclaimed actor into a too-tight suit and slap a rug on his face and chest and find Beast. However, Beast does get to utter the immortal Beast line, “O my stars and garters!” and Grammer’s delivery of that moment is surely worth the price of admission. Points off, strongly, for going back to work for the government even though they just weaponized the cure and basically started World War III with mutants.
