It’s not the soundest of logic, but those with such logic probably would never have embarked on such a quest in the first place. My list consists of 14 films: I’m not counting voice acting, shorts, or Oklahoma!. There’s enough as it is. Here’s my impressions of the first batch … I’ll try not to be too long-winded.

The Prestige (Christopher Nolan, 2006)

This is the one I started with, and it is absolutely one of Jackman’s best, if not the number one (I guess it depends on how much you love Wolverine). It currently stands at #83 on the IMDb Top 250 and is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. I’ve reviewed it already, so I won’t bore you by repeating everything, but I do want to mention one thing: this film comes between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, both of which were also directed by Christopher Nolan, and both of which feature Christian Bale and Michael Caine, the latter playing nearly the same character. Curious.

Anyway, it’s superb, watch it, etc.

Australia (Baz Luhrmann, 2008)

This movie kind of stinks.

There are definitely good bits — Brandon Walters, for example, and Jackman — but Nicole Kidman was just godawful, and the story goes on about an hour too long. Why did they have to get Kidman anyway? She is Australian (born in Hawaii, grew up in Sydney), but she plays an Englishwoman! Get an English actress!

There’s also some really bad gratuitous shot of Jackman soaping his bare chest in front of the fire and then dumping a bucket of water on himself, for the benefit of anybody who likes men. Cringeworthy. However, I have to grudgingly admit that the story sunk its claws into me, and by the end I was rooting for Nullah (Walters), and crossing my fingers when the war arrived, and getting sad when Drover (Jackman) cried in the bar. I guess it wasn’t all terrible. I suggest not watching it unless you have time to kill and the ability not to be embarrassed on Kidman’s behalf.

Deception (Marcel Langenegger, 2006)

I was expecting to hate this more than I did, considering it got a whopping 12% on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s absolutely no classic, but I did like the way it was put together: the music was used in a fairly unconventional fashion for deception films, and none of the scenes were played up with the usual adrenaline rush. The film instead happens in a bit of a haze, with desolate music accompanying nearly everything; it works really well.

Unfortunately, the storyline is painfully run-of-the-mill, and so the music and the sometimes-interesting cinematography isn’t enough to save it. Michelle Williams still manages to turn in a good performance, but Ewan McGregor is boring, and Jackman, while occasionally good at being cold and sleazy (seriously, very sleazy), doesn’t always hit the mark. Not a very exciting movie.

Swordfish (Dominic Sena, 2001)

TERRIBLE. John Travolta might as well have been a wooden puppet, and Halle Berry is ludicrously over-the-top. The plot is dumb, many of the loose ends are left untied, and none of the things that happen at the end are foreshadowed properly, even in the flashbacks. Even the title has only a tenuous link to the story since they develop it so badly.

What’s more, it features one of the worst scenes I’ve ever seen in a film: Stanley Jobson (Jackman), the top hacker in the world, trying to break into the US Department of Defense in 60 seconds while being given a blowjob in Travolta’s private den of sin to keep him from being able to concentrate. I can’t even begin to describe how awful this scene is. Kate hit it right on the head when she commented that it was probably written by some undersexed computer nerd who lives in his parents’ basement, writing code all day and thinking up stupid fantasies like this one. Painful to watch and not worth the time in the least.

X-Men trilogy:
X-Men (2000), X2 (2003) — Bryan Singer
The Last Stand (2006) — Brett Ratner

X-Men made Jackman a star, and with good reason. His performances in these three films are excellent. It’s hard to imagine anyone else ever playing Wolverine, and I think that stands as a perfect testament to how well he fit the character: he is Wolverine, not some guy pretending to be him. I was really impressed.

These movies are great. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed watching them — they do have a whole lot of special effects and crazy stuff happening, but there’s also a real story behind them, and interesting allegories (the second film draws a parallel between mutants and homosexuals, like Bobby Drake “coming out” to his parents about his mutant abilities and his mother responding “Well, have you tried not being a mutant?”). The story of X-Men has always been interesting, but Singer does a great job of making it work on screen.

X-Men 3: The Last Stand is worth it just for the last 30 seconds of the movie, the scene with Ian McKellen in the park (I won’t describe it too much in case some of you haven’t seen it). I was yelling at the television — a perfect mixture of disbelief, excitement, and “why the hell isn’t there a sequel to this yet”. Fantastic. I highly recommend the whole trilogy, especially all at once; the first film is all about exposition, so there’s not a huge amount of story involved, but if you watch them all in a row they pack a serious punch.

Seven more to go … oh, dear.