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| Review by Clay N Ferno |
Director Bryan Singer is back for an epic cross-time caper with X-Men: Days of Future Past. The latest Marvel Comics summer blockbuster merges the casts of the previous X-Men films and offers a glimpse at a not-so pleasant future.
Drawing inspiration from the comic book storyline of the same name, mutants in the future are forced to wear inhibitor collars or fear being eliminated by robotic Sentinels.
There are differences in the stories, however.
The movie doesn’t take direct cues from the famous storyline, rather it deftly adapts plot points from each of the other X-Men movies (Including Matthew Vaughn’s 2011 X-Men: First Class) to weave in and out of possible timelines. Are you a fan of Doctor Who and The Wolverine?
Singer delivers with this all-star cast and intelligent storytelling.
The movie opens on the future, as Bishop (Omar Sy), Blink (Fan Bingbing), Colossus (Daniel Cudmore), Kitty (Ellen Page) and Ice Man (Shawn Ashmore) fight off Sentinels. Our new brand of Sentinels are unlike any you have seen in the comics, more T-1000 than robot, with the ability to change form to fight the mutant enemy.
Before long, we’re treated to a meet up in China where surviving X-Men meet up with the old guard of X-Men: Storm, Wolverine, Professor X and Magneto. Actors Barry, Jackman, Stewart and McKellen are of course all reprising their signature X-Men roles.
Divergent from the comic storyline, Kitty has a new skill whereby she is able to send someone’s consciousness back into the past (reserved in the comics for Rachel Summers). In order to escape their current fate, someone must go back in time to stop the Sentinels from being invented. Wolverine takes Kitty’s place this time because of his healing factor and the fact that he doesn’t look all that different!
Wolverine is sent back to the past to stop an assassination attempt on Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage) by Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence). In order to do so, Logan must convince X-Men of the time, young Professor X (James McAvoy) and Beast (Nicholas Hoult) that he is sent from the future to get help. The arrogant (and walking) young professor takes some convincing but eventually we get there after a row between Beast and Wolvie in the foyer of the School for Gifted Youngsters!
In order for the plan to be executed, they will need more help beyond the three of them. This is where Quicksilver (Evan Peters) comes in. The teenage Peter Maximoff is recruited for his super-speed to break Magneto out of his first stint in a metal-free prison. This time the prison is 100 stories below the Pentagon itself. And the reason Magneto (Michael Fassbender) is imprisoned there will surprise you and perhaps answer some conspiracy theories you are working on!
The prison breakout scene was a true highlight of an awesome film. This whet my appetite for the upcoming Flash TV series when we’re treated to how someone with super-speed sees the world as moving at slow motion. When threatened by Secret Service, Quicksilver takes control of the situation by saving everyone’s stew and bacon. This scene was amazing, the audience in my screening was losing their minds over the special effects and the humor as we see things from the punk Quicksilver’s perspective. People were skeptical of the character design of Quicksilver before the movie came out, but I would say they nailed his powers and gave us a relatable teenage superhero with the debut of this speedster.
Fassbender and McAvoy have the same spark as their older counterparts, their chemistry and complex friendship works as spectacularly here as it did in First Class. Wolverine is at the center of most of the action, and you’ll get no complaints from me on that, whether that be on the page or on the screen. Jackman—if he’s retiring or not—is Wolverine. He gets to pop his claws, smoke his stogies, call Magneto “Bub” and everything you expect from our not-so-nice mutant.
To go beyond the plot point of the ‘70s prison breakout scene would get into major spoilers, so we must curve away from that at this point in the review.
I’m sure lots of people still deride X-3: The Last Stand for being lesser than, but as a whole, this X-Men series of movies was at the start of great superhero storytelling on the big screen before Iron Man set a different kind of bar. This, the seventh in the series if you include Wolverine’s movies as well, ties it all together nicely. Maybe plot holes and threads from the previous films are not all filled in, but consistency-wise and incorporating First Class with the other movies this movie was very successful.
Longtime comic fans wishing for Days of Future Past to be adapted to the big screen will be happy with the results, and keep an eye out for cameos from X-writers Chris Claremont and Len Wein!
My own ‘Mighty Marvel Movie’ ranking is skewed now! X-Men: Days of Future Past may have just trumped the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier as my favorite this year.
The only way I can really be sure is to see it again.
And I will send my future self on that mission as soon as I can. The past depends on it!
