So here we have the newest installment in the longest running superhero film franchise. Lots of hype behind this one due to half the cast of the original trilogy making appearances. This allowed for Fox to put together the biggest movie in the franchise yet. Days of Future Past is a comics storyline based around time travel. One that’s so epic an interesting that I would have never thought the film studios would be ambitious enough to take it on. But here we are talking about it.
The Story
Story-wise Brian singer does a seemingly effortless job of weaving in and out of the two timelines. Time-travel films alway have rules regarding how the feat works. Here Kitty Pride transfers the consciousness of a future character to the mind of themselves from the past. Once the character wakes up from the trance she puts them in, the changes they made int he past will take hold in the future. Because of his healing factor, Wolverine is the only team member who can handle traveling the amount of time necessary to correct the future.
And what a future it is. Civilization is ruins, X-Men die right and left at the hands of the relentless Sentinels of the time period. Sending Wolverine back is the last hope. In the past, we find Magneto prisoned, Xavier strung out and depressed, while Mystique travels the globe kicking ass. The two of them come together to try to correct the future in their own ways. Seeing the tension between Magneto and Xavier is one of the highlights of the movie and it’s interesting to see their differing strategies for correcting the future.
It all wraps up with a satisfying conclusion which I won’t talk about here. Stay after the credits for the best after-credits sequence yet in a superhero movie.
The Characters
In this film we see a lot of familiar faces. The new cast from the first class movie are definitely the stars here, but its great to see the cast from the original trilogy do there thing. They’re all experience versions of the characters in complete control of their powers. We finally get to see Iceman “ice-up” and do an ice slide like in the comics, We see more displays of power from the rest of that team too, and I loved every second of it. The new members of the future squad were all done justice too. The future sentinels were forces of nature.
In the past, there’s lots of good things going on. Michael Fassbender’s performance here might be my favorite depiction of Magneto. Also, all the scenes with Quicksilver were standouts. The internet got another one wrong with everyone’s backlash over his look. It all made sense within the story. Well-done Bryan Singer. Now we can talk about whether next year’s Avengers sequel will be able to top this version of the character.
The Action
This is by far the biggest X-men film yet. The only one close in size is X3. With that said, everything is better here. All the characters get their moment to shine. The film makers aren’t holding back with any characters. There are no useless characters either. Everyone has their role on their respective teams. This also feels like the most focused entry to the franchise because of it.
The Bad
The only real gripe I have with the film, is that the bunch from the past don’t really feel like a team yet. With this being the second film in their series, I feel like we should be past origin stuff and the team should be up and running. I’d also like to see these movies focus on other x-men characters that we haven’t seen yet, or that we haven’t seen much of. I’d like to see that Deadpool movie they’ve been talking about. Let’s get Cable or Gambit in there more. Why no return from Nightcrawler yet? Bring in a better interpretation of Juggernaut. I don’t think Professor X, Wolverine or Magneto need to be the focus of every movie. Oh and they missed an opportunity here by not having Rogue back and fully powered with flight and super strength. That would have been the icing on the cake for the future scenes.
In Conclusion
Those things might have pushed this into masterpiece territory, but they’re small gripes with an otherwise fantastic film. I’m ready for repeat viewings.
