Another week, another comic book film. What else is there to
really say about them? Except the fact that even though they seem to come out
every other week, most of the time the film studios are actually make quality
big budget films. And the latest one is no exception. Fourteen years after the
first X-Men film completely changed the way people look at superhero and comic
book movies, we have original director Bryan Singer back at the helm and he has
crafted one of the most intricate, epic and outright entertaining entries in
this never-ending series. It’s a sequel to the wonderful “X-Men: First Class”
and yet also a reboot of the original “X-Men” trilogy. It’s also a pretty kick-ass
time travel sci-fi spectacular with rich characters, memorable sequences, and a
convoluted plot that is as outrageous as it is entertain.
As anyone who has seen the “Back to the Future” or “Terminator”
films knows, time travel can be a complex and exhaustive plot element. I won’t
even pretend that I fully grasped every intricate detail laid out in Simon
Kinberg’s sprawling script (a script that pleasingly fixes everything that was
wrong about his not-that-bad “The Last Stand” screenplay). I won’t even attempt
rehash the complete storyline here. Basically, in the future, these robots
created by Trask Industries are programmed to wipe out all mutants and
eventually turn on everyone. Some of your favorite mutant characters from the
previous films including Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page),
Storm (Halle Berry), Professor X (Patrick Stewart), Magneto (Ian McKellen),
Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), and a few others, are attempting to fight them off.
Kitty uses her powers to send Wolverine’s consciousness back in time (to the 1970s)
to his former body where he’ll find the younger versions of his mutant friends
and attempt to stop Dr. Trask (Peter Dinklage) from inventing the Sentinels in
the first place. It’s basically “Terminator 2” with mutants.
Some of the highlights of this bonanza mutant adventure
include Wolverine, younger Beast (Nicholas Hoult), younger Profesor X (James
McAvoy) recruiting young mutant Quicksilver (Evan Peters) to help break younger
Magneto (Michael Fassbender) out of prison at the Pentagon (who was charged with
the assassination of JFK - a spinoff of
which I’d love to see). And what about the sequence when the young newly rogue Mystique
(Jennifer Lawrence) attempts to murder Trask and the subsequent action that
ensues that’s captured by bystanders on 70s era 8mm cameras. The movie is so
epic it even includes a Vietnam sequence. And let’s not forget Magneto moving
an entire baseball stadium.
Singer perfectly incorporates the characters from “First
Class” (and even satisfyingly tweaks elements from the previous films including
Professor X’s paralysis and Mystique’s better makeup design) with the old
school mutant characters from the earlier films into one gigantic hodgepodge of
mutant goodness without ever really being all that confusing. Or at least, we
get the gist enough that it doesn’t feel like a chore to try and keep up. And
because of the time period it feels like such a fresh take on the superhero
genre.
The performances are great and every character has their
moment to shine, the effects are spectacular (especially in that jaw dropping Quicksilver scene),
and the story is gripping and feels larger-than-life. And it all ends so
perfectly it was almost worth waiting nearly ten years for. I loved “X-Men:
Days of Future Past;” though anyone who hasn’t seen the original X-Men films
are advised to go back and watch them all again. While it doesn’t give me
chills the way a great Spider-Man film does and will always do, it’s easily the
best X-Men movie yet. GRADE: A
Feature Trailer for X-Men: Days of Future Past on TrailerAddict.
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