X-Men: Days of Future Past Review
X-Men: Days of Future Past is the seventh installment in the X-Men movie series, and came out roughly two years ago. Bryan Singer directs this movie, who directed the first two X-Men movies. This installment movie separates itself from all the other films and is my favorite X-Men movie.
So X-Men: Days of Future Past is about the dystopian future, where Sentinel robot drones seek out and kill all mutants and X-Men. The X-Men realize there is no way to save themselves from the sentinels and their inevitable extinction if they don't send someone's conscious back in time to change the course of history, and prevent the Sentinels from being initiated onto the mutants. The only one strong enough to go back in time is Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), and it's up to him to unite Professor X (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) in the past to prevent the grim future from happening. There is quite a lot of depth to this movie's plot, and I did enjoy many aspects of it. This movie exudes confidence from Bryan Singer, and I love how he can take X-Men back for himself after a couple of terrible X-Men movies from 20th Century Fox that put his work in the first two movies to shame. This movie is a sequel to one timeline of X-Men and another at the same time. The cast from X-Men First Class is the same, which is great to see. James McAvoy is great as Professor X in this movie, and Michael Fassbender is still killing it as Magneto. These actors are more prominent in this movie, and the dystopian future has less focus on it. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen are given a little less screen time, which is fine by me because they still sell their role. Peter Dinklage as Trask is also the antagonist for a portion of this movie, and he is fine. He always gives a good performance, even if he isn't too picky about his roles. Like how anyone would ever agree to star in an Adam Sandler movie based off of old video games is pretty beyond me. The performances that stood out the most to me in this film were James McAvoy, Hugh Jackman, Michael Fassbender and Evan Peters (Quicksilver). The characters all had great chemistry with each other on screen, and the majority/entirety of these actors performances was in the past. We also got to see a new side of Wolverine and young Professor X in this movie, with Wolverine being more reserved and less aggressive, and Professor X being at his lowest level, and mostly a junkie at the start of the film.
The best part about the characters in this movie is that you can identify with them. Except Trask, the character motivations are never confusing or unclear, so that at least you can understand one of the antagonists reasoning. Although Peter Dinklage gave as good a performance as any, there isn't that much substance to his character, and he didn't have that much motivation. What was a curious concept in this movie, though, was that there wasn't a clear, defined antagonist. The enemy is different for different characters and their perception of the unfolding events. This movie also had a couple of great action scenes, and some intense moments as well. There's a fantastic scene involving a lot of mutants that sets the third act into motion in Paris, where a lot of civilians witness mutant powers for the first time. The way they shot that scene with different excerpt shots that were meant to look like people filming on cameras from the 1970's added to the terror of the humans. As for the action scenes, they were all choreographed just fine and were kept to a minimal. I would say that for this type of movie that less is more, because it made room for more creative fight scenes that I won't spoil, but went beyond just average fist-fighting. One problem I had with this movie was that although the story was unique to the universe and striking, there were still a couple of predictable points in the film. The story this movie told was well thought out, but some character dilemmas or choices were easy to predict, which took me out of the movie somewhat, but didn't ruin the movie for me.
This movie has a lot of hope and emotion stretched throughout, and I like how well balanced all the characters roles and screen time is in this installment. Every person feels necessary to the movie. Bryan Singer did a great job with his return to the franchise. I liked how a part of this movie was a somewhat emotional and mental conflict, which can sometimes be hard to come by in superhero movies, where usually the conflict just lies with the antagonist. Bryan Singer did intentionally mess with the X-Men timeline, which I liked since it was a big middle finger to the terrible movies in the series. People who are supposed to be dead are still alive, vice versa and a couple of other changes that are confusing if you don't go into the movie with the knowledge that it doesn't build off the last movie. It's a kind of jerk move to disregard another director's work in the same franchise, even if it is terrible, rather than build off of it. But I can totally forgive this movie for it since it solves all the problems that X-Men 3 and Origins: Wolverine had. I had a great time with this movie, with a couple of fun Marvel references that seem to be obligatory in any Marvel movie. I will say that this is definitely Singer's franchise, and this movie just proves it.
+ Fleshed out characters - Trask's character pretty open and dry cut
+ Compelling story - Somewhat predictable at points
+ Great Acting
+ Confident directing courtesy of Bryan Singer
6.6/10
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