Review of X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) by Mudget — 29 May 2014

Marvel is really on top of their film game, with a great Captain America, a decent Spiderman, and now a truly excellent X-Men, all in the same few months. And if you think about it, they are veritably ruling the film world.

Look at the ensemble of actors in this movie. Where other than a Robert Altman movie are you going to find a cast of people together like Ian McKellan, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Ellen Page - the list goes on and on.

What's more remarkable is that this cast works deftly together in a film that could have been a sloppy disaster. Time-travel movies when done right are some of the most intriguing movies ever - but if done wrong, they are excruciating.

Luckily, Days of Future Past gets it all right, and the only drawback is all the expository, supporting dialogue the audience must therefore endure along the way in order to understand it. The bad guys in this movie are truly bad.

If the Sentinels show up, they are going to kill you, and this is established right away in one of the most exciting superhero/villain fight scenes in any comic book movie to date. Seeing Colossus become full metal at the same time Sunspot flames on at the same time Iceman (finally) goes and stays full Iceman - a very cool moment.

Unfortunately even these powerhouses are no match for the Sentinels. The only option is for newly-introduced (but now regular X-Man) Blink to keep them moving around until Shadowcat (with a future developed time/spirit manipulation power) can send newly-introduced Bishop just far enough into the past to warn the team that the Sentinels are approaching - so they can not be there when the Sents arrive.

This is layer one. Layer two then is this first group combining efforts with the other group (Storm, Wolverine, Prof. X, Magneto) to send someone way back in time to before the Sentinels were even created.

This task falls to Wolverine and off he goes into the second layer (the 1970s, pre-Sentinels) in an effort to stop Mystique from.... wow. The more I write the more I realize how convoluted this plot is.

It's like trying to explain to a non-viewer what's going on in Game of Thrones. Pretty soon you just throw your hands up and say, "You know what? Just watch it!" And so that's what I'll do.

What works in this film is the excellent acting, the dark plot, the nearly-full roster of Superheroes, and the best scene in an X-Men movie since Nightcrawler's debut in X2 (hint: Quicksilver, and anyone dealing with a Quicksilver or Flash-type character in the future must now contend with this scene setting a certain bar for excellence).

There are a few disappointments. Anna Paquin will show up as Rogue for a second at the end, and I understand her deleted scene(s) will make it onto a DVD/Bluray version. But for this primary showing, she's notably and confusingly completely absent.

The action scenes in this movie range from the terrifying Sentinel attacks to the now-typical "huge Magneto scene" - this time with him moving an entire sports stadium, to a lot of smaller scenes spread throughout - and they all work.

The special effects are fantastic and nothing feels gratuitous (except when they are going for 100% gratuitous, as in the Quicksilver scene). The story holds together and the dialogue, while mostly expository, is good.

It's my personal favorite of the series so far (you might be surprised to know that The Last Stand was my favorite until now - typically the one everyone hates - but I'm a sucker for new heroes and villains showing up, and X3 brought a lot of new faces into the series - even if Juggernaut was a huge letdown - the Phoenix climax was epic).

Days of Future Past ups the ante on everything and makes me hungry for the next installment. I think they're being smart with this series - phasing some actors out and others in - because this bodes well for this being a series with a real lifespan well beyond where we're at now.

If you're new to the series, by all means don't start with this one. Start at the beginning. But if you're already an X-Fan, you're most likely going to love this movie.