Review of X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) by Idiotbox_Uk — 27 May 2014

Full review @ http://www.idiotbox.co.uk/x-men-days-of-future-past-review-60051/.

There has always been a theme of genocide and persecution that has run through the X-Men series but it has always been quite subtle and only ever really spoken about when Magneto goes on one of his rants about humanity. Days of Future Past is very different and does not have time for subtlety, as soon as the movie kicks off you are shown an incredibly dystopian future where mutants and the humans who dared to help them are herded up and executed by the dozen and the X-Men themselves have been reduced to nothing more that freedom fighters with no real hope of survival. It’s very dark and some of the scenes look like something that wouldn’t be out of place in Terminator Franchise, it’s certainly not something you would expect from the X-Men.

With the fact that they are fighting a force that they have no hope of possibly defeating they decide that the only option is to send someone’s consciousness back in time to the 70′s to stop the Sentinel program from ever being created, the only one who would survive such a journey is Wolverine so that’s exactly what happens. The plot of DOFP is set just over 10 years after the events of First Class. The Vietnam war is in full effect but drawing to a close, Magneto is locked away in a bunker for a pretty serious crime, and Charles Xavier has become a recluse and hides away in his mansion with Hank McCoy. Xavier is now a broken man and it’s a real testament to James McAvoy’s acting that you feel his pain and even though you know that he needs to man up and get on with it you understand why he feels that he can’t.

The mutant roster is largely based around the mutants we already know from the previous movies in the series but there are some new ones thrown into the mix as well. Most of the new additions are from the future (present?) and the scenes of them fighting off the Sentinels are some of the best action scenes of the entire series in terms of scope as you get to see them all using their powers as a team to try and prolong their lives a little while longer, these scenes are badass, there is no other work to suitably describe them. The only new mutant that we are really introduced to in the past is Quicksilver (played by Evan Peters), he is single-handed responsible for one of the highlights of humour through the entire movie. His mutation is that he can move at super-speeds and normally, you would just see him running as a blur but there is one particular scene where you get to see everything at his pace and it is pure genius!

Thankfully the writers seem to have listened to the feedback of X-Men fans and they have looked at the issues that were lingering in the series and they have addressed almost every single one of them! This is something I was not expecting to see and it is something I am very grateful for indeed. The time-travelling aspect of the movie kind of renders most of what has happened in X-Men 1, 2, and 3 kind of obsolete and it is left somewhat unclear as to what has or hasn’t happened in the current time-line. This isn’t a bad thing at all and if anything it sets up a nice blank canvas for the next movie.

Verdict:

Days of Future Past is, hands down, the best movie in the X-Men series to date. Including both the cast of the original movies and First Class was of course risky because it means there is a lot of different people to keep track of, both familiar and new. This decision is definitely one that has paid off as you are left with a movie that has a story to tell and tell it well is does!! Also seeing both the old and new Xavier face-to-face is definitely something special.

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