Movie Review – X-Men: Days of Future Past

The team use this method to get a “heads-up” on the future, in order to survive these frequent skirmishes. But it’s only used in short doses as to prevent harm to the traveler’s mind.

An older Professor-X (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen) devise a plan to reverse the fate of this dystopian future. In theory, a self-healing Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) could survive a much longer trip through time. At all costs, the future X-Men defend Wolverines body from an incoming Sentinal attack, while his mind is transported some 40+ years earlier to prevent their creation.

Wolverine recruits a broken Xavier (James McAvoy), obviously still steaming from the rise of Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and subsequent loss of legs, along with Beast (Nicholas Hoult). The trio enlist Quicksilver (Evan Peters) to break out an imprisoned Magneto in the movie’s most pleasurable and original sequence. It’s up to this team of feuding mutants to stop Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from carrying out an assassination that sets in motion a catastrophic future for all of man and mutant-kind.

Save for the very few thrilling team-up action sequences, Days of Future Past offers minuscule waves of excitement and less-than-impressive futuristic set pieces. It’s pace is severely hindered by its over-complicated narrative. From time travel to drug-use to once again rehashing Wolverine’s origin, Singer can’t seem to control a level of subtlety and franchise continuity. He avoids any glaring anachronisms, showing great care in meticulously (and often amusingly) recreating a 1970’s world, however, the future is uninspired, even lazy in its execution.

X-Men fans will take delight in the filmmakers respect for the comic book. The Sentinels are a joy to watch, though the film lacks any one definitive villain. The few action sequences we do receive are real X-Men team exercises, unlike The Avengers first outing. The film works well in that regard, especially set against real points in history. It’s melded together extremely well.

The films most obsessive power is in it’s cast. More so the younger versions but not because they receive the bulk screen minutes. These are compelling actors in uncanny roles. Jennifer Lawrence is captivating, while McAvoy and Fassbender continue to develop great chemistry, and let’s not forget Hugh Jackman who exemplifies his long-running role.

Overall, it’s a big-budget hero film with bigger ambitions than it can handle, but is anchored by a truly wonderful cast.

Chris