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X-Men: Days of Future Past

Coming Soon

[hero heading=”X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST” tagline=”Reintroducing Bryan Singer into the directors chair, X-Men: Days of Future Past finds itself chewing on an over-complicated storyline, but is saved by its cast. It’s in theaters May, 23rd.”]Set in a dystopian future, the landscape is reduced to rubble and policed by powers-absorbing robots called Sentinels. These powerful adversaries are on the prowl for X-Men. An impressive battle ensues but finds the X-Men getting picked off one-by-one, up until two heroes locked in a time traveling sequence, escape the conflict.

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


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X-Men: Days of Future Past is streaming now on the following services:
Movie Reelist Contributor: Chris Giroux
Chris Giroux is founder and editor-in-charge at Movie Reelist, an entertainment news and review blog serving the most fanatic moviegoers. Chris started his publication in Detroit in 2010 and has since reviewed hundreds of films and interviewed numerous talent across the country. He is an avid film festival attendee and red carpet photographer, having shot the likes of Steven Spielberg, Bill Murray, Mark Hamill, and more. Chris grew up in New Mexico, where he studied mass media writing while working in post-production and multimedia authoring. It is also where he discovered Big Trouble in Little China and Escape from New York, resulting in an unhealthy Kurt Russell obsession.

Comments

  1. It is a worthwhile and necessary sequel in order for the franchise to move forward. Blending in past, present and future characters was a bit problematic though. The 3D was disappointing because there wasn’t enough of it. I watched half of the movie with my glasses off. Outside of that there was A LOT going on which will confuse some audience members.

  2. Thanks CG for your viewpoint on this film. Well, at our little weekly “Friday Afternoon Film Festival” today, X marks the spot on a very entertaining X~Men 3D movie with a very well written story to boot. Surprisingly, this X~Men movie is now my favorite in the series so far. This movie should do very good this week-end by the people of all ages that were showing up to see it.

  3. Chris, would you agree with Carl that the 3D is not worth the extra cost? You two are usually in step with one another, but then again I always like to cause some strife amongst friends…

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