To state the obvious, we are in the golden age of comic book movies. The impact that these types of movies have had on Hollywood and pop culture is equivalent to what Westerns were in the 50s and 60s, and action-adventures in the 80s. About 90% of the best superhero movies ever made have been released in the past 10 years and they have dominated the box office left and right...
But I must ask, when will superhero movies jump the shark? When will we reach the tail end of this era? When will comic books loosen their seemingly invincible stranglehold on Hollywood? Well, after watching X-Men: Days of Future Past, I must say that nothing of the sort will be happening any time soon!
We begin our adventure in the future, I guess (I'd imagine that it would be around 2014). Sentinels created years ago have essentially taken over the world and are picking off mutants one at a time. Professor Xavier Picard tells us this was all the cause of a midget doctor named Trask. He began developing the sentinel program in the early 70s, but wasn't getting much support for it... Until he was murdered by Mystique, which led to the US government to go ahead with further developing this program. Mystique was then captured and her morphing power was used to make the sentinels complete. Years later, sentinels completely fucked shit up, and now the remaining mutants can only do one thing: rip off Terminator...err... I mean... Go back in time and stop Mystique from killing Trask.
How is this done, you ask? Well, by Kitty Pryde getting into Wolverine's mind and putting him back in 1973, of course! He is then put on a mission where he has to bring a now smack-addicted Xavier back together with his old pal Eric, aka Magneto, in order to stop mystique from killing Trask, thus preventing the sentinel program from getting green-lit. What follows is some awesome action, strong character development, and brilliant special effects!
I know I made a few wisecracks at this film, but honestly, this is one of the best superhero movies I've ever seen outside of the Dark Knight trilogy. Heck, I might even say that this is the best Marvel-based comic book movie ever made! And that's saying a lot! This movie has it all: A dark serious tone, great comic relief, great social commentary, and, well... Some epic badassery! So what do I love about this movie? Well...
For starters, I love how character driven this film is, and I think that's exactly how a movie like this should be. X-Men is loaded with unique and interesting characters to begin with, and since this movie deals with 2 time periods, the only direction to go is to focus on strong character development over how much action and destruction is in the movie. Bryan Singer understands that, and so do I. Now, a character driven story might turn off a lot of moviegoers nowadays, but have no fear for those people, Transformers 4 is coming out in a month.
Now I'm not saying Days Of Future Past is completely devoid of amazing action. The RFK stadium sequence is absolutely breathtaking. Magneto decides to be just as ambitious as Bryan Singer and decides to lift an entire stadium off the ground and move it all the way to the White House, completely enclosing it in the process. This sets up one hell of an emotional climax that almost had me tearing up... It was that good!
Now another amazing action sequence involving Quicksilver... But I will not spoil it here... It's too fucking awesome to describe and it's my favourite action sequence if the whole movie. It perfectly blends intensity, action, and some offbeat humour. With so many amazing characters and amazing moments, this was one of the showstoppers of the movie.
Keywords in that last sentence: "One of." The other show stealing scene, not to mention my favourite part of the whole fucking movie, is the meeting between Xavier of the 70s and Xavier Picard. First of all, it's James McAvoy and Patrick Stewart, which equals awesome, and the way it's done is definitely a mindfuck but it's such a brilliant one. The cool factor aside, it is the most emotionally gripping scene of the movie. Why? Well, how many times have we all wished that we could talk to our younger, dumber selves? To tell them how they're future would be if they continued the path they were on? To try to get their heads out of their asses before it's too late?
Or how about the flip side of that? How many times have we wished that our older selves would come and talk to us? To tell us how our future will be? Or to give us a wake up call and tell us to change our ways? That's definitely something that pretty much everyone watching the movie will relate to... And, I'll be honest, I was choking up a bit during the scene, I absolutely loved it!
Seriously, if you feel no emotion in that scene, then you have no blood in you... Heck, you're not even human! I don't even know what species you would be... But hey, you'll make a great serial killer one day, so there's that...
That brings me to the point of the casting and performances here. I'd say that all around, everyone totally nails their roles! James McAvoy does an even better job as Xavier than he did in First Class and his performance might be Oscar worthy if the Academy wasn't full of hipsters. Michael Fassbender kills it as Magneto, bringing a terrific diabolical charm to the role. It was also nice seeing Patrick Stewart and Ian Mckellan reprise their roles as Magneto and X in the present, they bring a commanding presence to the cast and it feels like they never left this franchise. This next part goes without mentioning, but Hugh Jackman totally nails Wolverine and once again makes it feel like he was born for the role. It was also awesome to see Peter Dinklage in the role of Trask, I'm just getting into Game of Thrones and he's slowly becoming one of my favourite actors.
Last but not least. Jennifer Lawrence nearly stole the whole damn show as Mystique. She plays a very conflicted and complex character, toeing the line between anti-hero and villain, and Lawrence played it flawlessly. Unfortunately for her, the Academy is out of touch with reality, so a 2nd Oscar for her probably won't happen this year. Still, amazing performances by everyone!
Another thing I have to point out is how greatly the movie deals with time travel. Yes, the initial premise of Kitty Pryde putting Wolverine's mind back in the past may be a little out there, but the time travel overall is done very simply and the movie doesn't make it fuck with your head. A lot of time travel movies make that mistake, even the great ones like Looper and Back to the Future. Not since Terminator 2 have I seen a movie that dealt with time travel so simply and beautifully. Props to the movie for not making my head explode with confusion.
As for the movie's flaws, there are a few here and there, but I won't point them out. This is a movie in which one of its main characters is a telekinetic mind reader, and another is a morphing smurfette, so I can let what little issues this film has slide.
All in all, X-Men: Days of Future Past seamlessly blends amazing action, terrific character development, and tons of gripping emotional depth. It also literally wipes The Last Stand from existence! I won't exactly spoil how that happens, but Singer gives a huge middle finger to Brett Ratner, and that was so satisfying to watch.
Is it the best X-men movie? Is it the best Marvel-based movie ever made? Will it go down as one of the best superhero movies of all time? I answer all those questions with a resounding "Fuck yeah!"
I give this movie a full 5 X's out of 5. Awesome movie! It might go down as one of my favourites.
Okay, I'm done stroking the movie's dick. Call me a moron in the comments below.
- Mad Mike of Metal
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