‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ was everything I could hope for in a film and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I have to confess, this one might not engage the non-comic geek movie goer. The success in recent years of the super-hero franchises has been the ability to appeal to the common movie goer without over simplifying it for the detail oriented comic fanboys. Marvel has this art down to a science. Unfortunately, as the sequels build upon sequels, it is getting more difficult to appeal to people who have not been previously invested in the stories. For those of you who remember, the original ‘X-Men’ was the film that started the modern era of super hero movies. Director Bryan Singer returns to the series and combines the original X-Men with the re-booted prequel team from X-Men: First Class in a satisfying time-twisting tale.
Hugh Jackman’s reprises the role of Wolverine for the seventh time (a record for an actor reprising the same character in a film) and, as he is the most bankable star, is at the center of the story. ‘Days of Future Past’ is loosely based upon the iconic story from the 80’s in which the war between humans and mutants escalates to a level of bringing the world to near extinction (interesting note; the original 80’s story takes place in the distant future time of 2013). In the film’s dystopian future, Prof Xavier and Magneto hatch a plan to send Wolverine back in time to 1973 to stop Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from killing Boliver Trask (Peter Dinklage) and thus preventing the events that lead to their current plight. Wolverine’s job is to convince the younger Xavier and Magneto to help him stop Mystique. No easy task as at that time they are bitter enemies and neither in a position to help.
Even though James MacAvoy and Patrick Stewart look nothing alike as Xavier, the movie is able to suspend our disbelief. During the 70’s time period, Xavier is wrestling with his personal demons and lives in his shuttered up school in a constant state of inebriation with only Hank McCoy aka The Beast (Nicholas Hoult) still at his side. The first order of business is breaking Magneto out of a mega secured prison with the help of one of the film’s highlights; Quicksilver (played entertainingly by Evan Peters). The character of Quicksilver has been a controversy as two movie studios will be using this character (the next appearance will be in Avengers 2: Age of Ultron). I’m glad the studios were able to put aside their differences as Quicksilver provide much of the ‘cool’ moments in the movie.
Director Bryan Singer captures the vibe of the 70’s era without spilling over into camp. While some of the time travel situations strained logic, the back and forth between time periods was done effectively. It was a pleasure to not only see both teams combined, but also new characters that only the comic geeks would know. The addition of Bishop (Omar Sy) and Blink (Bingbing Fan) add a lot to an already crowded team. The film is an obvious attempt to officially pass the baton from the old team to the new. The time travel adventure that alters the time line (seen even recently in the Star Trek reboot) neatly wipes away most storyline inconsistencies and leaves a blank slate for all new sequels to build.
If you are a fan of the series, this is a satisfying sequel. I would say a ‘must see’. If you are new to the series or have a terrible memory, this film might be a confusing 2 hours. If you are a newbie and stay for the ‘after-the-credit’ scene, you will be completely confused. For the fanboy population, I will say this is the X-men movie they have been waiting for.
I give this film ***stars
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