Runtime: 2 hours, 11 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Director: Bryan Singer
Quick Impressions:
I’ve been five thousand times more excited to see X-Men: Days of Future Past than any other movie coming out this summer, so excited, in fact, that now that I’ve seen it, I feel like the summer is as good as over as far as movies are concerned.
Given my history, I shouldn’t have liked this movie because in the past, I’ve loved every other one (not the first, but the second, not the third, but the fourth). For me, Singer’s first X-Men was just okay. (Though I’ve got nothing against Anna Paquin and Hugh Jackman, Rogue generally bores me, and it’s taken me an unusually long time to warm up to Wolverine.) I loved X2, however. I loved it a lot. That’s because I love Magneto. In my own days of future past, whenever anyone asked me, “Who’s your favorite of the X-Men,” I didn’t even have to pause to think. It’s Magneto by a mile. (I realize, of course, that X-Man in the singular is not really a thing, and Magneto is not exactly one of the X-Men, but still. How can anyone not love Magneto? He’s brilliantly played by Ian McKellan, he has amazing, seemingly unique powers, and whenever tiresome, annoying jerks show up, he kills them.)
The only part of the third movie I even remember is the tragic scene when Magneto and Mystique part company, and I remember it because I didn’t like it. (I like it better when we see the more sympathetic side of Magneto.)
But now, X-Men: First Class, that was all about Magneto. Suddenly he was young, intense as ever, given his own catchy bass-line theme, played by Michael Fassbender, essentially the star of the movie. We got to spend a long time probing the tortured complexities of his relationship with Professor Xavier (another character I like), and we got a new and ten zillion times more interesting Mystique, now played by the endlessly watchable Jennifer Lawrence. X-Men: First Class focuses on all the characters I like best, and features actors I adore. I think it’s fantastic.
But now, how could any movie successfully cram all the stars of that movie and the stars of the previous X-Men trilogy in to a single feature film and come up with anything coherent let alone cohesive? That’s what I’ve been wondering all this time. Part of me worried that this movie might turn into a bit of a train wreck, but I’m happy to report that it’s actually every bit as good as I’d hoped and quite a bit better than I’d expected.
I’m pleased they kept Matthew Vaughn around as a story collaborator and happy to have Bryan Singer back in the director’s chair. Hopefully they won’t have to break Singer out of a high security prison in order to make the next film in the series.
The Good:
I don’t read the X-Men comics, so if you’re looking for a report on how faithful this movie is to the original storyline as presented in the comics, I’m afraid I can’t enlighten you. I have, however, read no fewer than four headlines complaining about the fact that in the comics, Kitty Pryde goes back in time, while in the movie, this mission is reassigned to Wolverine. I haven’t read the articles yet (because I didn’t want to spoil the movie), just the headlines, but I do feel qualified to explain and defend that decision.
If the one-line synopsis of your movie is, “Wolverine travels back in time to prevent a robot apocalypse,” you know you’re going to sell tickets faster than you can print them. If you try to spin it any other way, you end up saying, “You know that girl who played Juno? No, you know her. She was in Inception, remember? You know. She just came out recently. Surely you heard about that. Okay, remember, she’s Kitty Pryde…well, in the third one she is. In the second one, someone else plays that part, but that’s not important right now. Who’s Kitty Pryde? Well, remember she can walk through stuff. No you know…”
Unless you read the comics, or you lived with my college roommate, you probably know way less about Kitty Pryde than you do about Wolverine. So comic fans may be (justifiably) disappointed in this change, but for everyone else, it just makes sense. For general audiences (i.e. people who aren’t invested in the comics or in the social allegory of the X-Men franchise), Wolverine is definitely the biggest star of the series, and Jackman is easily the biggest box office draw (though Jennifer Lawrence is—for this particular moment—practically right there with him).
So the movie is about Wolverine travelling back in time to prevent a robot apocalypse, and it stars basically everyone famous from every previous X-Men movie. The largest parts go to Jackman, Lawrence, Fassbender, James McAvoy, and Nicholas Hoult with decent screentime as well for Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan, some key moments for Shawn Ashmore (as Bobby Drake) and Ellen Page (as Kitty Pryde, who does play a crucial role), a very nice action scene for Halle Berry as Storm, and essentially glorified cameos for every other lovable mutant imaginable. The film also introduces some exciting new mutants (our favorites were Evan Peters as Quicksilver and Bingbing Fan as Blink), and even finds a rather showcased supporting role for everybody’s favorite Lannister, Peter Dinklage.
Ordinarily with a cast that large and star-studded, the result you get is either a) chaos or b) extremely fragmented. I was pretty stunned that this film manages to give all of the central players actual character arcs and development. Very few people are simply along for the ride.
I’ve always thought that the most fascinating relationship in the X-Men universe is the tormented friendship between Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr, and Professor X and Magneto (as dually played by James McAvoy/Patrick Stewart and Michael Fassbender/Ian McKellan) get an astonishing amount of time and development in this film. I’ve always said that I’d watch an entire movie of Professor X and Magneto playing chess, and, essentially, that’s what this movie gives us. They’re playing chess on a very large stage (that crosses vast amounts of space and time), and even when they’re not together onscreen, their overlapping torment and warring ideologies remain the driving force of the film. As everyone should expect, Jennifer Lawrence is also quite captivating as Mystique, a third player in this strange game.
What really surprised me, though, is how much of the story focuses on Wolverine. His side-story never detracts from the central plot, but he’s really there as a three-dimensional character, not as simply a convenient plot device.
For young children, the story may occasionally be hard to follow. It’s really best if you’ve seen as many other X-Men movies as possible. As with X-Men: First Class, this film always keeps us busy intellectually. It’s not that it’s intricately plotted or full of confusing twists. It’s just that it keeps tossing out philosophical quandaries, warring ideologies, and provocative possibilities. It’s overflowing with so much subtext that you can expect your grandchildren to be studying the screenplay in their high school English class (kind of like how we all had to read The Crucible).
There’s so much to love about this movie. I love the way James McAvoy plays Charles Xavier like he’s a tormented heroin addict, perpetually on the verge of a total breakdown. I love the way Wolverine tells Beast that they can change the future (because at that moment, I suddenly realized what to expect from the final scene). I love the idea that the past is fluid, and that free will does matter.
Days of Future Past benefits from tons of action, superb acting, brilliant intensity from its cast, and abundant humor and intelligence. It’s just a summer blockbuster, but it’s one that proves that entertainment need not be devoid of substance. A film can be light and fun without being meaningless. Also did I mention that Wolverine goes back in time to save the world from a robot apocalypse?
This is clearly the must-see movie of Memorial Day Weekend 2014.
Best Scene Visually:
My husband, our children, and I all emphatically agree that the best new character in the movie is Quicksilver (aka Peter aka a guy whose mom once dated somebody with a very particular set of skills). (It’s not Liam Neeson, and that’s all I’m saying for now.)
Played by Evan Peters, this guy has amazing powers and is consistently hilarious and cool. The highlight of the first half of the movie is his slow-motion action scene which looks amazing, makes us laugh, and gets added bonus points for its apt and clever use of the 1970s era song “Time in a Bottle.”
Funniest Scene:
X-Men: Days of Future Past has a great sense of humor and is full of sly jokes, but the humor never becomes obnoxious or upstages the drama in any way. Both Wolverine and Magneto are great at cracking jokes even at the bleakest moments, Evan Peters has a flare for comedy, and Singer allows comedy to arise naturally from serious situations. (That seems like an obvious thing to do since there’s a kind of comedy inherent in human life, but some filmmakers—going for a serious tone—are careful to suppress any hint of intrinsic humor.)
Anyway, I don’t know if it really counts as the funniest scene, but here’s what sticks in my mind. After picking up a girl in a bar, one man gets an encounter he doesn’t expect. At the end, his new “friend” finds a convenient way of restraining him while going through his stuff. The humor here is all non-verbal, but it’s definitely present. It sticks in my mind because it so delighted my five-year-old daughter, who reacted by chuckling out loud, a single, satisfied, “Huh!”
Best Scene:
When Peter Dinklage first pitches his new scheme around the table, he gets a nasty shock, followed by an even nastier shock, and then some more surprises, and then even more unexpected mayhem.
What’s great about this scene is that so many characters’ lives converge all at once. This is a crucial moment for several people. Even Wolverine finds himself caught up in unexpected personal drama here.
A close second to this is the conversation Hank, Charles, and Logan have about the problem of time travel. Hank points out a problem a number of famous physicists continually mention about the idea of changing the past. I think the film makes a smart choice by engaging openly with this piece of science fact, and I love Charles Xavier’s response.
Best Action Sequence:
Magneto definitely knows how to make an entrance. He manages to command quite a bit of attention near the end by acting out a drama in center stage. This entire process looks impressive (and exhausting). We see that he really must have tremendous power. In this climactic action sequence, though, the tension in the Charles-Erik-Raven triangle comes to a head, and all three of them get the chance to show what they’re made of in highly dramatic fashion.
The Negatives:
I remember when X-Men: First Class came out and a lot of people started noticing, “Isn’t it weird that Magneto doesn’t have a British accent anymore?”
Well, now he does.
I wondered how Singer would handle the problem of a young Magneto without an English accent, and an older Magneto with a pointedly English accent. I sort of love his solution. With utterly no explanation, Michael Fassbender’s Magneto now speaks in an English accent just like Ian McKellan’s. The only difference is that Fassbender’s accent is more subtle, as if the filmmakers expect us to believe that he’s had the accent this whole time, and we just somehow failed to notice it when we watched him in X-Men: First Class. Of course, I’m not sure this is really a problem.
Maybe this Magneto always did have an English accent since the entire story seems to take place in some kind of parallel reality. Maybe Magneto has a whole exciting grab bag of differing accents that vary depending on which dimension you find him in.
Honestly, I really have no problem with anything in this movie. I’m not saying that it’s the most perfect, life-altering, mind-blowing film ever created in all of time. But it’s pretty solid summer entertainment that actually delivers on all its promise.
I will say that Ellen Page and Halle Berry are in the movie just enough to make us realize that they ought to be in it more. Both actresses have plenty of screentime, but their characters don’t really get to do very much. Though what each does is crucial, all they do is facilitate the main story. They don’t get stories of their own in the way that Logan, Charles, Erik, and Raven do. If Kitty Pryde is so crucial to this storyline in the comics, she probably should get a more fleshed out role here because as the movie stands, I think Bobby Drake has a more interesting part.
Overall:
If you like X-Men movies, or if you like any of the stars of this movie, or even if you just enjoy going to the movies, then you are probably going to like X-Men: Days of Future Past. As this movie shows very effectively, there are certainly worse choices you can make than sitting in a darkened movie theater for a couple of hours not bothering anybody. If you’re like me and don’t want to alter the entire course of human history for the worse, then I insist you err on the side of caution and get yourself to a movie theater to see Days of Future Past at your earliest opportunity.
After the movie, we all tried to decide which mutant had the powers we coveted most. My stepson decided, “I liked Blink, the one who can make portals.” My daughter chimed in, “I liked the blue girl, the one who can be Jennifer Lawrence,” because being Jennifer Lawrence right now would be a pretty awesome super power, let’s face it.