X-Men: Days of Future Past Review

The X-men movie series has also been littered with continuity errors, and nasty plot holes. Despite this, I’ve enjoyed most of the films in in the franchise. Coming off two really good entries (First Class and The Wolverine) Days of Future Past ratchets up the stakes, the budget, the premise and the concept. Taken at face value this is one of the most satisfying movies in the series, but delving beneath the shiny veneer of spectacle, DOFP makes the whole series much more confusing. There will be spoilers in this review, I usually don’t like spoilers, but to discuss what I want to discuss you’ll need to know what happens in the film.

In a dystopian future, a group of mutants (Shadowcat, Bishop, Iceman and others) are fighting to survive a world taken over by mutant hunting sentinels. The sentinels win everytime they encounter the mutants and the only way they have been able to survive is by Shadowcat repeatedly projecting Bishop’s consciousness into a version of himself a few days in the past. He then uses this to warn the group they need to move, thus keeping them safe for a little longer. This sets up the concept of time travel, for when Patrick Stewart as Xavier, Ian McKellen as Magneto, Halle Berry as Storm and the always popular Hugh Jackman as Wolverine show up. Shadowcat then sends Wolverine’s consciousness back to the 70s to stop the sentinel threat before it starts. Its a real “we should go kill Hitler” scenario. This high concept time travel tale walks the line between ludicrous and brilliant very well and thanks to superb performances all round, the stakes seem real.

In the 70s, Logan has to gather what is basically the cast of X-Men First Class, Michael Fassbender as Magneto, James McAvoy as Xavier and Nicholas Hoult as Beast. That may sound confusing at first but the plot is constructed well enough to make it easy to follow. From there, the Boliver Trask story is told and Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique steps in as a main character. Anyone that has seen the previous movies will most likely get that weird warm feeling everytime a known character shows up. Bryan Singer takes a kitchen sink approach to casting with DOFP. Even throw away characters like Toad, Havoc and Colossus are seen in action. Unfortunately, anyone that has seen the previous movies might start second guessing the timeline and plausibility of the connections to other movies. Upon closer examination, things get frustration.Let’s start with an easy one, how is Xavier alive and in his own body? He was vaporized by the Phoenix in The Last Stand, but he’s seen here seemingly unharmed and ready to help. Nothing is said to explain this resurrection, much like the existence of Wolverine’s Adamantium claws. In the fight with the Silver Samurai, at the end of The Wolverine, both his claws are cut off, leaving only his regenerating bone claws. Logan inexplicably has his Adamantium back. Also, if the Sentinel story line is believed to be canon prior to changing the timeline, how is it they have never been mentioned before in any other film. I know that amount of foresight is impossible in movies, but to say that a seeds for the sentinels were planted in the 70s and they not emerge from the pits of government bureaucracy until after 2013’s The Wolverine, is barely believable.

On top of all that, again, if the original timeline (X-men 1-3) is believed to still be effect Mystique’s capture and dissection would make it hard for her to be in the original trilogy. Sure, it could be assumed that she escaped, but all of these things were nearly avoidable plot holes. Throw away lines of dialog explaining them could have been used to make sense of the chaos, or with the Wolverine claws, and dead Xavier problems, they could easily just been avoided by including bone claws and no Patrick Stewart. As a nitpicker, I would have appreciated ANY explanation, but the lack of an explanation will have the fanboys speculating and/or bitching for years to come. Just like First Class and Origins, DOFP tries to intertwine itself in the events of American history in weird and unnecessary ways. Whenever discussing First Class my main complaint is the final scene where the team is fighting in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Its dumb, cheeky, devoid of creativity and completely unnecessary. Where DOFP does this is with Magneto bending the bullet to try and save JFK from assassination “because he was a mutant”. This too is dumb, cheeky, devoid of creativity and completely unnecessary. Too many movies are trying this crap, and it really needs to stop…now

The only good thing to come of this plot point is the perfectly executed Quicksilver-powered Magneto escape scene. Before seeing it, I was not too keen on Quicksilver being in this movie. I was worried it would be bloated, and without Scarlet Witch, it seemed misguided. I was wrong, everything about the Quicksilver encounter was amazing. It reminded me of the opening sequence of X2 with Nightcrawler. Its a shame that the actor that plays Quicksilver probably won’t be back because future X-Men movies will most likely be set after DOFP so a recast would be needed.

With all that said, DOFP is exciting. It does time travel well and the pay off with the cameo filled final scenes creates an exciting future for the X-Men franchise. It cleans the slate, and basically erases most of the plot holes that precede it. I doubt the series continuity will stay as clean as it is right now, but it really wouldn’t be an X-Men movie if it wasn’t full of bizarre inconsistencies. As for quality, I would put it somewhere between X-Men 1 and First Class. It doesn’t touch the king of X-men flicks, X2, but it’s WAY better than X-Men Origins and The Last Stand.

Verdict: X-Men DOFP is the biggest event movie this summer, you’ll be hard pressed to find a movie that people will be talking about more than this one. Join the Convo.