The plot and logic flaws in X-Men: Days of Future Past are abundant as is the same for pretty much any film or story dealing with time travel. You’re just going to have to accept that and if you’re able to, as I was, you’re going to be in for what I believe to be the best X-Men film yet. Director Bryan Singer returns to the franchise for the first time since 2003’s X2 and thanks to a strong script from Simon Kinberg and excellent editing from John Ottman (whom also provides the film’s score) the time travel issues matter little.
Matthew Vaughn laid the groundwork for this new cast of younger mutant characters in X-Men: First Class (my review) and, combined with Singer’s strong understanding of these characters, this film manages to bring both X-Men eras together in a wholly satisfying feature.
Much like X2, Days of Future Past takes no time getting deep into the plot. Amidst a post-apocalyptic New York, mutants are attacked by mutant-hunting robots called Sentinels, which can adapt to and use any mutant power against their prey.
The effects-heavy opening reveals the losing war the mutants of present day face and in an instant they make the decision they must get word to the past. Using the mutant capabilities of Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) to send someone’s consciousness into the past, the team decides only Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) has the physical stamina to endure the trip. Wolverine must go back to a point in time following the events of First Class that finds the X-Men completely disbanded.
Professor Xavier (James McAvoy) is lost, his powers dulled by a serum Hank (Nicholas Hoult) created to give him use of his legs. Magneto (Michael Fassbender) is imprisoned for reasons I won’t spoil here and Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) holds the key to mutant survival in the face of Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage) a scientist responsible for creating the first wave of Sentinels that will eventually wipe out mutant kind.
Make no mistake, there are a lot of characters and a lot of balls in the air at once as I haven’t even told you about the highly entertaining introduction of Evan Peters as Quicksilver, a character that gets one of the singularly best scenes in the entire film, equal to the entertainment found watching Nightcrawler’s debut in X2. There are also a fleet of old and new X-Men elsewhere as well as a youthful face that will, one day, play a major role in Wolverine’s future.
Kinberg’s script and Singer’s direction doesn’t rely heavily on talky introductions to these characters and some, such as Blink (Bingbing Fan), Warpath (Booboo Stewart), Sunspot (Adan Canto) and Bishop (Omar Sy), aren’t even introduced at all as much as they are along for the ride, known more for their powers than their names. But there’s no problem with this as to sit down the audience and explain the back-stories for all these characters would be tedious and wasteful as there are more important character details to get to.
Xavier, Magneto and Mystique are at the heart of this story, their coming together after the events of First Class as well as the audience’s knowledge of what is to come of their future as evidenced in previous X-Men films weighs heavily on the narrative. Thankfully, you don’t even need to have seen any of those films to understand the stakes, though this film has done a wonderful job of tipping its hat to both First Class and, primarily, the first two, Singer-directed X-Men features.
I was also greatly appreciative of the fact this feature doesn’t rely heavily on world destruction. There is a certain amount of architectural damage in the finale, but it’s used within the plot rather than things crashing into buildings in an effort to simply disperse rubble. The effects work, however, is wonderful and I loved the sound design. However, for as great a job Ottman did in the editing room and keeping two timelines in sync, I wish these blockbuster epics would dial back on the “epic” score. When Magneto is bending metal the sound is more than enough that it doesn’t need a big brass and string section accompanying it.
Performances are spot on, relying far more on Lawrence this time around and only taking it so far when it comes to the emotional and angry moments from Magneto and Xavier, using the talents of both McAvoy and Fassbender to their limits, but not overly so.
I’m sure there will be some complaints from some saying the film is simply another storyline where humans seek to destroy mutants and Magneto seeks to prevent this from happening. It’s true, the plot is rather redundant, but in an effort to keep this one cohesive world and give the new X-Men cast as much a place in this world as possible there was some cleaning up of past mistakes to be done and considering it was done this well, I see that as a major step forward.
Days of Future Past essentially erases the existence of Brett Ratner‘s X-Men: The Last Stand from our consciousness and gives us a new starting point for future installments whether it be in the future tense or with the new, younger cast. In essence it does what J.J. Abrams did with his Star Trek reboot, allowing for a rewriting of the X-Men cinematic history and if the post-credits teaser is any indication, it won’t be making the same mistake Abrams and team made with Star Trek Into Darkness as the X-Men: Apocalypse villain is revealed, prepping you for the next installment in 2016 and doing so with an installment that wholly satisfies and works on its own.
