X-Men: Days of Future Past

Wow....this month has been just...wow!

May has been an obnoxiously good time at the movies, one of the best in recent memory for me at least. No "Instant Classics" just yet, but when Godzilla is your lowest scoring movie at an 8.5/10 (practically a 9/10) you know you are having one hell of a month. And then we arrive at X-Men: Days of Future Past. You may remember that this is the film that won the Rath Award for Most Anticipated of 2014. My hype for it had dipped some over the coming months, mainly due to some poorly conceived trailers, but nonetheless I was still excited for it.

"Why don't you just walk down the hallway?
Oh...right."

However, I really should make a confession: out of the main comic book groupings: Marvel Cinematic Universe (i.e. The Avengers and others), Spider-man, Batman, and X-men I have to say that I've enjoyed the X-Men the least. There is just something about each one of their films, with the exception of maybe the first two, that causes me to not really need to watch them again. Many of the Spider-Man films, both new and old, are rewatchable and we all know how many times we could watch The Avengers or The Dark Knight again. But with the X-men my experiences have largely been "one and done" so to speak. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy them, although there are some bad eggs in there, but I just never felt the need that I would need to see them again. They were always missing that "magic" that makes me return for multiple viewings.

Not so for X-Men: Days of Future Past. It welcomes back the franchise's original director, Bryan Singer, with open arms, and tells a miraculous, gripping story that both acts as a reset/reboot and continuation of the franchise.

Magneto's new slogan: "Safety is sexy!"

What DOFP gets wrong is very little. Some of the weight of the film is a little lost since the last time we saw many of these characters was in the not-so-good The Last Stand. Also, there is really no connection from the original trilogy's timeline to this one, other than the end credits sequence we got at the end of The Wolverine. All that combined makes DOFP really just one big reset button for the franchise, albeit a clever one, where it can float between its fantastic original cast and its fantastic new cast and really tell any story it wants from here on out. When you really start to think about that point, it takes away from a lot of the gravitas that DOFP is trying to achieve but it's a fairly easy thing to ignore as well. Additionally, it's becoming painfully evident how dependent these films are on Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. I think he has two, maybe three, films as the character left in him. But the franchise is really going to have to take a long look in the mirror once he turns down that contract. But I digress as that is really a convo for another time many years down the road. Other than those rather "background" issues, DOFP gives The Winter Soldier a run for its money as the best comic book movie of the year.

Out of context this picture would be wildly inappropriate.

Many of you trust me to not give away spoilers for films and their plots and I will always stick to that rule. So trust me when I say that to start explaining DOFP's plot would be to spoil it as there are many intricate and small surprises scattered throughout. In case you haven't seen any trailers for it though here is a one sentence rundown: the X-men of the future must travel back in time in order to alter history so that the future they are in never happened. The movie centers heavily around the newer cast from First Class with a lot of focus on Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) as she is essentially the key to everything. Looking at the cast list for this film is enough to make your head spin and you got to give kudos to whoever has been doing the casting for this film over the years. The series pretty much made Hugh Jackman and Halle Barry into stars, made household names of Patrick Stewart (for a new age group) and Ian McKellen (before Gandalf), recruited Jennifer Lawrence and Michael Fassbender before they blew up, and threw in a rising James McAvoy for good measure. That, my friends, is one HELL of a cast with a ton of talent. Suffice it to say that they all do fantastic jobs on this film and they take it so seriously that you begin to realize that the whole wild premise of the story would have floundered under any other cast. Instead, these actors and actresses take their professionalism and skill and apply it fully, Fassbender and McAvoy particularly, adding a depth of Shakespearean feeling to the proceedings. It adds to the sense of an epic scope that has actual weight behind it, something that I think has been missing from this franchise for a very long time.

One of the best scenes of the year and a highlight one for the
franchise as a whole

DJ Magneto about to drop the bass!

That isn't to say that this cast doesn't have fun though. There are jokes dispersed throughout, many of which hit their mark and remind you that this is still a comic book adaptation. As usual, Jackman has some good wisecracks and there are some banters between mutants that fanboys will surely enjoy. Quicksilver, who oddly enough will also be in the next Avengers played by a different actor, has probably the best scene of the movie and its going to be hard for Disney to top it come next May. It's probably one of my favorite scenes of the year, equal parts awesome and hilarious. The other action is superb with some stunning sequences like Magneto lifting a stadium and Sentinels in the future proving just how powerful they are. The scenes in the future, while fairly few in number, are intense and very sad. They immediately let you know just how bad the world has become and how ruthless the new threat is. Which all leads up to an incredible final 30-40 minutes that really took the film from "great" to "amazing" for me. It had a lot of the usual X-men elements in it, but this time the stakes mattered, or at least to me they did. I was reminded several times of Inception and the pacing, original score, script, etc. of that final act are all basically perfect.

Such an iconic scene. Well orchestrated and full of deeper meaning.
What if you could talk to your younger self?

X-Men: Days of Future Past is the very best that the franchise has ever put out. It finally corrects some the issues that I always had with the films and does so with flourish. Much like The Winter Soldier earlier this year, it brings to life one of the better comic book stories to ever be told and nails it. Rather than coming off as "comic book movie" it instead feels like a highly original drama with "comic book elements".

If these are the X-Men films we can look forward to then I am more than willing to put the past behind me and look forward to this franchise's future.

CONS: 

• Peter Dinklage is rather underutilized. What the franchise really needs now is a strong, core villain (which they should get with Apocalypse in 2016)
• The movie was really designed as one big reset button for the franchise. That can be frustrating to some, but I tend to let bygones be bygones and move on from here
• Some of the weight early on is lost since we haven't seen the original cast since 2006
• What is this franchise going to do without Hugh Jackman in a few years?

PROS:

• The story, despite creating probably 100 different continuity issues with the rest of the franchise's films, is superb and really one of the better ones I've ever seen in a comic book film
• The film switches tones flawlessly, ebbing from serious to fun to funny without you even noticing it. This is mainly due to a great screenplay, script, and editing/pacing
• Everyone in the core cast does well. Lawrence gets a lot more time to shine and doesn't disappoint, Stewart and McKellen are living legends, Jackman continues to do the role he was born to do, and McAvoy and Fassbender both prove, once again, why they are some of Hollywood's leading talents right now. I appreciated how serious everyone was about portraying their character as it added a significant amount of weight to the film later on
• Well designed action set pieces and great special effects
• Quicksilver has an amazing scene. Not to be missed
• The historical aspect of the 70s is fun and there are tons of fun nods (and major plot points) tied to American history from that time period
• An often stellar original score, even more so at the end
• Handles the time travel element well and explains it without going to in depth
• The final half hour or so really elevates the whole film. It brings the franchise full circle with regards to character motives and the added dimension of the X-men fighting to survive in the future really gives it an element of urgency and desperation. Many comic books have a great routine but fail to stick the landing. Suffice it to say that Days of Future Past sticks its landing and then some

Rath's Review Score: 9.5/10