X-Men: Days of Future Past - A Short Review

 Originally published 5/26/14

Saturday we went to see X-Men: Days of Future Past. I was blown away. I may be biased as I was more excited to see this movie than anything else this summer and Days of Future Past is one of my favorite story arcs in comics. I set really high expectations, which surprisingly, Days of Future Past met.

Front to back, this movie executed to the best of its ability. It was able to create its own worth as well as amplify the power of the previous film, X-Men: First Class, and even the other films in Fox's X-Men franchise.

Taut from the beginning, the movie throws information at you and expects you to keep up. Its pace slows a bit after the opening sequence, using character introduction and early exposition to get you up to speed, only to repeat the process. This helps increase the sense of urgency in the story as well as driving home a couple of the films themes.

The film wastes very little screen time. Bryan Singer and the filmmakers show you that the one thing that's going to be more spectacular than the action sequences are the characters and story itself. Very few shots focus solely on the spectacle of the computer generated imagery (which is great-looking, by the way). The visual language of the film is consistent, the cinematography interesting, and most of all, the filmmakers never forget what the movie is: A character story; all of the action is still steeped in character (dat Quicksilver scene). In fact, the prettiest looking shots in the film are dialogue scenes and close-ups.

I think my favorite part of Days of Future Past is the writing and the acting. Whether it was in the beginning of the writing phase, or somewhere along the way, the filmmakers realized that they had some of the best actors working today, in roles large and small, and pretty much told them to turn the feels on full blast. Everyone turns in a sparkling performance, whether it was the sad and disconnected performance by Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, or the brilliant role reversal of McAvoy as the angry and emotionally unstable Professor Xavier, while Michael Fassbender plays the now calm and resolved version of Magneto he becomes. Then of course there is a small scene with McAvoy and Sir Patrick, which is giving me feels just thinking about.

All gushing aside, I have a couple minor complaints. Most of the major characters from First Class were written out, or more or less and afterthought. The elements of those characters are definitely hinting at the future of the story, whether it becomes tangible or not, which added depth to the film, but in a sense it also seemed tacked on to remind you that those characters mattered.

I also can't help but want more of the future story. I understand what it had to be to increase the tension of the story, but the most Oscars are on the future side of the story, and you can never have too much of Sir Patrick and Sir Ian. It would have also been really awesome to see more of the future mutants and understand their story, because Bishopppppppppppppppppppp.

X-Men: Days of Future Past is the best X-Men movie to date, but not just because of its own power and execution, but because the filmmakers did what I thought couldn't be done: Reverse the damage done by the not-so-great X-Men and Wolverine films. See it immediately.