REVIEW -- X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

Note: This is re-post with a few minor additions and revisions since I published this review a bit prematurely by accident.

Bryan Singer is back at it again with another X-Men sequel, X-Men: Days of Future Past, following hot off the heels of the events of X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) and The Wolverine (2013). This film is influenced by the popular comic book storyline of the same name, written by Chris Claremont and John Byrne.

Cast:

Hugh Jackman as Logan / Wolverine
James McAvoy and Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier / Professor X
Michael Fassbender and Ian McKellen as Erik Magnus Lensherr / Magneto
Jennifer Lawrence as Raven Darkhölme / Mystique
Halle Berry as Ororo Munroe / Storm
Anna Paquin as Marie / Rogue
Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde / Shadowcat
Nicholas Hoult and Kelsey Grammer as Hank McCoy / Beast
Peter Dinklage as Bolivar Trask
Shawn Ashmore as Bobby Drake / Iceman
Daniel Cudmore as Peter Rasputin / Colossus
Evan Peters as Pietro Maximoff / Quicksilver
Fan Bingbing as Clarice Ferguson / Blink
Adan Canto as Roberto da Costa / Sunspot
Booboo Stewart as James Proudstar / Warpath
Josh Helman as William Stryker
Lucas Till as Alex Summers / Havok
Evan Jonigkeit as Toad
Gregg Lowe as Ink
Mark Camacho as Richard Nixon

Additionally, James Marsden and Famke Janssen reprise their roles as Cyclops and Jean Grey in cameo appearances in the film.

The Plot: (FULL Spoilers)

In the dystopian future of 2023, sentient robots known as Sentinels are exterminating mutants and humans. A small band of X-Men manage to evade the Sentinels thanks to the powers of Kitty Pryde, who has the ability to project a person's consciousness back in time to deliver warnings.

The X-Men rendezvous with Magneto and Professor Charles Xavier in a monastery in China. They hatch a plan to send Wolverine's consciousness back in time to prevent Mystique from murdering Bolivar Trask, the lead designer of the Sentinels. Trask's assassination will make him a martyr, Mystique will be captured and her mutant powers will be reverse-engineered and used to create the formidable Sentinels of the future. Professor X advises Logan to seek out his younger self for aid.

Wolverine wakes up in 1973 in his younger body. He travels to the X-Mansion, where he encounters the young Hank McCoy and a disheveled Xavier. His school has failed and most of his original X-Men are dead, and this has left him a broken man. He has also lost his telepathic powers through taking serum which allows him to walk again. Wolverine convinces Xavier to break out Magneto — who was convicted of murdering John F. Kennedy — out of a prison cell beneath the Pentagon. They do this with the help of Peter Maximoff, a mutant who can move blindingly fast.

Trask unsuccessfully lobbies to Congress for approval for his Sentinel program. Meanwhile in Saigon, Mystique prevents a young William Stryker from appropriating a group of mutant American GIs for Trask's research. Mystique investigates Trask Industries and discovers he has been capturing and experimenting on mutants, including some of her old comrades. Knowing the assassination of Trask occurs in Paris, Xavier and Magneto board a private plane with Beast and Wolverine in order to intercept Mystique, although the two argue over abandoning each other.

In Paris, the Americans and Vietnamese are negotiating the end to the Vietnam War. Mystique impersonates a Vietnamese general to infiltrate a meeting with Trask. As she is about to kill Trask, Wolverine, Xavier, Magneto and Hank arrive. As he believes that it is the only way to prevent the dark future, Magneto tries to kill Mystique, who flees out a window. The ensuing altercations exposes the mutants in front of onlookers and television cameras.

Although Trask is saved, the world is horrified by the existence of mutants. President Richard Nixon approves Trask's Sentinel program and arranges an unveiling in Washington, D.C. Trask's scientists recover Mystique's blood from the battle site in Paris, which means he can still create the future Sentinels. Magneto intercepts the Sentinel prototypes on their way to Washington and laces them with steel. At the mansion, Xavier eschews his regular serum dose to regain his powers. Through Wolverine, Xavier communes with his future self, and is inspired to struggle for human-mutant peace once again. Using Cerebro, he attempts to tracks Mystique en route to Washington. After overpowering Cerebro, Wolverine ensures Xavier that he would succeed if he tried his own mind.

Nixon unveils the Sentinel prototypes on the White House lawn. As a show of force, Magneto raises the RFK Stadium and deposits it around the White House. He also commandeers the Sentinels and has them attack the crowd. Nixon and Trask are taken to a safe room, followed by a disguised Mystique. Xavier, Wolverine, and Beast try to stop Magneto. Magneto impales Wolverine with rebars and flings him into the Potomac River. In 2023, the X-Men make their final stand as the Sentinels assault the monastery.

Pulling the safe room out of the White House, Magneto aims the cameras at himself and prepares to kill the President with the whole world watching. Mystique tricks Magneto by disguising herself as Nixon and manages to wound him with a plastic gun before shapeshifting back to her true form. Xavier persuades Mystique not to kill Trask and allows her and Magneto to flee. The public sees that the president was saved from Magneto by a mutant and the Sentinel program is cancelled.

Wolverine wakes up in a new timeline in Xavier's school, where he finds finds Iceman, Rogue, Kitty, Colossus, Beast, Storm, Jean Grey and Cyclops alive. Logan finds Xavier, who lets him know that they have a lot of catching up to do. In 1973, Mystique, impersonating Stryker, has Wolverine rescued from the river.

In a post-credits scene, people are bowing and chanting to En Sabah Nur as he creates the Egyptian Pyramids while his Four Horsemen stand in the distance.

The Verdict:

If you follow me on Facebook and Twitter, then you should know that I didn't have high hopes for this film at all, especially when I heard that Bryan Singer was directing a film adaptation to the beloved X-Men comic storyline, "Days of Future Past." Sadly for comic book fans, this is "Days of Future Past" in name only. Fortunately, I am proud to say that this single film corrects most of the damage done to the X-Men franchise and gives them a clean slate for the future. 

Thanks to the folks at IGN, they addressed and explained the post-credits teaser. I thought it was confirmation of what Bryan Singer confirmed a few months ago, stating that Magneto will be "possessed" by Apocalypse and this will lead to another "horrible" future and setting the stage for Days of Future Past's 2016 sequel, X-Men: Apocalypse. I'm not afraid to admit that I'm wrong, but this teaser was merely Apocalypse shown as a young boy. No confirmation on when and where this scene took place in the X-Men timeline, but take note of two things in that post-credits scene: 1) the Egyptians are chanting "En Sabah Nur" - i.e. In other words, they are welcoming the upcoming apocalypse that this young boy will bring. 2) There are four figures on horseback standing in the distance. This is obviously a hint at Apocalypse's Four Horsemen will be at his side in X-Men: Apocalypse as well. 

After managing to do the impossible and undo most of the damage done to the X-Men franchise, Bryan Singer wants to jump right into another potential disaster by introducing Apocalypse? I didn't have faith in Days of Future Past and this film was barely acceptable, but Singer shouldn't stretch his luck and merely hand the X-Men franchise back to Marvel Studios. Call me selfish, but I want X-Men in my Avengers already.

Where to begin on this film? Let's split this film into two separate entities then conclude with my thoughts on the film as a whole. 

The Future in 2023

The film opens with the few remaining X-Men (Warpath, Blink, Sunspot, Iceman, Bishop, Colossus, and Shadowcat) making a seemingly last stand against the incoming Sentinel threat. All of them seem to die in this encounter, only to show up perfectly fine a few minutes later when Professor X, Magneto, Wolverine, and Storm arrive at a disclosed location to greet them. This is my first issue with how this storyline is handled. In the original story by Chris Claremont and John Byrne (who have to be hysterical that FOX has managed to misinterpret TWO of their popular comic book storylines within the span of a single year; 2013's The Wolverine and now this film...) Shadowcat aka Kitty Pryde (portrayed by Ellen Page in this film) only could use her phasing powers to possess and control her own body in the past. In my opinion, that could have made a much more entertaining film, especially given Ellen Page's acting talents, but that idea would have been lost on deaf ears as Shadowcat wasn't developed in this continuity at all as a veteran X-Men as she currently stands in the comics. Of course, Hollywood and everyone else worships Hugh Jackman's Logan/Wolverine as much as Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark/Iron Man, so Bryan Singer went with Wolverine being the protagonist here. 

In all honesty, if you ask me, I don't care how good your "healing factor" is - brain damage is brain damage. Logan's powers shouldn't work for beans if his brains are scrambled, which made no sense why he was the best candidate for going into the past. For example, the Incredible Hulk and Logan fought to a stand-still in the World War Hulk comic book storyline until Hulk gave Logan a concussion. Logan's healing factor wasn't viable at all in that situation, so you're telling me that he's able to "heal his brain" too in this continuity? It was bad enough from what Logan was able to recover from Phoenix/Jean Grey atomizing everything and everyone around them at the end of X-Men: The Last Stand, including reducing Logan to a skeleton, and now this? F'N Bryan Singer... ugh. 

Okay, okay. Rant over. 

Another stupid thing on sending Logan back to the past... Why didn't they strap him down or magnetize his limbs to the table for he wouldn't flail around in his sleep with his claws and stab Kitty in the first place? They chose the worst people guard Logan and Shadowcat in the interior of the stronghold. What the hell is Professor Xavier going to do to a damn Sentinel?  Is he going to get out of his wheelchair and look for the off switch? I marked for Iceman when I was a kid but damn, seeing him and Magneto go down like pushovers was just damn pathetic. At least Storm, Colossus, Warpath, and Sunspot went down with a fight. Blink stole the show for me though. 

Screw everyone else in the future, it was all about Blink and her awesomeness. 

It took like 4 Sentinels to put her down for good. For non-comic book savvy viewers, I don't expect them to understand the fan service that Bryan Singer gave comic book fans with her even being in this film, period. One thing that's odd is Fan Bingbing is contracted to FOX for five more X-Men films. Really? FOX thinks they can milk this for FIVE more films? And here I thought Sony was nuts about how far they want to stretch a Spider-Man themed cinematic universe...

I want to slap Bryan Singer for how stupid Bishop looks and how his powers functioned. Bishop does NOT need a gun to fire off the redirected kinect energy he absorbs. He's used it as an option in the comics - it's not a requirement. 

Lastly, let's talk about the future iterations of Sentinels. They are using Mystique's powers to "adapt" against mutants' attacks. Allow me to explain why this is stupid. Mystique's powers is merely taking someone's physical appearance. She CANNOT duplicate any other mutants' powers and abilities. This sounds like Bryan Singer was trying to make these Sentinels into a loose interpretation of Prime Sentinels from the comics that were human/machine hybrids. If he actually read a comic book, wouldn't he know that those Sentinels would have made more sense to integrate into this film if humankind were creating anti-mutant countermeasures? Prime Sentinels were able adapt and evolve from every combat experience and attack used on them. Since this is the future of Sentinels, where's Nimrod? Oh wait, that's what all of these future age Sentinels' are supposed to look like. Ugh, can someone buy Bryan Singer some comic books to read or hire me to slap him when he blurts out ideas for his comic book-related films?

I must admit though, the 3D effects for this film were their best while amplifying the already stellar action sequences during this portion of the film. 

The Past in the 1970s

Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique is still something I have to get used to, but I suppose she's an acceptable replacement for Rebecca Romijn's Mystique. The narrative loosely follows the comic's plot, mainly borrowing the idea that Mystique is cause of humanity's catastrophic future. There's just no Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in this film, namely for the fact that Magneto's "associates" from the end of X-Men: First Class were all killed off, thanks to Dr. Bolivar Trask's experiments. Bravo for finding a way to write-off all of those characters that no one cared about, except for Emma Frost aka the White Queen (played by January Jones in First Class), but I'm sure they are going to recast her in a future film anyway. Did anyone even care that she was literally a James Bond villain's eye candy to Sebastian Shaw anyway?

You can take off your 3D glasses off after this sequence. That's as good as it's going
to get outside of the future tense setting.

From all of the stupid Hardee's commercials and other miscellaneous bad advertising for this film, I have to admit I didn't mind Quicksilver's role in this film. It was short and sweet. He didn't stick around longer than he was needed and provided a bit of foreshadowing if they wished to explore that fact that he is Magneto's son in a future X-Men film. This was given away when he said, "Hmm, funny. My mom said she used to be into a guy who could control metal too..." Regardless, I'm still anxious to see what Josh Whedon and his team does with their version of this character in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

To the people who are already saying that this iteration of Quicksilver will blow Whedon's out of the water - please shut up. Whedon and FOX are doing two different interpretations of the same character. 

James McAvoy's fall from grace as the young Charles Xavier was handled beautifully in this film as we saw him mature and grow into the Professor Xavier that we know that will come to form and lead the X-Men in the future. We saw him at his worst point of his life, only to bounce back, stronger and better than before. If that's not what the X-Men is about (overcoming adversity and life's hurdles) then I don't know what is. Everyone seems to give Michael Fassbender all the props when talking about X-Men: First Class and this film, but McAvoy put on an amazing performance in both films. I am perfectly fine with him taking over as Xavier in future films - whenever Patrick Stewart decides to step down and call it quits. 

Michael Fassbender is easily the better Magneto between him and Ian McKellen. If I'm perfectly honest, I never liked the idea of someone as old as him playing Magneto in the first place. McKellen is a superb actor, but they could have casted someone a tad bit young and die his hair. Naturally, Fassbender shines as Magneto takes the reigns as this film's "true" villain, while his future counterpart becomes a martyr for the sake of a better future. It was even cooler to see Fassbender don the "traditional" (close enough to it, anyway...) Magneto costume for the film's climax.

Hugh Jackman doesn't disappoint as Logan/Wolverine, but it was a bit surprising to see him step back and stand on the sidelines for the duration of this film as a coach and mentor to the young First Class cast. This is Wolverine's least action-packed adventure to date. I guess that's the price he has to pay for being the only X-Man with two solo films and that cameo in First Class. I have to wonder what Mystique is going to do with Logan disguised as William Stryker. Remember X-Men, X2: X-Men United, X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and The Wolverine are ALL not canon to this continuity anymore after Logan's mission successfully altered the future. That being said, I could see Hugh Jackman returning as Wolverine for the rumored X-Force film that FOX has on the horizon. That would be a perfect excuse to bring back Sunspot and Warpath as well.

I have to feel sorry for Hank McCoy/Beast in this film. He is merely reduced to Charles Xavier's sidekick, or rather his Alfred to his Batman. He has some decent fight sequences here, but I thought Beast kicked more ass in X-Men: The Last Stand. Sadly, that was one of the only good things to remember from that film. 

Like how I ended The Future section above, let's end on the Sentinels. The first generation Sentinels were just utterly retarded. I had my hopes up for them to be reminiscent of the ones from the '90s animated series, but nope, we get this lackluster models. Out of the eight Sentinels that Magneto had guarding the perimeter of the White House, only ONE attacked Wolverine and Beast. If all of them came at them at once, it would have been over instantly. Also, why didn't the Sentinels attack Xavier? Are we supposed to expect them to have mercy since he was buried underneath that debris? That whole final showdown between Magneto and his Sentinels versus Xavier, Beast, and Wolverine was a complete letdown and served as the biggest disappointment that this film had to offer. The plot introduced other mutants early on, so why didn't they come to Xavier and Mystique's aid in the finale, especially after seeing what was transpiring on television?

A part of me wishes that Singer used the concept from the Wolverine & The X-Men cartoon where there was an open line of communication between the past and present at all times of the plot. Maybe it's asking too much, but I wanted to see possible prototype (or blueprints) for Master Mold that could have been teased for the future, instead of the faceless puppeteers behind the Sentinels in the future. 

Closing Thoughts

"I don't want your suffering... I don't want your future!"

Arguably, the best quote to come out of this film, and it was exactly how I felt when I was leaving the movie theater after the midnight showing. 

In a lot of ways, this film seemed to be unintentionally making fun of the superhero genre. There was the random nude Logan scene that was reminiscent of Thor: The Dark World, then the pointless football stadium anticlimactic device used by Magneto that was reminiscent of The Dark Knight Rises, while a lot of detective/footwork done in the style of both Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy and Marvel Studios' own Iron Man 3. 

At the same time, I felt like this film had to make fun of the genre and namely itself. Let's face it - the X-Men franchise as been full of disappointments in almost every sequel after the original X-Men title. Much like Charles Xavier, this franchise had to pick itself up and have hope that they could succeed for a better future. If you can't laugh at your past mistakes and face the unknown future with confidence, then you're better off stopping here and now. Instead, X-Men: Days of Future Past serves as a symbol of hope for X-Men's die-hard fans, showing that maybe there is still hope for X-Men to succeed on the silver screen. Bryan Singer brought back every staple character for one last hurrah which served as an apology and visual goodbye to X-Men cast from the original trilogy. Who knows what is going to happen to them in the future, but I was fine with the "happy" ending for them in the future. I would be completely fine if this film served as the closure to the complete X-Men franchise before they handed the rights to X-Men back to Marvel Studios for future films.

Singer is even free to recast and restructure the X-Men roster from here on out. If the X-Men are starting over from scratch, then I wouldn't mind seeing Cyclops, Jean Grey, Iceman, and possibly Polaris all cast for the upcoming sequel (joining Beast) as the young Xavier's new recruits if they are doing another dual timeline adventure to cope with the tyranny of Apocalypse.

It's not the Days of Future Past that comic book fans are familiar with, but at the same time, the narrative isn't too far of a stretch nor steps out of it's boundaries that it completely alienates the source material. Instead, Bryan Singer's work actually respects the source material to an extent. From start to finish, this film felt like an apology letter to X-Men fans, old and new, as he invites viewers back for one more adventure with our "old friends". 

In one fell swoop, Bryan Singer has a clean slate to work with without having to struggle to keep everything canon in future sequels. I just hope Singer doesn't put us through all of this suffering of more bad X-Men sequels in the future. (Pleads) Please don't put us through another The Last Stand-style X-Men flop... I want to see X-Men do as well as the Avengers in future films. This was a great start, just don't screw it up, FOX. 

Days of Future Past wasn't the best X-Men film to date; it was the first standout film since the original. It felt more like damage control and light-hearted apology from Bryan Singer, hoping to regain the viewers' faith after his string of disappointments and misrepresentation of the beloved X-Men franchise over the last decade. I'm giving X-Men: Days of Future Past an 8.25 out of 10. If you have to see it in 3D, I suggest only wearing the glasses during the future segments and taking them off during the past portions. Otherwise, I suggest just saving that money and seeing it in standard definition.