Wednesday, 15 October 2014

DVD Review: X-Men Days of Future Past (2014) - Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey stuff



(Possible SPOILERS ahead)


When the X-men movies first came out, they changed the way we looked at superhero movies, and while they may seem a bit dated by today’s standards we can still thank them for helping lay out the foundations for future superhero movies....but then X men 3 happened. Anyone who loves the movies will tell you that number 3 was, to put it nicely, flawed. Then we had origins which actively screwed up the continuity and while it appealed to action movie fans the rest of us gave up on it, and then First Class came out, and while it was an extremely well made movie, led to more questions about certain aspects of the films, so Fox and Bryan Singer came up with a solution. When it came time for the next film, The Wolverine, they gave us an answer to all the confusion in the form of a teaser at the end. That answer, to the delight of X men fans, was Days of Future Past. A time travelling story involving going back in time to change the future, but that required filling in a lot of gaps, so the question is, how well did they do? Let’s find out.

Plot Summary – In the future, robots known as Sentinels have wiped almost all of the mutants, as well as any humans who helped them, so the remaining X men have banded together and come up with a plan. Using Kitty Pride’s  (Ellen Page) newly developed abilities to project someone’s consciousness into the past, they decide to send Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back into 1973 to stop the catalyst of the whole war: Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) killing Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage) and then getting herself captured and used to develop the sentinels that are hunting them in the present. They tell Wolverine he must reunite both a young Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) to stop her.

Pros – The cast is fantastic, both the futuristic and the past settings are both done very well, and the whole story is told very well. They even manage to balance out most of the time travel logic very well. While I won’t spoil it, the ending for the most part only negates X men three and maybe origins and the Wolverine movie from the continuity of the series, which cancels out most of the problems that they caused in the first place.

Cons – I actually liked the Wolverine movie, so I hope that’s somehow still included in the timeline. Anyways, moving on to the real cons, the whole thing can’t help feel like a reboot as well as a sequel, but I can see why they did it. The original cast is getting older and most of them have moved on to other things, so it is time to bring in a new cast and a new time period. I also missed some of the minor characters from first class, and I definitely wish we could’ve seen more of Peter Maximoff (although I suspect we’ll see him in the next film which will be set in the 80’s I think).

Final Score – 9/10

Since the film cancels out most of the problems caused by previous films, the only real complaint I have is about the secondary characters we either don’t see or barely see. Other than that it’s a great film and one I can easily recommend to X men fans.

Fury and The Book of Life are still on my radar for reviews, I’ve just sort of been on a DVD kick lately. So you might see a few more before or after those reviews.

But until then, I’ll see you guys, at the movies.

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