What They Say:
The ultimate X-Men ensemble fights a war for the survival of the species across two time periods in X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST. The beloved characters from the original “X-Men” film trilogy join forces with their younger selves from “X-Men: First Class,” in an epic battle that must change the past — to save our future.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
When it comes to any long running franchise, you have to take the bad with the good. X-Men, in its comic book form, was one of my defining experiences for many years as I had started reading the original series back in the 170 issue range when Rogue joined the group and I spent many a wonderful year collecting back issues and enjoying these characters lives. When the movie adaptations came, I was definitely excited for it, but the experiences have not been enjoyable for the most part. While most enjoy the first two films and lambast the third, I still find little to like about any of them. The first Origins movie certainly fits in the same way as it just doesn’t work well. What has largely managed to salvage my interest in the franchise has been the last two movies; X-Men: First Class and The Wolverine. So I had some decent hopes for X-Men: Days of Future Past to do the course correction that’s needed.
Unfortunately, while it does do that, it does it in a kind of way that kills the passion even more.
The premise of the film is straightforward enough as you get events in the future where both mankind and mutantkind have been brutally taken down by the creation of the Sentinels, machines that were made to eliminate the mutant threat. But that went horribly wrong as the Sentinel’s saw enemies everywhere as they realized that over time, down the line in generations, that normal humans would produce mutants and they were being properly proactive. And naturally, there are those humans that would help mutants as well and they were cause to be eliminated as well. In this bleak future, Professor Xavier and Magneto have been working together with the small ragtag group of mutants that are left and trying to both survive and find ways to push back and win against such a superior force. That chance, small as it is, is to mentally send one of them back in time fifty years into the past to change the key course of events that involves Mystique which lead to the creation of the Sentinels.
Standard time travel storyline material that’s been the staple of the genre for years as it allows for so many fun things to happen. With Hugh Jackman serving as the bridge between future and past, we get the one character that was in both versions of the cast, albeit briefly in First Class, while allowing the original cast one last chance to be together on the big screen, even if it’s just some small cameos. One of the advantages for me with First Class was that outside of fifteen seconds or so of Wolverine being in it, it was a Wolverine free movie. All the movies otherwise have been heavily focused on the character, for obvious reasons, so there was appeal there. And I had hoped that while I like the actors from the original cast, that the First Class relaunch would just go off on its own path, not try to connect to what had come before, and just be its own thing. But the desire to tamper, correct and connect is obviously there. And there was also a need in the minds of some I’m sure to erase mistakes of the past.
Sadly, that just introduces more mistakes here. When it comes to the X-Men film universe, it’s best to try and avoid making everything work since often it didn’t work within its own individual films for characters and connections. With the timeline involved, this film being set in 1973 and events fifty years in the future, it’s just a mess in trying to figure out how old people would be, especially when trying to connect to the previous films and their dated aspects as well, particularly since some characters wouldn’t really age all that much externally. The problem for me is that I do try to think of these things while watching it and it’s just a huge distraction because so much doesn’t really make sense. It just leaves me wishing that they had made them two completely separate timelines that could crossover and deal with things, in turn providing a proper and clean new future for the new cast to work with while giving us a dark ending for the original cast. But in the end, everyone has to be happy. And while I did like that aspect of it, small cameos and all and the nice emotion of it with Xavier and Logan, it just made this feel more like an original cast movie than a new cast movie. And that’s a huge disservice.
While I had liked some of Bryan Singer’s earlier films, and some of the choices he had to make with the original X-Men that had to be done due to the time it was made when you couldn’t have costumes, I’ve certainly had less interest in his work since he went off and did Superman Returns and other films that have just fallen flat for me. When Matthew Vaughn dropped out of this to do Kingsman, I was really nervous and wary when Singer came on. And he pretty much proved that wariness right for me here. When it comes to the future sequence and the original cast, he provides a great looking series of locales and action sequences that works very well and makes for some stylish time. With the cast involved, the variety of powers and an impossible foe to win against, we get the kind of X-Men material that should have been done back years ago. But it is a small part of the film overall, serving as mixed-bookend material. It’s the push and connection to the past, but it’s a doomed area that’s simply going to end so it gets some solid attention.
When the film deals with the 1970’s, it just falls completely flat. Completely. Flat. There’s no sense of style, energy or movement here that engages. The pacing is just plodding in its approach, haphazard as he has to deal with so many characters across so many locations with their various subplots that will come towards the big action finale that it’s like it’s moving through mud at times. It also comes across as very flat in its look and design as it doesn’t come to life. You can make the argument that in comparison to the 60’s, the 70’s were blander, but that’s not really the case. One of the things that was a huge appeal with First Class was the way that Vaughn directed the film with its various cuts, the energy infused into it and the entire visual design and style of it. Singer doesn’t seem to know how to bring any of that in here, and he’s not even really dealing with an origin story. Origin stories are so overdone at this point that that could have been a huge stumbling block for First Class but it instead tied it to the decade well and made it wholly engaging and fun. Here, we get some awkward Nixon material, a touch of Vietnam and little else of historical context to work with to really make it come to life.
And this also feels the same when it comes to the cast. It’s easy to envision Singer excited to work with the cast that he started all of this with after so many years, to play with those toys again and orchestrate a great event. And he does that with the future storyline. Every time that’s on screen, it pops and comes to life. But he doesn’t know what to do with the 70’s cast. Mystique’s change from how we saw her is given a perfunctory nod but we’re not made to feel it. Beast is underutilized while working with Logan and most of the others that populated the first film are nowhere to be seen. No Moira, no Banshee. Havok gets a brief nod while Angel and those that Magneto worked with are largely exiled to off-screen deaths years before.
That puts the focus on the leads of First Class with Charles and Erik. Which isn’t bad, because the two of them had great chemistry and brought the characters to life so well in First Class. They have some strong moments here, few and far between, such as when they finally get to the heart of matters between each other on the plane and with the change in direction at the end of the film. But beyond that, they’re both on separate paths and dealing with things on their own. Erik’s off bringing events together to deal with the Sentinels himself in order to shape the right future while Charles wants to just give up because of how much he’s lost over the decade between events in the two films. His redemption has its moments, especially when he engages with his future self, but there’s just not enough compelling material here with it mixing in so many other story plot points that are going on, especially with Trask moving towards his goals of getting a Sentinels contract and Mystique tracking him so she can kill him for the crimes he’s committed.
Singer just doesn’t know how to work with the original cast and time period. And it shows badly.
In Summary:
X-Men: Days of Future Past corrects things that need correcting, essentially eliminating X-Men Origins: Wolverine and X3: The Last Stand but also guts pieces of The Wolverine as well. If you look at this film as the proper swan song for the original cast outside of Hugh Jackman who has a few more films left in him, it works very well because those scenes are strong, distinctive and would make for a great mini-movie on its own without any of the 1970’s based material. I’d be curious to see how well that runs by itself. The First Class cast is woefully underserved here with very little good material to work with, to much running around going on with so many subplots and some really flat and uninspired visual design. There are great moments, particularly the ending fight sequence in Washington D.C. and the whole Quicksilver scene, but those are small gems in an otherwise dull film.
Grade: C
