Back to the FuturePast

Rating: 9/10 (26 May 2014)

Just a forewarning, this is not the type of review where I will attempt to dissect how faithful this film was to its comic book source material, because for one: I don't have the Marvel universe knowledge to even begin to argue with fanboys who attempt to pick apart my review based on semantics, which have nothing to do with anything cinematic, and secondly: I simply don't care. My only job is to judge what I saw on screen. And what I saw on screen was a film which, in my opinion, currently ranks as one of the greatest superhero movies set in the Marvel universe.
Synopsis: In a not too distant post apocalyptic future, where most mutants have been eradicated, Wolverine (Huge Jackman) Professor X (Patrick Stewart) Magneto (Ian McKellen) Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) Storm (Halle Berry) and a few other (lesser) superheroes find themselves cornered, with enemies quickly approaching. These new enemies are called Sentinels and they are the brainchild of Dr. Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage). These mutant hunting robots where obviously designed to seek out and destroy all mutants and more importantly constructed in such a way that, in large groups, they are virtually unbeatable. With death assuredly in their near future, the surviving X-Men's only choice is to send Wolverine back in time (for some reason, with no clothes on) to the inception of the Sentinel (the 1970's) in order to reunite young Professor X (James McAvoy) young Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) and find a way to modify history; hence the title. And before I move on, I must take a moment to say that, yes, the acting from top to bottom was as good as the star studded line up would have you believe.
You can go ahead and forget about "X-Men: The Last Stand" and "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" (the two films which nearly killed the once proud X-Men franchise). Brought back from an eleven year hiatus to direct this X-Men/"X-Men: First Class" tie-together, through impressive direction, with the help of a strong screenplay (containing just the right amount of characters) from Simon Kinberg, Bryan Singer fully reestablishes the X-Men franchise as the best superhero movie franchise still running. So, whether or not Singer is found guilty of the alleged teenage sexual abuse of Michael Egan, the man knows his way around an X-Men movie. TOO SOON! In "X-Men: Days of Future Past" I recognized a lot of the same aspects that once had me proclaiming "X-Men" and "X2" to be my favorite superhero movies of all time (before the arrival of the Dark Knight series, of course). Displaying clever banter between fully realized characters, a superb storyline full of social subtext while finding a nice balance between campy dramatization and Dark Knight seriousness, action packed visuals stemming from a variety of superheroes with a variety of super powers, accented with some skilled direction, and new and innovative ways to intertwine Marvel history with actual historical events, the amount of thought and care put into this production was palpable.
Final Thought: If I wanted to make this review even longer, I could wax on about the set design, which is pretty award worthy in and of itself. Or I could write another 700 words on how brilliantly choreographed the Jim Croce scored Quicksilver fight sequence was. But by this time you've undoubtedly made up your mind as to whether or not you will be going to see "X-Men: Days of Future Past". So I'll leave you with one last note: If you know what you're seeing, the post credits teaser will be the greatest so far. And for those of you think I'm wrong, please don't defend your argument by bringing up that stupid Avengers shawarma scene.