Pryde and Prejudice

Rating: Null/10 (27 May 2014)

"And if you tolerate this, your children will be next." - Nicky Wire
Homosapiens are bigoted jerks in "X-Men: Days of Future Past". Fearful of difference, and so seeking to annihilate all with genetic mutations, mankind initiates a plan to capture and kill all deviants. Assisting in this goal is the Sentinel Project, a fleet of robots designed (ironically) by a physically handicapped dwarf named Trask (Peter Dinklage). Fighting for peace, understanding and tolerance is Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart). Fighting for mutant dominance is Magneto (Ian McKellan), a mutant whose hate has been forged by both the Holocaust and years of anti-mutie sentiment. "Days of Future Past" was directed by Bryan Singer, a homosexual.
"Future Past" opens in the near future. On a dark, claustrophobic, fake-looking sound-stage, a rag-tag group of mutants battle robotic Sentinels. Those looking for the lumbering, gargoyle-faced Sentinels of the X-men comics will be disappointed. Singer's art departments have created quick-moving, liquid-metal beasts. No longer slow, monstrous and towering over whole buildings, these new Sentinels are mostly derivative, unimaginative and small. Singer has replaced monstrous Easter Island statues with high-tech ballerinas.
"Future Past" then branches off into two story lines. In one, set in the early 1970s, our heroes attempt to prevent Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from unwittingly sparking a war between humans and mutants. In another, set in the 21st century (and reminiscent of the overwhelming Sentinal attack in "Matrix 3"), a band of mutants attempt to hold back a horde of Sentinels. These future war sequences are mostly disappointing. Where the X-men comics portrayed this future as an expansive, rubble strewn battlefield (reminiscent of the war-torn future of James Cameron's "Terminator" movies), Bryan Singer gives us small, cheap sets and kung-fu robots.
Singer's 1970s storyline plays better. Here we meet Quicksilver (Evan Peters), who's granted a playful action sequence which almost rivals Singer at his past best. More poor set design follows (an unconvincing Vietnam, train-station, Pentagon etc), and yet another Magneto prison break, before Singer climaxes with an audacious set-piece in which Magneto cleverly cages the White House. This sequence expertly blends spectacle and emotion - Singer conveys well Mystique's bitterness, her self-hatred, as well as Xavier's overflowing love and compassion - but ultimately boils down to a very old cliché: a character grappling with whether or not to pull a trigger.
The "X-Men" franchise has been one of the most poorly planned franchises in cinema history. No episode flows coherently into the next, each episode feels stand-alone and hastily cobbled together, and each film spends all its time setting up things that promise to happen but never do. The franchise has very little continuity, very little carries over from one film to the next, and those characters who do heavily reappear (Wolverine, Magneto, Xavier) tend to merely go through the same motions. There is no progression. Ever. "Days of Future Past" epitomises this "refusal to move" by literally resetting and negating whole chunks of its own franchise.
Such poor planning is annoying, because few superhero brands have as much potential (and real world relevance) as the "X-Men". A great writer could do wonderful things with Magneto and Xavier, the former a freedom fighter turned fascist (and whose villainy is understandable, complex and at times even justified), the latter a tortured idealist, but Singer's writers are mostly hacks. The moral gravity that these two characters broach is never properly exploited. Put Xavier and Magneto over a chessboard and the sparks will fly naturally, sans CGI, but Singer's writers are rarely up to the task.
Some have complained that "Future Past" messily jumps from past to future. But a bigger problem is the scatter-shot nature of the entire filmed franchise. The series perhaps deserved a writer who slowly, meticulously and incrementally sketches the "X-Men" mythology, starting from the birth of the first mutant, to the formation of Xavier's school for outcasts, to perhaps an entire episode focusing on man on mutant genocide/persecution. Then, and only then, after he has experienced the second Holocaust of his lifetime, work towards Magneto's meltdown, his bloody victory over humanity, and finally mankind's last ditch effort to create Sentinels. Too linear? Too traditional? Maybe, but it might have upped the stakes. Currently, nothing matters in the "X-men" franchise. Ironically, the franchise's scatter-shot, never-ending style perfectly echoes the nature of comic-books, in which characters are continuously and flippantly rebooted, resurrected and re-imagined.
"Future Past" co-stars James McAvoy, who is excellent, and Michael Fassbender, who isn't given much to do. Bryan Singer's direction is fine, but can't touch his work on "X1" and "X2". Bizarrely for a film set in the early 1970s, "Future Past" features Tasers, complex robots and advanced genetic manipulation.
7/10 – Worth two viewings. See Menno Meyjes' "Max".