The Perfect Marriage of Two Continuities

Rating: 8/10 (23 May 2014)

Days of Future Past is a brilliant amalgamation of both eras of the X-Men franchise. After Origins and First Class, it was presumed we'd never see the traditional cast set in the modern day again. Then Wolverine came along set almost ten years after the events of Last Stand, and it also teased Days of Future Past with Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen appearing in the post-credits scene. Days of Future Past, in that respect, feels like having your cake and eating it too. It's a direct sequel to two completely different movies in the franchise, containing the casts of both eras, and using the perfect source material to do so. It ties everything together really nicely by default of having all these actors together.
However, while it does tie the two strands together, it also takes gross liberties with continuity. If you watch all seven movies in release order, you'll start to notice a number of things don't add up. The most crucial is, after Last Stand, how are Xavier and Magneto alive and fully operational? Xavier died, and Magneto lost his powers, but they're quite obviously around and kicking twenty years later. Obviously there are explanations. The end of Last Stand hints at Magneto's powers returning, and Xavier mentioned transporting his conscious to another body, however none of these are even mentioned in Days of Future Past. You're expected just to go along with it. Another fairly crucial bit of continuity is Wolverine's claws. Obviously in 1973 they're not coated in adamantium, while in 2023 they are. Problem with this is that Wolverine lost the adamantium coating at the end of Wolverine, which is set in the present day. It's hard to believe Wolverine would willingly get his claws re-coated in the ten years between. There's a number of other little niggles, but they're honestly not worth pointing out.
Balancing that out, however, are a number of great nods to previous events. Obviously a lot is carried over from First Class as it picks up on Magneto, Xavier, and Beast almost ten years later. For me, the greatest nod to the running plot of the franchise, however, is that of Wolverine's origin. I mean when you really think about it, Origins is pretty much redacted, but I think almost everyone did that in their heads already, so it's no loss. The running plot of Wolverine's turmoil is touched on once again here as he finds himself face-to-face with a young William Stryker. This emotional jarring has some pretty huge ramifications on the story, which is great, and it's picked up again at the end to explain how he's still got adamantium grafted to his bones.
The story itself is pretty great, although I can't say it's without it's holes (the most crucial of which I've already mentioned). Being a time-travel story, it will always take a number of watches and some thinking through to really connect all the dots and make sure everything works, but with Days of Future Past, it doesn't even matter. The wider continuity has little to no effect on the story the movie wants to tell. There are nods here and there, but you can tell they just wanted to tell a good X-Men story without having to worry about everything, and they did. There's some great character work here, with Xavier at his lowest point, Magneto slipping into his villainous persona we all know, Mystique's struggle of choice over destiny, and Wolverine's past constantly coming back to him. It's also pretty unpredictable. Once we entered the third act I just thought to myself; 'I know we're nearing the end, but I don't have a clue how they're going to solve this.' But what I liked most was how the future glimpse wasn't merely used a bookend, but it's revisited a number of times throughout, ramping up the tension and raising the stakes even higher than they already were.
The visuals were pretty great, as were the action scenes themselves. The post-apocalyptic future that needs to be avoided is bleak. New York City is in ruins, and everywhere is patrolled by these nigh-invincible Sentinels (that actually look a lot like the Destroyer in Thor). Beyond the landscapes and sentinels, the effects work here is pretty great too. It all looks quite obviously futuristic with bizarre flying carriers for the sentinels and holographic gadgets, but also the mutant abilities are rendered really well. Colossus and Iceman of course turn their skin into another material, but there's other's like Blink's portals and Bishops...ability, whatever the hell that was. There's also a great scene with Quicksilver taking on a whole room of guards in his own sweet time, and having a load of fun with it; moving the guards so they punch themselves, or trip over nothing, moving the bullets so they miss their targets, all the while listening to some pretty at-odds music.
Days of Future Past isn't the best film, it's not the best superhero film, hell it's not even the best X-Men film (although on that last one, it's not far off), but it's a thoroughly enjoyable romp nonetheless. If nothing else, it's an excuse to see Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen together once again. It's the perfect way to tie together the franchise's separate continuities and give us fans the best of both worlds. There's also a cheeky post-credits scene, so make sure you stay for that. We were literally the only ones waiting for it (amateurs), and while it probably means more to those who read the comics, it implies some pretty monumental things to come in Age of Apocalypse. I give Days of Future Past a very good 8/10.
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