X-Men: Days of Future Past

Whoever wins the war between mutants & machines, better hope that machines conquer the world. It'll be a gloomy future, folks.

“The best comic-book movie ever”, proclaimed by some of the America’s top critics, huh? Eh, let’s try “respectable.” X-Men: Days of Future Past is an enjoyable, if clumsy film that still has continuity issues with dealing with 14 years of source material that either counts or doesn’t anymore. The movie is set in the near future, 2023, to be exact, as mutants and humans have either been eradicated or put into internment camps in a world ruled by Sentinels, the robots who play the role of judge, jury & executioner. In order to stop these events from advancing or taking place, Wolverine is sent 50 years in the past by Kitty Pride to prevent this bleak future from ever taking place. It's a pretty screwed up situation for both time periods either dealing with political upheavals of dealing with the mutant race and the desolate future.

This is, perhaps, the first X-Men film where I can say that the group works well as a team battling against all odds with moments of them battling just to survive the brutality. While it would've been nice to have back stories of characters Bishop, Warpath and Blink; but, alas, we get no knowledge of their motivations to help out. They’re just there with no explanation to serve the story proper. I mean, cool, you want to move stuff along to input more narrative into this movie, yet, we can't even get an explanation of Kitty's new-found powers to send younger version of people to the past? Again, the continuity problems that are in this movie and the franchise doesn't get covered enough. Simply put, I was confused in spots. Given that First Class seemingly rebooted the franchise quietly, I'd expect that some events from that film would be the launching pad for this series, and, while, there are attempts to stretch the stories from the first three movies, though, it all feels weird. The special effects, especially, feel that way through a couple of sequences; the Quicksilver moment, in particular, is among my complaints when it comes to this. The scene, itself, isn't that bad; however, the effect of his power is lacking. Honestly, I saw more visual fidelity with that character during the after credits of Captain America 2.

The acting is as good as the performances from First Class led by the core performances by James McAvoy & Michael Fassbender. They once again build on their relationship from their first movies portrayals of Charles Xavier/Professor X and Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto, respectively, than their elder counterparts. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen have their own moments in the present, just not to the same effect, given that the actors are offered little to do during their portrayals. I also must give props to Hugh Jackman, who's usually status quo as Wolverine, this is easily his best performance as the character, in my opinion; and, Jennifer Lawrence is fine as Mystique. The writing isn't the best, but the performances make up for it. Also, the future Sentinels are pretty entertaining, as you witness some of your favorite X-men be dealt with in ways that are unimaginable. 

This isn't the greatest comic-book film of all-time or the only fun you’ll have at the theaters all summer, but after some installments of this series that left me to question its worth, Days of Future Past is a step in the right direction. It's not better than First Class or even X2, but it's a doable experience. Now, whoever helms X-Men: Apocalypse (since director Bryan Singer has some legal issues to tend to), lets ease off frequent teases; slow pacing would be nice.

Good: Very good acting, solid action, Nice-looking Sentinels

Bad: The plot is all-over the place, Some corny lines

Quicksliver scene? Meh, I've seen better.

*** out of 5

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Movie Review)

            

Spider-Man's either helping out with a certain villain or has been playing too much "Brave Firefighter" from Sega.

            The Amazing Spider-Man 2 picks up a year after the events of the first movie, where Peter Parker has gotten into his role as Spider-Man. Also, from the first film, we finally uncover what ended up happening with Parker’s parents, which, I have to say was a highly intense sequence, because of the stakes that led to them being found by one of Oscorp’s hired assassins to take out the two of them to prevent Oscorp from being compromised. From there, I was anticipating what I was in store for the rest of my viewing and little did I know, I was actually astonished at how strong much of the framework is with this movie.  

Clearly, a lot of time was taken to develop Peter into a character that is more multi-faceted than just his love life with Gwen Stacy. Those moments are grand, don’t get me wrong, but the problem with the past Spider-Man movies was they did go for the hackneyed routine once too often either to force a couple of meaningless story elements (i.e. Paying rent, Raimi’s adaptation of the Stacey family, so on). Here, they don’t tend to force their love story like the other movies did and to add to that point, Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone’s chemistry is damn good. Besides the chemistry between those key leads, Garfield is a way better Peter Parker/Spider-Man than Tobey Maguire ever was. While, I’m not knocking Maguire for his performances, but seeing his movies in comparison to these films is light years compared to the many compilations of “Maguire-face.” If there’s an actor who tried to act “too cool” on-screen, it was Garfield’s predecessor (see: Spider-Man 3) and not him. Andrew conveys believably and trust as the Web-Slinger and that’s all without overplaying the role. Emma’s role is more exemplified, profound and varied. And, she’s always there to help out her man, even in battle. But that speaks to the level of depth that these actors are given here in a realistic setting. Both actors understand the stakes that their individual character is given.

Jamie Foxx, Dane Dehaan and Sally Field give strong performances as Max Dillon/Electro, Harry Osborn and Aunt May. I haven’t gotten a chance to observe Dehaan much other than his performance in Chronicle, but the guy has range. Same for Field, who seems to have excellent rapport with Garfield; there was a scene where I nearly teared up because her character was in a desperate place with her nephew. And, of course, Foxx who seemed to be enjoying the hell out of his respective role as the delusional Dillon who wants acceptance, even if it’s faint. Whenever Sinister Six or Amazing 3 comes out, Give Paul Giamatti a raise, please? He only has two scenes as Aleksei Sytsevich/Rhino, yet, they’re so, so good. Did I mention that he has a hammed up Russian accent, as well? Even better.        

Even the way the film sounds with its original composition by Hans Zimmer, Arturo Sandoval, Johnny Marr, Pharrell (though, he’s the “voices in Electro’s head), Mike Einzinger (from Incubus), & David A. Stewart (from the Eurythmics). A team so big, that they’re called “The Magnificent Six,” a nod to the supervillain team “The Sinister Six” of Rhino, Doctor Otto Octavius, Vulture, Mysterio, Kraven the Manhunter & Sandman. Zimmer is a natural at producing thematic material and here, he shows why he’s a master at his craft here. If you want to understand a thematic theme for a character, I implore the reader to listen to “Electro Suite” and “My Enemy” from the Amazing Spider-Man 2 soundtrack for more background. The craftsmanship from the entire crew of those two scores are delightful as they are haunting. It doesn't surpass the Man of Steel composition from Zimmer last year; though, it’s its own thing.

As I close this review, I don’t have a definitive problem with Amazing 2 except that it does harbor Raimi fan boys who cling to the older films like people who hold on to outdated technology, so, in that respect, that’s my only flaw with the production that was directed by Marc Webb and crew. Otherwise, I’m struggling to figure which comic book movie is my favorite, at this point: This one or Cap 2? It's a good time for comic book films.

Good: Superb storytelling, action, acting, direction, music.

Bad: Snobby people struggling with the fact that the "Amazing" franchise is better than the other Spider-Man films

***** out of 5