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