'Days' Are Looking Brighter

X-Men: Days of Future Past

In 2000, an up and coming director by the name of Bryan Singer brought the world a film version of Marvels’ super hero group, the X-Men. The film was widely successful critically and financially. Because of its great success two things happened. First, the world was shown that another good director has emerged and two comic book movies can be more than the effects. A sequel was spawn and some argue that X2 was even better than the first. Singer left the franchise to take on Superman Returns, which didn’t do so well for the Superman franchise and for Singer himself.  X-Men: Last Stand was made without Singer and I believe that karma reared its ugly head because Last Stand set the X-franchise back and did a horrible number on director Brett Ratner’s career. A few years go by and 20^th Century Fox would like to go the way of Batman Begins and reboot the whole X-franchise. The result was a step in the right direction especially because of the performances by James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender and Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto respectively. Now Bryan Singer has returned and what better way to right the wrongs of the past than to take the best of franchise and add a sprinkle of newness. The result… Days of Future Past.

Days of Future Past begins in a time when giant robots called Sentinels have all but wiped the planet of mutants and people that could hold the mutant gene. Whatever is left of the X-Men has decided to send Wolverine’s conscience back to 1973 to prevent a single event from occurring and altering the future. Logan enlists the aid of younger Charles and Erik because the outcome is bigger than the two men can imagine.

The plot of Days is the first story arc that has been used from the comic books. Though slightly different in the books, the way that Singer and his writers set this up fits very well. He takes what made his first to X-films great and combined what made First Class great. As far-fetched as the plot may seem, the story really does flow smoothly. Like X2, Singer introduces the right amount of new characters to fit what he needs from the story. I was most excited to see Blink, a mutant teleporter, because of how her teleportation ability works. Bishop was a cool addition, as well as Quicksilver (just a hint to all the die-hard X-fans, pay very close attention to what Quick says and who is with in his final appearance. Hope you get a kick out of it as much as I did). However, yet again, McAvoy and Fassbender steal the movie. As much respect I have for Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in the roles of Professor X and Magneto, McAvoy and Fassbender provide deeper emotions and ability to humanize these characters. McAvoy shows a darker side to Xavier and in a weird way he provides a reason for Xavier to be involved in the action. That is what I have always thought was one of the things missing from the X-films, Professor X’s involvement. But in Days, Xavier is almost front and center. As or Fassbender, what can I really say. I love his Magneto. He brings the fire and passion that Magneto has lacked in the first three films. No disrespect to McKellens’ performances in any of those films, but Fassbender’s emotions is almost palpable. Fassbender found that fine line between sanity and insanity when it comes to Magneto’s cause.

I would like to say, welcome back to the X-Universe Mr. Singer. Don’t do that to us X-fans again!

Singer slides back into the director’s chair for this outing like he never left. If it weren’t for some of the great stuff inside First Class, this could have been considered the sequel to X2. Singer creates the right mix of action and character, along with the right mixture of past and future.  Unlike his first two X-films, Singer doesn’t really make Wolverine the center of the film. Singer tries, but a ¼ into the film, Singer almost realizes that Wolverine can’t be the total center and turns his focus more on Xavier and his decisions.

I guess if I had to nit-pick at the film, I would say the only thing that disappointed me were the Sentinels themselves. The hoopla of the whole film is these robots and they weren’t seen on film for very long. Plus the future Sentinels have the ability to adapt to the mutant they are fighting (you’ll find out how in the film) and my thought on that is… why did it take so long for them to wipe out the mutant population? Just seemed to far-fetched for me.

Whatever you liked about the previous X-films is present in this film and if you haven’t seen the previous films, believe me this is the one to start with. Singer goes to prove to the world that this franchise is what he was born to direct.

Verdict: Watch In Theatres