Somehow we’re under two months
out from Gen Con 2014. Gah. There’ll be a handful of cosplay posts coming in
the very near future, but a bizarre summer cold-type thing and a fun, but time
consuming, side project have gobbled up the lion’s share of the past few weeks.
The costumes are still on schedule, but some tweaking of the timeline may be in
order. In the meantime, there’s a veritable cavalcade of movies and the burgeoning prospect of the Steam Summer Sale just around the corner. <List
of Excellent Distractions explodes.>
One such indulgence was a viewing
of X-Men: Days of Future Past. Given
the mixed track record of the other films in the franchise and the backlash
that First Class was subjected to, I
was skeptical as to the prospects for Days
of Future Past.
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| One of the greatest casts imaginable |
Those doubts were largely
unfounded.
Aside from a handful of moments
at which a quizzical eyebrow could be raised, Days of Future Past was highly entertaining, expertly acted, and
beautifully rendered. In all honesty, it’s one of the better films to come out
of the superhero/comic book genre as a whole and lays a solid foundation for
any future X-Men movies.
The introduction paints a
profoundly bleak picture. The sunless, desolate Earth is policed by the
Sentinels, towering robotic constructs that hunt down mutants, human
sympathizers, and humans that would one day have produced mutant offspring. The
few surviving mutants live in a perpetual game of cat and mouse, managing to
escape the unrelenting Sentinels only because Kitty Pryde can manipulate the
time continuum enough to arrange for warning to be sent to their days-younger
selves.
Yes, Kitty Pryde has the ability
to project a person's consciousness back in time. This rather surprising
development is never explained and did not appear in the original comic, but serves
as the lynchpin mechanism for the entire plot of the movie. It's not a bad
thing by any means, just not something that had ever previously been part of Kitty's
mutant toolbox, so to speak. Since it's clear from the get-go that this is the
new-ish continuity than began with X-Men:
First Class, it's easier to accept this alteration as being intrinsic to
Kitty and minimizes the deus ex machina potential in the device so the reveal
is more eyebrow-raising than eyeroll worthy.
The other "huh" moment
in the film was the appearance of the Sentinels themselves. They bore more
resemblance to the Destroyer from the first Thor movie than to any of their
comic forebears or the glimpses we'd gotten in other X-Men movies (even Last Stand). While this obviously a
largely cosmetic quibble, it was a conspicuously strange choice given how much
thought clearly went into the vast majority of the rest of the film. Odd
appearance aside, the Sentinels functioned just as you'd expect them to,
wreaking havoc and providing a very real threat to the superpowered mutants.
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| This is as close as we get to the Sentinels of the comics |
We learn soon after our
introduction to this desolate future that the entirety of what's being
experienced was set in motion by the actions of Mystique back in 1973. Played
with steely determination by Jennifer Lawrence, Mystique spends the years
between the events of First Class and
Days of Future Past enacting bloody vengeance
on those who have harmed mutants, using her powers with brutal efficiency. The primary target of her ire is Bolivar
Trask (adroitly rendered by Peter Dinklage), inventor of the Sentinels. In the
first timeline we're presented with, Mystique guns Trask down at the Paris
Peace Accord, but is captured in the ensuing scuffle, allowing for Trask's
successors to obtain critical data from her DNA. In a last-ditch effort to
prevent this from unfolding as it did, Professor Xavier, Magneto, and Storm persuade
Kitty Pryde to send Wolverine's consciousness to inhabit his own body back in
1973 in the hopes that he can intercede.
Intercession comes with its own
set of challenges, largely embodied by the personalities of the younger
versions of Xavier and Magneto. Xavier, still reeling from Mystique's
abandonment of him, is a cantankerous drunken hermit who actively suppresses
his abilities via a serum developed by Beast, the only mutant who appears to
have remained loyal to the School for Gifted Youngsters. Meanwhile, Magneto is
in a more literal prison, having been blamed for the Kennedy assassination (just one of a handful of fun tongue-in-cheek bits of history play).
It's tricky for a film to
maintain focus and perspective when time travel is what's driving the
narrative, but Days of Future Past
makes it look easy. This can be credited largely to the all-star cast. The
entire rosters of both First Class
and all the preceding X-Men films reprise their roles, even down to a handful
of very brief wordless cameos. It's
profoundly clear that everyone's committed to their role, be it big or small,
and you are invested in the characters from the get-go. The pacing is very
brisk, sometimes a bit too much so when certain fairly significant revelations
are accepted and acted upon with very little resistance. Still, it's a small
price to pay for an overall engaging experience, as the movie didn't seem to
lag once in its 132 minute run time.
Add to this a handful of
sequences that are simply brilliant. Though the character of Quicksilver only
appears in a small portion of the film, he makes a very lasting impression via
one extremely entertaining scene. The climax will likely make your jaw drop as
we get to see the full complement of Magneto's powers. Despite what the events
of the movie accomplish in terms of furthering this new continuity for the
X-Men as a franchise, there is still plenty to be explored in future films.
It's reassuring to see that other franchises can successfully build continuous
movie universes.
In all, some very satisfying
cinematic fodder and a must-see for X-Men fans.
Overall Grade: A-
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