Kind of odd that three consecutive movie reviews here at HOB have featured three separate parts of the Marvel Comic Universe brought to film by three separate studios, but that's just the way that my movie going calendar played out in April and May of this year. It's worth noting that the X-Men are among the most popular comic book franchises on the planet, rivaled only by Batman, and that they feature a rich cast of characters that should be pretty easily brought over to film. Fox's X-Men films have been an interesting ride. First, Bryan Singer's original film X-Men, released in 2000 (!!) kind of kick-started this whole comic book film era that we're still in the midst of. Without the relative quality (it hasn't held up great, but considering that the film was released only a few short years after the horror that was Batman and Robin, its success was a necessity if major studios were going to take chances on big-budget comic book fare again. The sequel, X2, released in 2003, still holds up as one of the better comic book films that we've had. Then Bryan Singer left to go make the snoozefest that was Superman Returns, and professional hatchet man Brett "Rush Hour" Ratner was Sony's choice to direct the horrid and continuity crushing X-Men: The Last Stand, which was nearly the death of the X-Men on film until 2011's surprise X-Men: First Class, which took advantage of a stellar cast (Jennifer Lawrence! Michael Fassbender!) to resurrect the X-Men on film. When watching First Class, if you would have assumed that you were watching a total reboot... no one would have blamed you, as that was obviously the intention at the time. However, Bryan Singer returned to the X-Men franchise.. and the studio made the baffling decision to treat all of the X-Men films as one continuity. No, that doesn't seem possible.
Enter, X-Men: Days of Future Past, inspired by one of the legendary X-Men stories in the comics, where a dystopian future where the world has been decimated by mutant-hunting robots can only be prevented by traveling to the past. The film opens with a glimpse at that future, where the remnants of the X-Men struggle to survive, and desperate plan emerges, to send Wolverine's consciousness back in time. to stop the event that precipitated the creation of the Sentinels, robots that hunt and destroy mutants. Wolverine is sent back to the 1970's, to meet up with the First Class cast, and recruit them into saving the future.
The Good: First Class might have gotten more lucky with its cast than any film I can recall. It successfully signed Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence to co-starring/supporting roles immediately before they both blew up into huge stars. As a result, Days of Future Past gets Fassbender at the height of his powers as a young Magneto and Katniss Everdeen herself as villain/antihero Mystique. James McAvoy as a young Professor Xavier was perfect casting as well. Hugh Jackman does a pretty great Wolverine, and here he serves as the bridge between the two timelines. The cast, especially Fassbender, elevates the film beyond the simple sum of its parts, adding real heft and gravitas to the 70's timeline. Story-wise, this film is about 10,000X better than it has any right to be. As anyone who has seen all of the X-Men films can attest, unifying the timelines and treating it as a cohesive whole should be practically impossible, and while this film doesn't pull it off perfectly, it comes PRETTY damn close, which in and of itself is an impressive feat. Despite a runtime of over two hours, the film feels tight and tense throughout, with events in one timeline influencing the other in a palpable way. Despite some big, impressive action scenes, this film winds up focused on character in a very subtle and welcome deviation from what has become the superhero movie norm (namely: HUGE action sequence to close everything). The film looks great, and really pulls off the differing timelines visually.
The Bad: While it overall works pretty damn well, the film's premise (reconciling two seemingly irreconcilable narratives) kind of falls apart the more that you think about it. This is probably more of a problem for me, the nerd, than it would be for a more casual viewer, but some of the events of the last X-Men franchise don't make sense in light of some of the revelations from this one. And that's fine, it shouldn't have worked AT ALL, so the fact that it does mostly work is impressive. Additionally, the film's "big bad", Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), feels underserved in comparison to the in-fighting among our mutants from varying timelines. The future timeline suffers at the expense of the 1970's one, and feels underserviced in comparison to all of the 70's action.
In all, this is a fine flick and a smart, thoughtful, surprisingly effective entrant to the comic book film collection that's somehow still not played out. Welcome back, Bryan Singer, and holy hell is Fassbender good. The main draw is the past/future versions of Professor X and Magneto - with some serious acting chops on display, and they do not disappoint.
8.5/10. If you like the X-Men at all, this just might be the best X-movie yet.
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