X-Men Days of Future Past should go down as the blockbuster film that had arguably the most daunting task you'll see from a Summer flick: successfully combining a rebooted franchise with the franchise it had just replaced. Luckily for all of us there's a good old-fashioned time travel story to connect the two without too many continuity disruptions. Bringing back the man that delivered the best of the X-Men films up to this point, 20th Century Fox went all out to ensure that they can still hang on to the Marvel franchise.
Based off of the highly-successful comic book series, Days of Future Past revolves around Wolverine (And not Kitty) heading back to the past to prevent a murder from occurring and creating the fallout that would lead to the dystopian-like present that involves all the mutants hiding for their lives. Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, the only constant that connects the two series of X-Men films, is the only hope to unite Professor X and Magneto in the 70s to prevent the creation of the ultra-powerful Sentinels. The emotional fallout from the events of First Class is overwhelmingly present so this movie feels a lot like a sequel and less as a mere connecting bridge between the X-Men films. Newcomers to the X-Men brand would probably be lost.
The time-traveling quirks and limitations that made Back to the Future a masterpiece are not present here; the focus is entirely on the characters and the task they have at hand. X-Men fans shouldn't be too upset because they get to see a heavy slew of the mutants including Quicksilver, Colossus, Storm, among others. Too bad most of the X-Men are condensed to cameo-like appearances.
And yea….still no Gambit……
Whatever the film lacks in humor and action, it makes up for it with the heavy set of drama, bouts with forgiveness vs. justice, and the genuine care you will have towards our heroes. But like I said, the action is rather lacking and after nearly 15 years of X-Men being on the screen the battling becomes...well.....repetitive. Which is a shame because Bryan Singer can craft good action sequences, especially when Quicksilver was involved. The Quicksilver appearance further proves the dulling of the fighting in X-Men when we see Magneto once again picking up something heavy with his mind and see Wolverine once again slash his way through opponents. After seeing the creative battles occurring on the Disney side, it gets hard to be blown away by anything here.
There is plenty of heart and good performances, but you can't help but feel slightly underwhelmed at the X-Men as this is the seventh film featuring at least one of the mutants since 2000. Back then the X-Men was the peak of joyful comic book mayhem as we saw lots of interesting characters work together and showcase their abilities. But after the likes of The Incredibles, The Dark Knight, The Avengers, and even the recent Captain America, the competition has caught up. It is time to expand the scope, and push the franchise farther ahead with more risks, more surprises, and more twists.
X-Men Days of Future Past will be sure to delight modern-day X-Men fans while slightly upsetting the hardcore crowd, but it doesn't quite top the quality batch of comic book movies we have seen within the past 5 years. Here's to hoping Apocalypse can shake things up a bit now that the transition between X-Men series is complete.
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