Saturday, May 24, 2014

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Finally this franchise is heading in the right direction! Boy has my opinion of X-Men changed after seeing Days of Future Past. Really, it began with 2011's First Class. I'm not counting that Wolverine movie that came out last year because, while it wasn't terrible, the only thing I remember about it was I got to see Hugh Jackman's ass. Not that I'm complaining of course ;) And just so you know, you get to see it again in this movie. Must be in his contract or something.

Sorry. Got a little side tracked for a moment. Anyway, Days of Future Past opens up in this really cool looking apocalyptic world 50 years after the events of First Class. Things aren't going so well for both the mutants and the humans (and that's putting it mildly). In order to change things they send Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back to the 70's (about 10 years after First Class) in an effort to stop an event they believe started this all. The rest of the movie goes back and forth between both time lines and the editing for this was well done which I was happy about. I've seen lots of movies where they attempted to do the same thing and they just failed miserably.

The cast they put together was incredible. Many characters from First Class as well as the previous X-Men movies appears in this and they all gave outstanding performances. I don't have time to talk about all of them, but some of my favorites were: Raven/Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), young Professor X (James McAvoy), young Magneto (Michael Fassbender), and Dr. Bolivan Trask (played by the great Peter Dinklage). Of course it goes without saying that Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen were brilliant as older Professor X and Magneto. Why these two aren't in even more movies I'll never know.

The whole movie is dark and emotional but with a nice amount of humor in it as well. I wasn't going to talk about this scene for fear of spoiling everyone but since there was a glimpse of it in the trailer I'd say it's fair game. I just loved the moment where older Professor X is talking to the younger version of himself. I got chills watching it. It just goes to show you how great Patrick Stewart and James McAvoy are. The beautiful musical score by John Ottman makes this scene as well as the rest of the movie even more powerful.

For those of you who are worried that you might be missing out on something by seeing this movie in 2D instead of 3D I can assure you you're not. I saw this in 2D and it looks really good in that format.

One thing I'd like to give people a heads up on- if you go into this having not seen the previous movies, you're probably going to be really confused. I strongly suggest you at least watch First Class before going to see this.

And yes, there is a scene at the end of the credits so be sure to stick around for that. I think it may be setting things up for the next movie but I could be wrong. It's still really cool though.

I've heard some people claim that Days of Future Past is better than The Dark Knight. I definitely wouldn't go that far, but this is still one of my favorite movie of the year. This movie is the very definition of a summer blockbuster. Go see it. I promise you won't be disappointed.

My Rating: 9/10

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