Thrilling blockbuster for the beginning of summer.
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Grade: B+
Director: Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects)
Screenplay: Simon Kinberg (Sherlock Holmes)
Cast: Patrick Stewart (Star Trek: Nemesis), Hugh Jackman (Prisoners)
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 131 min.
by John DeSando
“So many battles waged over the years... and yet, none like this. Are we destined to destroy each other, or can we change each other and unite? Is the future truly set?” Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart)
It’s not set if you can, like Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), go 50 years back into 1973 and stop the creation of the Sentinels, Terminator-like robot warriors created by scientist Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), whose robots always defeat the mutants: “From the beginning, the Sentinels were targeting the X-Men. Then they began targeting everyone.” (Wolverine)
So the plot of the exciting X-Men: Days of Future Past begins. The use of mutants in the Vietnam War, and the war itself, serve as a conflict backdrop to show the path to annihilation begun even without the help of Sentinels.
This iteration of a Marvel Comics hero collective is more complex and philosophical than its predecessors with new characters (mostly young versions of the X-men and women) that lend variety and interest and a measure of actor charisma. Besides the usual sturm and drang of robot arms like Gatling guns with eyes like beacons, this film has heart and humor as mutants and their leaders, Professor Xavier and his nemesis-now-bud, Magneto (Ian Mckellen), convene to send Logan back to convince their younger selves (James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender) to save surviving humans and sometimes to deal with misunderstood loves and friendships.
When director Bryan Singer and writer Simon Kinberg open with a moving shot of downtrodden mutants and sympathizers marching in unison, Fritz Lang’s silent-movie Metropolis immediately comes to mind, and it evokes the theme of the oppressed waiting to rise up against the ruling class. Holocaust-like images of mutants and their sympathizers herded for internment camps chillingly reveal a doomed New York City.
The mutants are, after all, different, and in current conservative thinking, enemies of the good American life, lily white that is. As the various outliers, including the X-Men, fight for equality and against suppression, Hollywood again does a credible job of mixing imaginative action with contemporary lives of the disadvantaged.
Our heroes struggling with a vendetta-prone Raven/Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) adds interest to the usual survival motifs. She kicks butt with the best of them while she carries through her plan that actually dooms humans and mutants even more.
The cast is terrific, even if the story goes on too long, as the film moves thrillingly from a sober beginning: “Mutants, we now find ourselves on the edge of extinction....” Professor Xavier
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
