X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) Review

"You abandoned us all!"
-Magneto



All across the globe, mutants face extinction as they are hunted down by robotic Sentinels.  In a desperate move, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) goes back in time to stop Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from assassinating Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), the man who designed the Sentinels.  But in order to stop the death of mutant-kind, Wolverine has to reunite the young Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender).


What Works:

Days Of Future Past finally brings together the original characters as well as the younger versions from First Class and it is truly awesome.  The time-travel elements are an absolute blast and a really ingenious story.  For the most part, it takes the best elements from the previous movies in the franchise and combines them together.

The scenes with the original characters are really well done and very moving.  The movie kicks off with a bunch of mutants, including Bobby Drake (Shawn Ashmore), being killed by the Sentinels only to be saved via time travel.  We've grown attached to Bobby over the previous movies and to see him killed so graphically in the opening is a great tone-setter.  Then at the the end of the movie as the mutants make their last stand, we see them killed off one by one.  It's incredibly emotional and hard to watch, but excellent filmmaking.

The acting is pretty amazing in this film.  Jackman, Fassbender, and McAvoy are all fantastic and I'm glad they are the focus of the film.  McAvoy has one scene in particular where he meets his older self (Patrick Stewart) and it's crazy how great the acting is.

Finally, the action scenes, though surprisingly small scale, are a lot of fun.  This movie focuses on a smaller group of mutants and the action sequences serve that story.  The best one is definitely Quicksilver's (Evan Peters) raid on the Pentagon.  This version of Quicksilver is vastly superior to Marvel's with some great humor and a lot of entertaining moments.


What Sucks:

I gotta say, I don't love Jennifer Lawrence's performance in the film.  I'm not sure what it is really.  It feels like she didn't want to be there and I never felt much emotion from her scenes.  It makes the ending of the movie less impactful and I wish she hadn't been made as important as she was.


Verdict:

Days of Future Past is a great X-Men movie with excellent acting, an engaging story, fun action, and plenty of emotional moments.  Jennifer Lawrence is lackluster, but this movie has still got it going on no matter what timeline we're in.

 9/10: Great 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Argylle (2024) Review

Image
 "The human skull is shockingly brittle." -Aidan Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) is a very successful spy novelist.  She draws attention from the espionage community when plot points in her books come true.  When Elly is attacked on a train by a group of spies, she is rescued by another spy, Aidan (Sam Rockwell), who needs her help with his mission and to do that, she needs to write another chapter of her latest book. Spoilers Below.  Go ahead and read on because I don't recommend this movie, but either way, you've been warned. What Works: Argylle has a really fun premise that really works in the first half of the movie.  It's a fish-out-of-water, buddy-cop, spy movie, and it's a blast.  Watching Ellie predict where to go based on what the characters in her books would do is a lot of fun.  It's what the whole movie should have been. The opening sequence follows Agent Argylle (Henry Cavill) on another dangerous mission as he pursues the villainous LaGrang
Read more

Top 10 Movies of 2023

Image
2023 is finally over and it's time for me to put my Top 10 list together.  2023 was definitely a weaker year for movies.  There were definitely some great movies, but there were also plenty of disappointing and bad movies as well.  I still managed to put together a great Top 10 with a couple of worthy contenders that just missed the cut.  Let's take a look! #10. They Cloned Tyrone They Cloned Tyrone is a wild and fun sci-fi tale that takes place in the hood.  A drug dealer, a pimp, and a prostitute discover a cloning conspiracy and the results are intelligent and hilarious.  This is a really smart and funny movie with some amazing performances across the board.  This was a movie that kept me guessing the whole way through.  What an absolute blast. #9. Renfield I'm guessing Renfield will be the most controversial entry on my list as I feel like I'm the only person who liked this movie.  I love the old Universal monster movies and the fact that we get a direct sequel, whi
Read more

Madame Web (2024) Review

Image
 "When you take on the responsibility, great power will come." -Santiago Cassie Webb (Dakota Johnson), a New York paramedic, hits her head in an accident, which unlocks the ability to see glimpses of the future.  When she sees Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim) attempting to murder three teenage girls, Cassie intervenes to save them.  As Cassie learns to understand her power, she also discovers the connection between her, the girls, and Ezekiel. What Works: I think the core idea at the center of this movie is a good one and has the potential to be interesting.  Cassie's superpowers are kinda lame.  It's not like they're going to help in a combat situation.  Ezekiel is basically evil Spider-Man.  He has legitimate powers and is a massive threat.  That's an interesting conflict.  How does someone with lackluster superpowers take on a supervillain.  It's a fun idea that I would like to see tried again with greater success.  What Sucks: This movie was embarrassing to
Read more