X-Men : Days Of Future Past

X:MEN - DAYS OF FUTURE PAST

Director : Bryan Singer
Year : 2014
Genre : Superhero
Rating : ****

 

 

Bryan Singer returns to the franchise that made him a blockbuster heavyweight with 'X-Men : Days Of Future Past', the seventh film in the massively successful superhero series that began all the way back in 2000. Serving as a sequel to 2011's 'X-Men : First Class' as well as a quasi-prequel to the original trilogy and the two disparate Wolverine spin offs, 'X:Men - Days Of Future Past', based on the 1981 comic of the same name, plays with the chronology of the series and the mythology of the numerous characters to create a labyrinthine narrative that is wonderfully engrossing and highly entertaining from start to finish.

In 1973, Professor Bollivar Trask (Peter Dinklage) created Sentinels, a new form of highly specialised robot that can hunt down and kill any form of mutant. 50 years later, the robots have now turned to wiping out any human being that helps a mutant or has the capacity to pass on the mutant gene and as a result of this mass extermination, the world has gone to ruin with entire cities crumbling to fire and dust. Learning that it was Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) who inadvertently caused the manufacture of Sentinels, Professor X (Patrick Stewart), in a last ditch attempt to save the planet from total annihilation, sends Wolverine's (Hugh Jackman) soul back in time to talk a young and reluctant Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) into breaking a highly unstable Magneto (Michael Fassbender) out of jail and prevent Mystique from making the same mistake again; thereby preventing the initial creation of Sentinels and ensuring the survival of all mutants in the future.

While Matthew Vaughn undeniably did a wonderful job with the brooding 'X:Men - First Class', director Singer pushes the franchise to the next level, adding a layer of foreboding darkness and an overtly racially minded subtext to create a much more adult and serious minded movie. With an introduction that clearly echoes the Mengele experiments of the Holocaust, Singer doesn't shy away from showing us the rather graphic deaths and subsequent Fincher-esque autopsy pictures of many a mutant. At the screening I was in, a number of children were visibly upset by these scenes and while the film is in no way inappropriate for it's target audience (bar one or two strong expletives), 'X:Men - Days Of Future Past' is not the bright and colourful superhero that one may expect it to be at first glance.

The film is certainly a much edgier 'X:Men' than any that has come before it. However, a coherent and very well thought out screenplay by Simon Kinberg manages to balance earnest sincerity with a good fair moments of laugh out loud comedy. Featuring some of the funniest dialogue and slapstick I have ever seen in a superhero movie, 'Days Of Future Past' revels in wildly imaginative humour and takes full advantage of it's diverse and hugely talented cast. As is the case with all the 'X-Men' films, Hugh Jackman's Wolverine provides the movie with most of its laughs, his masculine gruffness and undying cynicism serving as a successful counterweight to the pictures bleak and apocalyptic tone. Backing Jackman up is one of the most impressive ensemble casts ever to feature in a superhero film.

Once again James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender play the young Charles Xavier and Eric Lehnsherr respectively and as a pair, the two work very well together indeed with their on screen chemistry and differing ideologies providing the film with much of it's drama. McAvoy plays Xavier as a damaged and deeply repressed individual, a man destroyed by betrayal and love long lost; a perfect dichotomy to the older and wiser Xavier we have come to know and love in the original 'X-Men' trilogy played by the mercurial Patrick Stewart. Fassbender is wonderfully diabolical as the young and unstable Magneto whose moments of wanton destruction and trademark metallic manipulation are as fantastically entertaining and visually stunning as they have always been in the series.

A large majority of the players from the original trilogy return for 'X:Men - Days Of Future Past' and while their roles are basically reduced to cameos, it is still nice to see Halle Berry, Patrick Stewart,  Ian McKellen, James Marsden, Anna Paquin and Ellen Page on screen together again for the first time in nearly a decade.

However, while the entirety of the cast do a wonderful job of bringing depth and resonance to their respective characters no matter how big or small their roles may be, Jennifer Lawrence steals the show as the sultry and sexy Mystique whose lust for revenge and hope for retribution elevates 'X:Men - Days Of Future Past' above it's superhero genre conventions and transforms it into a deep and rather affecting study into psychosis and the power that vengeance has on it's victim as well as those surrounded by it. Carrying both an air of sympathy and deep seated hatred, the Academy Award winning actress turns the young Mystique from a typical one dimensional antagonist into the most intriguing and demonstrably human characters the franchise has ever had.

 

While 'X:Men - Days Of Future Past' is certainly a much more cerebral and psychological movie than it's franchise predecessors, it is also a full blooded action superhero film with a more than a few special effects laden set pieces to lighten the overbearing tone. Much like 'X:Men - First Class', 'Days Of Future Past' takes full advantage of the visual potential of the many mutants powers and while I am not familiar with the comic book source material, I was thoroughly entertained by the level of imagination and technique displayed on screen. The scenes of death and destruction are just as spectacular as you would expect, with Magneto elevating an entire stadium being a particular standout.

Allowing story and character development to take precedence over CGI and overblown special effects, Bryan Singer has created a wonderfully complex and more involving 'X-Men' film than we have ever had before and while the movie cannot profess to be in the pantheons of truly brilliant modern superhero pictures such as 'The Dark Knight Rises', 'Spider-Man 2' and 'Captain America : The Winter Soldier', 'X:Men - Days Of Future Past' still shines as the best movie in the franchise so far thanks to a number of terrifically refined performances, wonderfully elaborate and well staged set pieces and Singers' trademark crisp and clean directorial style.