03/07/2014

X-Men: Days of Future Past | Movie Review


X-Men returns with a solid twist to the tale of the mutant race. After the mixed trilogy and a few concrete follow-ups with Wolverine’s solo outings and the prequel, here is the best X-Men film to date. It was interesting to see where the X-Men franchise would venture to next. And interesting it was. 

The premise was hard to grasp at first, but it was well needed for the franchise. It managed to fix the continuity issue in the vast array of X-Men films using time travel to halt the mutant holocaust upon them. Enter Wolverine to save the day.

The plot was incredibly heavy for a superhero film and with all the time travel malarkey, it’s props to Bryan Singer for making it as least confusing as possible. The story telling is amazing as well, with so much more uncovered with Xavier, Mystique and Magneto. The way the split between future and past is conveyed is very well done, and gave all the X-Men a chance to shine.

With more prominent roles to some of the younger X-Men, it was a pleasant change to the usual big-name fest that comes with an X-Men film. Each character is given an important role to play, so there are no castaways here. This didn’t last long however, with Young Xavier and Magneto coming into the frame quite soon. Now one of the greatest parts of the film was Quicksilver. Wow. He stole the show. And he was only in 15-20 minutes of the film. He may be recognised as Tate from American Horror Story? No. Well, anyway, in just 2 minutes of pure brilliance he captured the hearts of many with his usual wit and cockiness. After all the controversy behind him even being in the film, Aaron Taylor-Johnson has a lot to live up to in Avengers: Age of Ultron to even compete with this Quicksilver.

The biggest disappointment was the villain. Peter Dinklage, best known for Tyrion Lannister on Game of Thrones, was a very lacklustre villain with not much about him to scream evil villain. A lot more was expected of Dinklage as Trask within the film alone, never mind his acting capabilities, and was just boring and needless.

The action sequences, though few, were very… Brutal to say the least. Particularly in the future parts of the film. So be warned. There was a lot more information and humour about certain situations that needed no action. Therefore, the action sequences were extremely well used. The relatively grim storyline was hard to handle at times, but was usually counteracted with humour, by Wolverine as always.

Hugh Jackman did his usual standout performance as the central, and most popular, character in the X-Men, Wolverine. He gave the perfect mixture of emotion, action and usual Wolverine ‘F*** You’ attitude. And he does a lovely scene where he’s standing there in all his glory. So dreamy. What? Nothing.

Back to reality, the famous Marvel post-credits scene was a good segue into the next X-Men film, X-Men: Apocalypse. Sounds pleasant doesn’t it? Unless you’re a hardcore X-Men fan, (very few don’t worry) the scene would be a bit mysterious. Click here if you’d like to find out more (spoilers obviously).

This entry to the X-Men franchise is the best yet. Hopefully the next film will bring more out of the other X-Men like Kitty Pryde and Iceman. This ambitious and exciting film should get anyone hooked on the X-Men.


8/10

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