Movie Review: X-Men The Days of Future Past

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1877832/

Directed By: Bryan Singer
Written By: Simon Kinberg

One of the most irritating things about the X-Men franchise is the fact that they did not plan ahead. After what happened in the Final Stand, it has been getting increasingly tough for the audience to make sense of the franchise's plot.

So, without any spoilers whatsoever, the story starts in the future. Now this is the time in the comic arc when the Trask's sentinels have taken over. And these are not the original sentinels but the final upgraded versions that are capable of shape shifting and absorbing other mutant's powers in order to one-up them. We see a rag-tag bunch of mutants trying to battle them. The entire setting of the movie feels rather inadequate. I, for one, never liked the final war in the Final Stand. I hated the fact that they killed a bunch of characters in 20 minutes of run time and hoped us to be sympathetic or display any sort of emotion whatsoever. The set up of the war in this movie is equally disappointing.

One, in case yo are watching it in iMax 3-D, you ll feel as if the final touches on the CGI were still to be done when the print was released. The sentinels have a terminator-ish feel to them. Apart from that the film tried to shove in two-mainstream characters from the comic books, Scarlett Witch and Quicksilver. Scarlett Witch comes as more of a shock to the audience, with her powers not very clearly explained and her character development literally starts and ends with the girl with eye-tattoos who made portals out of thin air. So, during the battle we discover that the mutants (Charles and Magneto combined) have decided to send Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back into the past to stop Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence, who looks exquisite and acts even better) from murdering Trask (Peter Dinklage).

The explanation given is rather flimsy, Mystique murdering Trask was the triggering point of the Mutant-Sentinel war and stopping her from doing it is the only way to stop the carnage.

Now, movies based on comic books aren't exactly famous for their intelligent plots, so some leeway could be given there but apart from that the movie as a whole fails to establish a connect with the audience.

The reasons are many, Marvel has followed this formula in nearly every X-Men movie, there is always one evil human scientist/doctor/army general who wants to experiment on/weaponise mutants and has to be stopped. While the lore of Trask industries is very firmly established in the comic books, there are little, if any, differentiating factors from the older X-Men villains.

I will get a lot of hate for saying this, but the X-men heroes are getting old. They have failed to evolve and the constant muddling with the timelines has rendered them blank and one-dimensional. So now we have two actors playing Xavier and yet we can barely relate to him, let alone care about the fact that the dude was murdered in Final Stand and was in this movie somehow and was shot in the First Class and got his legs back in this movie and lost his powers. Although the movie does explain the complications, yet when you modify your characters at the drop of the hat, you become a little of everything and at the same time nothing.

All things said and done, Days of Future past has little to offer in terms of story and direction and acting. Still, if you are a fan of Trask industries, so watch it. You get to see two generations of Sentinels come alive on the big screen for the first time. You get to see Quicksilver in the famous kitchen scene, which by the way is the money shot of the entire movie. You get to see Jennifer Lawrence, in some really acrobatic fight scenes and you get to see Tyrion Lannister, with a mustache.

All in all, if you are a nerd/fanboy DoFP is a good one time watch.