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When you think about, X-Men: Days of Future Past is an ingenious way to go about rebooting a property without actually having to do it. Based on one of the greatest X-Men stories yet to be adapted to the big screen, Days of Future Past sees the return of the original trilogy along with the First Class ensemble. It is also a welcome return to form, arguably the best movie made out of this material since X-Men: First Class. It also sees the return of Bryan Singer to the franchise, both a blessing and a curse as it expands upon the problematic aspects of the franchise while still making a solid entry, a righting of the ship, if you will.
Days of Future Past follows the basic template of the original story – apocalyptic future in which a small band of X-Men are the last survivors fighting against the encroaching Sentinels, sending back the consciousness of a team member to the past to stop a series of events deemed responsible for this bleak future. While the comic saw Kitty Pryde sent back, the movie positions Wolverine in the central role, a common problem in the franchise.
We begin in the bleak future, and the film returns to the Holocaust imagery of 2000’s X-Men. Like the comic book property, the films have always been at their strongest when siding with the Other and positioning these elaborate conflicts as mere allegorical fantasy. This time around, it’s not a flashback to WWII, but a flash-forward to a desolate Manhattan in which mutants and their human sympathizers are rounded up and killed in concentration camps. Mass graves and emaciated bodies are some of the first sights we see, and this is a big budget comic book movie.
We soon reunite with a few familiar faces and some new ones (mostly fan service glorified cameos, but Blink and Bishop turn out aces), and they hide away in a hidden Chinese temple, protecting Kitty Pryde while she uses her powers to send Wolverine back to the 70s and stop this horrific future before it starts. The film then sends us back to 1973, and we watch as Wolverine tries to get Xaiver and Magneto to cooperate long enough to stop the future genocide.
It’s a rousing comic book adaptation, filled with brainy action scenes and a real sense of weight to the action. The scope of this film is massive, but there’s a strong story to tie it together. Which doesn’t mean parts of it aren’t problematic – Halle Berry’s Storm is still pretty much it for major diversity in the core cast, but of the five new mutants (only one of whom isn’t in the future scenes), four of them are characters of color and a female. This is a step in the right direction, as one of the great things about the comics was how wide the scope of characters was. The film series leans hard on straight, white males, mainly Wolverine, Xaiver and Magneto, and positions Mystique as the female lead, then sacks her with having to choose between the two.
And with a cast of characters this large, the film-makers were bound to skip out on certain things – it’s a pity that wigs and makeup where those things. Bringing back Toad was an odd enough choice, but his makeup job isn’t particularly convincing. While Quicksilver is a scene-stealer, his wig is terrible and costuming even worse. It’s only thanks to Evan Peters playing up the cocky wiseass that Quicksilver is bought and sold by the audience. By the time he’s done, Peters has threatened to steal the entire film whole seeing as how he’s got the wittiest display of powers, best action scene, and gives a gleefully madcap performance. Mystique’s new makeup job is a bodysuit, and it’s solid matte color looks cheap, as is the paint job. Compared to the makeup in X-Men, Days of Future Past’s look is a disappointment. Same with the choice to make Beast into a blue, furry Hulk-lite character, an odd choice to be certain, as he spends most of the time in human-mode and only rarely appears as he should. And more than a few special effects shots look half-done and poorly rendered. Magneto on the train – remember that phrase, and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.
While these aspects are highly problematic for various reasons, at least Days of Future Past has a game cast. Despite being regulated to a few brief scenes, Omar Sy, Booboo Stewart, and Fan Bingbing make the most out of Bishop, Warpath, and Blink, respectively. They seem to be having fun, and I wanted more of them. And it was nice to see returning faces like Shawn Ashmore, Halle Berry, Patrick Stewart, and Ian McKellen. Ellen Page, so perfect as Kitty Pryde, is finally given something to do, and makes the most of her limited screen time.
As for the past X-Men, James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender continue to be a blast to watch as the men who would be Stewart and McKellen. Jennifer Lawrence gives a fantastic performance as Mystique, even if she is somewhat hampered by bad makeup and problematic plotting. Luckily, in the end, she chooses for herself and sets out on her own. And Nicholas Hoult continues to make for a winning Beast, even if I did long for him to spend more time in blue and furry mode (not that I don’t appreciate staring at Hoult’s pretty face). But the franchise has always belonged to Hugh Jackman, who continues to improve as an actor and dig deeper into Wolverine. Here he gives his most complex performance as the character, it’s enough to make you forgive the trespasses of X-Men Origins: Wolverine and X-Men: The Last Stand. And call me crazy, but when he awakens in the new, corrected timeline, the succession of quick cameos made me giddy. It was nice to spend some time with those characters, and those particular actors, again. It’s imperfect – too many characters are given nothing to do besides appear for one scene and vanish, wigs/makeup are frequently cheap, bad special effects work – but I generally think that this is another example of pretty smart, fast-paced, fun summer popcorn film-making. I’m once again excited for where this franchise will go, and I haven’t been able to say that since X2: X-Men United.
