What it’s about?
In the dystopian future, outlawed superhuman mutants are hunted down and killed, so gnarled and knuckle-clawed Wolverine is sent back to the 1970s to warn the younger versions of his fellow X-Men, thwart destiny and satiate the kidult Supanova crowd who still covet action figures in their 30s. Like me.
What did we think?
Careful, one of the mutants says of time travel, the mind can be stretched only so far before it snaps. Consider yourself warned. The exposition-and-character-heavy Days of Future Past could lose non-cosplayers fast. But hang in there. Paraplegic telepath Charles “Professor X” Xavier and metal-manipulating Erik “Magneto” Lehnsherr, again portrayed with impeccable dramatic heft by James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender of 2011’s first-class X-Men refresh, make franchise rivals Thor and the Hulk look like the rather silly cartoons they are.
Returning director Bryan Singer adds flesh to his pioneering but outmoded early-2000s X-Men template, melding atomic-grade effects setpieces with Inception’s out-of-body mind-thumps (and Ellen Page), while introducing a tremendous take on the JFK magic-bullet theory. Oh, and there’s Tyrion.
So, Marvel’s latest mutation is both super AND cerebral? Your move, Avengers.
X-Men:DOFP combines the grit of the original trilogy and the ‘polish’ of First Class to give us a weird hybrid that is strangely satisfying, despite an odd lull in the middle of the film. Luckily this eye of the storm is bookended by some simply stunning fight scenes and wonderful characters (even those with brief appearances are extremely satisfying – Blink in particular).
There’s one particularly sumptuous scene which will have producers of the pending Flash TV series crying tears of angsty jealousy. And for the ladies there’s a fully nude Hugh Jackman. There are a few unexplained loose ends and errors but overall X-Fans will really enjoy this outing.
I’m a casual Marvel fan, so quite a few of the new mutants left me bewildered (and I know of non-Marvel fans who were completely befuddled by the characters).
That said, it’s a fun action film – even if the first half is a bit slow – but the Magneto rescue & finale sequences are 5 star. Overall I’d give this film a 3 to 3.5 star rating. It’s good, but the Avengers series is far superior.
Terrific to see a film series rebooted with the original actors though. Highly original concept.