Days of Future Past

                There is a lot to like about this movie, and I mean a lot. There are a few places where they could have made a few tweaks but nothing was so God awful that I wanted to shout at the screen… Well there was one major/minor annoyance that made me want to do that but I’ll get to that later.

They'll kill you and look good doing it.

                First off, basic plot: about ten years from now the future is in that dystopian paradise that we’ve all come to expect at this point. Side note, can’t we have happy future’s anymore? Back on track. Humans and Mutants are both oppressed under the yolk of the Sentinels. The Sentinels are a group of robotic drones designed to “protect” humanity from the Mutant “threat.” At first things were fine for the humans, but it quickly began to spin out of control when the Sentinels began targeting progenerators of Mutant. Meaning, “You’re human but meet the right woman and your kids will be Mutants. SO DIE!” The design of this hell is great. They use Sir Patrick Stewart’s liquid honey voice to narrate this part and they don’t overly rely on it. They show us corpses, subtle nods to fallen champions, the horrid M emblazoned over the eyes of captured Mutants. They use the images to drive home the point that Stewart is laying out, that this future SUCKS.

A small group of X-men remain, keeping one step ahead of the sentinels by using an enhanced power of Kitty Pryde’s, the ability to project someone’s consciousness into the past to actively rewrite the present. Their team, composed of fan favorites Iceman, Colossus, and Bishop, and relatively obscure names like Blink, Sunspot, and Warpath.

                They are joined by Prof. X’s team, comprised of Storm, Magneto, and lone-gunslinger-who-is-rarely-ever-alone Wolverine. They get the bright idea to utilize Kitty’s power to project a consciousness back to before the war with the Sentinels began. Kitty claims such a task would rip the mind of anyone who tried it apart, so they use the guy who gets over stuff like that real quickly. Wolverine, I’m talking about Wolverine if that was too subtle for ya.

Went from this

                The plan is to stop Mystique, Xavier’s rogue adopted sister in this continuity, from murdering weapons manufacturer Bolivar Trask. Killing Trask, which I’m sure felt pretty good for Mystique, creates the demand for the Sentinels she was trying to kill with Trask. Furthermore, she is captured and they use her DNA to give the Sentinels the ability to adapt to their targets. Cause and effect can be a real pain. Also, not a 100% sure why having one Mutant’s genes allows you to design self-adapting war machines, but hey I’ll suspend my disbelief.

To this? Confusing...

                Wolverine jumps back in time, and is given the difficult task of making a disillusioned Charles and Eric the Magnetic Frankenstein’s monster work together for the betterment of the world. He is helped along the way by Beast, who has developed a Mutation suppressing agent to keep himself clean shaven and somehow keeping Charles telepathy suppressed and make his legs work… not 100% that’s how it works but okay, whatever more belief suspended.

                The things that work about this movie really work. The fight scenes are amazingly choreographed and designed, combining the Mutant powers to create devastating results. Like the Colossus super battering ram they showed in the trailer. The Future X-men, while supporting cast at best, are well designed and while their characters aren’t really explored all that much if at all, they at least got desperate survivors just holding the Reaper at bay thing down pat.

                I wasn’t a fan of the giant turbines in the center of the 70s era Sentinels chests, but their future models really make up for it. Future Sentinels are built with these little individual scales that give them their adaptive technology, and they look really awesome when they move. Every time you see these things, you know defeat at this point in time is inevitable. The ray from the face thing seems like something they stole from the Destroyer from Thor but otherwise they were really inventive with these guys.

Just me and myself

                I’m going to go over the main characters really fast, so here it goes. Wolverine is awesome. Charles Xavier past and future are awesome. Magneto past and future are awesome. Mystique is good, but they REALLY over play her importance to everything. Trask is awesome. Beast is awesome, although I’d have like to see his blue face a little more. Everyone else really didn’t get enough screen time for me to make a comment about them. Except young William Stryker. Asshole is everywhere with that smug smirk on his face, I want to punch him so freaking bad, especially when he mentions his little Jason. Back on task.

                Each actor fit the role they were given perfectly, and really committed to it. I’d say the one that had the hardest job would be the two Xavier’s. In this they are worlds apart. Stewart’s Xavier is the same, stoic, selfless and all that. Young Xavier, played by James McAvoy had the much more difficult part of playing a Xavier that is simply burned out. One that has lost the sister her cared for, the student’s he loved, and even his own sense of self-respect. He had to play a man at the bottom but one that was still capable of becoming the man in X chair. He did it wonderfully.

                Now, onto the bad. Thankfully the list is rather short, outside of continuity and adaptively errors that are really unavoidable at this point.

Makes up for the look, but he shouldn't of had to.

                One thing that really, REALLY pissed me off about earlier X-men films and is continued in this one is that names. Names are important, they are what connects us to the characters. So I’m going to say this one more time and I pray someone hears me. Quicksilver’s name is Pietro, not Peter, PIETRO. Changing the name does nothing but anger fans who want to hear Quicksilver’s real name along with his alias. The same could be said for Colossus, his name is Piotr. It doesn’t come up as much, but same pet peeve button is pushed.

                Now, a more serious weakness was the First Class cast. Or should I say the lack thereof. Aside from Beast, Charles, Magneto, and Mystique, the rest are barely even mentioned. Havok gets the quick little bit from the Mystique trailer, that is literally it, and just about everyone else was either not mentioned at all or killed off screen. I won’t name names, but trust me, you’ll be annoyed if you liked those guys. The deaths are what irk me the most, since in the terms of the movie-verse pretty much means you are done forever in the films, unless your last name is Grey.

Too much of her. Can't believe I said that...

                Another weakness of the film is that they really try to push the Jennifer Lawrence Mystique is the lynch pin in all of this. HER actions shape everything, HER self-righteous quest burns the world, changing HER mind will set everything straight. I get playing up a popular actress’s popular portrayal of a character, but come on. Something like the Sentinels and global war has a LOT more moving pieces than Mystique and Trask.

                One last thing I’ll comment on that isn’t a weakness per se, but is really confusing is the continuity. Wolverine has a confrontation with young Stryker that causes old memories to boil up. It shows segments from the old film about Logan’s transformation into Wolverine. Yet at the same time here and there were nods to X-men: Origin’s, despite other events in the film negating them. It just got a little confusing for my nerd brain.

                Overall, I’m giving it an A-. It had a lot of strong points, a few minor points but nothing that’d break the movie, and one confusing continuity point. The character’s they focused on were great and most of the support was great too.   

HELL YEAH!

 http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/30626/details-on-x-men-future-sentinels

 http://oyster.ignimgs.com/wordpress/stg.ign.com/2014/03/Empire-Mag.jpg

 http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2014/04/22/faster-bodypainting-bodes-well-for-jennifer-lawrencemystique-x-men-spinoff/

 http://screenrant.com/x-men-days-future-past-posters/

 http://marvel.wikia.com/Bolivar_Trask_%28Earth-10005%29

 http://screencrush.com/x-men-days-of-future-past-bolivar-trask-sentinels-first-look/