I really liked X-Men: Days of Future Past. It is a wild roller coaster of a thrill ride that somehow manages to accommodate a horrible future with an almost lighthearted look back at the 1970s. It borrows from a whole group of previous films, but somehow moves so quickly you have no time to really notice. The magnificent cast, a combination of the veterans of most of the previous films, along with the prequel reboot of a few years ago, manages to hold everything together. As a result, we have an intelligent superhero movie that also incorporates the funniest scene I have ever seen in a superhero film. And it all works!
The film opens to a horrible future, as Terminator-like robots called Sentinels work to kill mutants, those who work with mutants and anyone who might someday be the ancestor of a mutant… which does sound like all of humanity. The X-Men leadership, primarily Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen) are now together, working with a handful of the remaining mutants to try to change history. The two older men recognize that things went bad 50 years earlier when Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) killed Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), the scientist who created the Sentinels. She had been captured, her blood and DNA used to create robots that could alter themselves so they could defeat any mutant. The men decide to send one of their number back to block the assassination, and the only one who could survive is Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) because of his powers of regeneration. His mind is sent back to the 1970s to inhabit his body of that time.
He discovers that the young Xavier (James McAvoy) has given up his mental powers because he can no longer deal with the pain they cause. A side effect is that he can now walk. But he is weak and a drunk, now helped/nursed by Hank McCoy/Beast (Nicholas Hoult). Logan persuades them to help, and the three men then use another mutant, Quicksilver (Evan Peters), who can move really fast to break the young Magneto (Michael Fassbender) out of a special underground Pentagon prison. The escape scene is very funny, a real treat in the middle of a serious film.
Once Magneto is out, the group goes to Paris to try to block the assassination, and things start to go wrong as the mutants are exposed. They escape, however, and the scene shifts to Washington, where Trask unveils his machines and, well, strange things start to happen. The action shifts back and forth between future and past a few times to keep up the pace, which lasts throughout the film.
The plot moves in so many directions that only an exceptional cast could have pulled it off seemingly effortlessly. Stewart and McKellen handle their roles beautifully as the two weary old men, finally having resolved their differences. Jackman is more nuanced than usual in this movie; Logan has to think and plan and be the ringmaster of the three-ring circus. Fassbender and McAvoy are great; McAvoy in particular has to go through a major transformation and does it beautifully. His has the most difficult acting task. Dinklage is excellent as the scientist; he comes across as a real person, one who is not a mutant-hating psycho but an idealist who believes mankind could unite against a common enemy. Lawrence pretty much steals every scene she is in as the key character. Will she kill even though it will cause future trouble because Trask is behind the killing of many mutants? You will have to see the movie.
Time travel movies are tricky since time travel makes a lot of unplanned changes. But this film carries it off with a few real surprises and treats. The fight scenes and special effects are great, but it is the characters that really are the center of this movie. How will each rise to the occasion or not? Who will be a hero and who will betray?
This is a really fine summer movie. While I doubt I would pay to see it again at the movies, I might well watch it again when I can get it on the small screen. This is a definitely a movie worth seeing. I hope we have more movies as good the rest of the summer. See it.
