Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Movie Review: "X-Men: Days of Future Past" (2014)

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Movie"X-Men: Days of Future Past"
Director: Bryan Singer
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 2 hours, 11 minutes

In the near future, Mutants are almost extinct. All Mutants, as well as any human who may carry the mutant gene, are being hunted down and rounded up by robots known as Sentinels. These Sentinels have the unique ability to change and adapt, which makes them virtually indestructible. They have discovered Mystique’s (Jennifer Lawrence) DNA is the key to developing these machines, and her past actions were the motivation for creating them. Professor X (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen) devise a plan for Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) to project Wolverine’s (Hugh Jackman) consciousness into his younger self in order to change the past. Wolverine must find younger past Professor X (James McAvoy) and younger past Magneto (Michael Fassbender) so together, they can help convince Mystique not to carry out the actions that will eventually lead to the doom of the entire mutant race.  

This is the best X-Men movie in a long time. Its cool yet convoluted plot completely erases the stink-bomb known as "X-Men: The Last Stand" and does so with open arms. The whole concept of the movie is really interesting and filmmaker Bryan Singer manages to pull off the time jump/time travel in this film expertly, in our opinions. The X-Men movies are also always able to bring up not just historical parallels, but social issues that still plague our society today. Humans always fear what the don't understand, and it seems that consistently through each X-Men movie past and present, this is a recurring theme, which only adds to our enjoyment.

Let's face it: Jennifer Lawrence is America's (current) Sweetheart. Whether the central focus on Mystique in this movie had to do with this fact, we may never know, but we have a hunch that's why. This is not to knock to the film, it's just merely an observation. Jennifer Lawrence does a good job as Mystique/Raven and we've never found ourselves tiring of her character. James McAvoy plays disillusioned and disheveled really well in his reprisal as Professor X. Michael Fassbender is fantastic as Magneto and plays stone-faced villains extremely well. We also really enjoyed the introduction of Quicksilver (Even Peters). He adds a lot of much-needed humor and has a great film-stealing scene at the prison (you'll know what we mean if you have seen the movie). Hugh Jackman is dazzling, as always, as Wolverine, and a treat to watch with his shirt off to men and women everywhere. Along with some old X-Men cameos, there are also a lot of new characters in bit roles that pop up here and there. Despite their small roles, they do get to display their individual powers, which may help to satisfy your inner geek.

Overall, we were extremely impressed and left wanting more. We are very much looking forward to "X-Men: Apocalypse" in 2016.

My Rating: 8/10
BigJ's Rating: 8/10
IMDB's Rating: 8.0/10
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 91%
Do we recommend this movie: Yes!!
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To see our review of "X-Men," click here.

To see our review of "X2: X-Men United," click here.

To see our review of "X-Men: The Last Stand," click here.

To see our review of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," click here.

To see our review of "X-Men: First Class," click here.

To see our review of "The Wolverine," click here.

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