X-Men: Days of Future Retraction
May 26, 2014 6:22 pm | Leave your thoughts
Today, I was visited by my future self. He told me that I needed to stop dreading X-men: Days of Future Past. He told me that I have to remember to reserve judgement until after I have observed something with my own two eyes and that I should always remember to not be so cynical. All right, I lied. This is all merely wishful thinking. I went to Carmike Cinemas today, dreading DOFP because I already knew this story bore absolutely no resemblance to the story that really hooked me on X-men comics. This story and the Mutant Massacre are sacred ground to me. Two of my favorite X-men of all time are Bishop and Blink. All I was asking for was that those two characters not be horrible.
DOFP opens a dystopian future that has our X’ers getting massacred every couple of hours, but they have figured out a time bubble trick that is keeping them alive. Professor X believes they should use their trick to send him back in time to change the time stream so this horrible future never occurs. They trace the fallen dominos all the way back to the 1970’s when Mystique murdered Bolivar Trask played by the always awesome Peter Dinklage. This assassination led to the development of the Sentinel program that became unstoppable with the acquisition of Mystique’s adaptable genetic blueprint. The future action sequences had several nice touches that I was especially fond of. The Sentinel’s ship were shaped like giant floating coffins. I know this is a bit heavy handed, but we are dealing with the end of the world, are we not? I hope we get to see more of Bishop, Blink, and Warpath in the next film. The way their powers were highlighted really set the bar high for what we would be seeing in the rest of the film. I’ve been screaming from the hilltops for years about how Blink’s use of teleportation powers would make her one of the most difficult and deadly x-men in one on one combat. Now, thanks to this movie, everyone else can see it.
Wolverine is sent back to the seventies; because his healing factor makes him the only one capable of making the journey. He immediately contacts a young Charles Xavier who is addicted to a serum made by Hank McCoy which suppresses his mental gifts but gives him the use of his legs. Xavier tells Logan that he cannot stop Mystique without Magneto who is locked up in a max security cell underneath the Pentagon. Logan then makes contact with an old associate of his named Peter.
This is the area of the film that I owe the biggest apology for. Evan Peters is an absolute delight in every scene that he is in. All the promo images I saw for Quicksilver looked horrible, and that stupid Hardee’s commercial did not help, but his look in the comics have never been very traditional so the film makers had quite a challenge in making this character look believable.
Magneto’s jailbreak was scored by Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle”, an understated and genius choice for this film. Quicksilver even supported Magneto’s head when he ran with him to avoid whiplash. Never once in a single comic with any speedster have I seen someone address this. I was so disappointed when they left Peter behind, but when we saw his little sister sitting on his lap later in the movie, I forgave them.
Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique was not nearly as strong as her performance in First Class. After seeing the heights that she can reach in movies like American Hustle, this performance felt a bit like she was going through the motions.
What DOFP gets wrong is very little. Some of the weight of the film is a little lost since the last time we saw many of these characters was in the not-so-good The Last Stand. Also, there is really no connection from the original trilogy’s timeline to this one, other than the end credits sequence we got at the end of The Wolverine. All that combined makes DOFP really just one big reset button for the franchise, albeit a clever one, where it can float between its fantastic original cast and its fantastic new cast and really tell any story it wants from here on out. When you really start to think about that point, it takes away from a lot of the gravitas that DOFP is trying to achieve but it’s a fairly easy thing to ignore as well. Additionally, it’s becoming painfully evident how dependent these films are on Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. I think he has two, maybe three, films as the character left in him. But the franchise is really going to have to take a long look in the mirror once he turns down that contract. But I digress as that is really a convo for another time many years down the road. Other than those rather “background” issues, DOFP gives The Winter Soldier a run for its money as the best comic book movie of the year. I gotta eat a whole lotta crow and Tupperware this one. I’m getting ready to go see it again right now. I must see that end of credits scene again.
Yours Truly,
domesticateddave@gmail.com
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This post was written by David Griffin
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