X-Men: Days of Future Past

My Grade:  A+

This marks the second film in one franchise to which I have given an A+. What’s even wilder about that is I wouldn’t consider myself a fan of superhero films. After seeing X-Men:  First Class, I didn’t think any other X-Men film would live up to it. I was wrong. Days of Future Past may be even better than First Class. It is such a highly ambitious film with a huge cast, huge stakes, and even time travel (which is so hard to do well) but it works extremely well. It does something that very few films are able to do:  operate on a huge scale while simultaneously staying small enough to focus on character and story.

This film serves to bridge the gap between the older X-Men films featuring the likes of Hugh Jackman (Wolverine), Patrick Stewart (Professor X), Ian McKellen (Magneto), Famke Janssen (Jean Grey), James Marsden (Cyclops), Halle Berry (Storm) and the newer films featuring some of the top young actors of our generation:  James McAvoy (Professor X), Michael Fassbender (Magneto), Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique), Nicholas Hoult (Beast) and more. It bridges that gap by taking us into a bleak future that has been set into motion by a mutant who thought they were doing the right thing. To fix it, the mutants have to go back in time and fix the problem at the source. It makes Professor X and Magneto work together as young men which is my favorite pairing in the new leg of the franchise. McAvoy’s Charles Xavier and Fassbender’s Magneto have such a layered relationship portrayed perfectly by the actors… it’s simply a joy to watch.

This film is also very funny. It’s surprisingly funny, actually. It would be easy to take the subject matter very seriously since the fate of the world is at stake. But, it’s a superhero movie at its core so it should be fun. And it certainly is. One of the funniest and best characters, though, doesn’t hang around long. Quicksilver (played by one of my absolute favorite up-and-comers, Evan Peters) has a couple of key scenes. It’s ironic, though, because he’s out of the film about as fast as he entered (similar to his superpower of superhuman speed) and he steals every one of those few scenes (his character is notoriously a thief). The main action scene he takes part in is also, hands down, the best action scene I have seen in a long time. I can’t even explain why it’s so good; it just is. I wanted more of him in this film but hopefully he will play a big role in future films.

The production design is fantastic in this film, too. The set pieces are epic, the look captures the time period it’s set in, and the Sentinels (big, bad, mutating robots… yea) look terrifying. These Sentinels are very worthy opponents and definitely up the stakes for our heroic mutants. This is something the newest iterations of the franchise have done very well:  villains. A villain that wants to take over the world just because they can… that’s boring. A villain who has a deeper purpose and thinks they are doing what is right… that’s compelling. First Class and Days of Future Past have both done this very well and I look forward to the next installment’s villain.

Overall, Days of Future Past is both highly entertaining and provides a refreshing character-driven story that isn’t very common in big budget summer blockbusters. It revitalizes the X-Men franchise and allows for more films that (hopefully) can fill our need for superhero films that offer more than surface thrills. I can’t wait to see what is next for this franchise that seems to be getting better with age.