The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015. Remaining movies: 1 Days to go: 3
Movie #439: X-Men: Days of Future Past
X-Men: Days of Future Past is where the two separate X-Men franchises collide, and it is masterful. The characters we know from the first three X-Men movies (or some of them, at least, as well as a few we’ve never met before) come together in the future to stop an event from happening in the past — where most of the characters from X-Men: First Class are still running about — that will eradicate all mutants (and many humans) from the face of the earth. It plays with time, it plays with space, it plays with inevitability and free will and second chances, and I love it a whole lot. If not for a few complaints, it would easily be my favorite, but the things I find fault with are also the result of Days of Future Past‘s enormous ambition, which should be rewarded even if it doesn’t quite hit the mark.
In this film, the future is a war-torn dystopia and what few mutants remain are constantly on the run from weapons called Sentinels — transformative robots made from non-metallic polymers that can adapt to a mutant’s power to more effectively destroy it. Determining that the Sentinel program came from a moment back in 1973, the Professor (Patrick Stewart), who revealed he was alive again in the epilogue of The Wolverine vis-à-vis some sort of squirrelly magic that isn’t really explained all that well, and Magneto (Ian McKellen) convince Kitty (Ellen Page) to send Logan (Hugh Jackman) back in time in order to stop that event from happening and change the course of history. (Logan is the only one who can make such a trip, since he heals as fast as he’s torn apart and this journey of his consciousness will wreak havoc on his mind.)
So Logan’s consciousness goes back and he has to enlist young Charles (James McAvoy) and Hank (Nicholas Hoult) into helping him, which includes breaking Eric (Michael Fassbender) out of a prison beneath the Pentagon. For this they go to Quicksilver (Evan Peters), which I mention simply because it is my absolute favorite sequence of this or any X-Men movie, and it is entirely too short. Slowing everything else down to show Quicksilver working in his super-speed at a pace we can actually see is amazing CGI at work, and I want so much more of it. Why he’s not invited along to Paris or even just brought back at the end for their D.C. showdown is beyond me. He’s so great! Why would you introduce him, blow everyone away with his playful machinations, and then forget all about him for the rest of the film? It drives me crazy.
Not that the rest of the film doesn’t have a whole hell of a lot to contend with without adding Quicksilver to the mix. Peter Dinklage (who makes everything better, let’s be honest) is here as Dr. Bolivar Trask, the scientist behind those nasty Sentinel machines, and Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) aims to kill him. Unfortunately, when she does (in the past) it sets off a chain reaction of events in which her actions are used as proof of a mutant threat and her DNA is used to enhance the Sentinels. Logan’s troupe goes to stop her, of course, but the movie brilliantly plays with images so that some of the things we saw in the image of the past are duplicated in this scenes Logan is supposedly changing, raising the question of whether this is all happening as it always did, as it always was meant to. Hank brings up that question himself, of whether time is immutable and unchangeable — a common theme in time-travel tales — so somehow, some way, whatever happens will always happen and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.
Naturally, Charles takes a different view, because despite his current (1973) disillusionment, in which he treats himself with a serum to give him back the use of his legs in exchange for losing his powers of the mind, he’s still the optimist. He still believes in Mystique as a good person. He still mourns Eric’s insistence of distancing himself from goodness. And he still has faith in the human (and mutant) spirit, believing good will prevail if he only choose it.
Ultimately, the movie takes this view too, as it shows us Mystique changing her path and gives us a star-studded happy ending — incredibly, like, nearly EVERYONE is back and alive and awesome for this tiny little closing scene. At the same time, it also opens the door for ALL NEW STORIES about Mystique, about Jean (Famke Janssen), about Logan, et cetera. There are honestly not that many movies that can pull off something that impressive, and I give it a lot of credit. Meaning I forgive it a lot of its blurry areas — where things are most glossed over like LA LA LA DON’T ASK TOO MANY QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT’S HAPPENING HERE — even though they annoy me personally. I choose for goodness to prevail.
Viable Option 