X-Men: Days of Future Past

Past meets Future and it is glorious

Our story begins in an apocalyptic future where robots called "Sentinels" have basically killed every living thing on the planet (save for a few of our favorite superheros). These machines were originally created to extinguish the "mutant threat," but eventually started killing everyone that had the potential of making more mutants (which is everyone else apparently). Our heroes in the future have a shot at stopping this disaster before it even starts by sending Logan/Wolverine's (Hugh Jackman) consciousness back into his younger body. During this time he has to convince a morally lost, young Professor Xavier (James McAvoy) to become the Professor Xavier we all know and love (Sir Patrick Stewart). He is also told by a future Magneto (Sir Ian McKellan) to convince his younger self (Micheal Fassbender) to come along for the ride, since both men have the strongest connection to their real problem, Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence). Mystique is the thing that makes the robots of the future unstoppable, and it is up to all of our heroes to keep her from falling into the wrong hands, one way or the other.

I actually really liked this movie, and that is saying a lot for a comic book movie not produced by Marvel/Disney these days. Believe me it is no "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," but it was definitely entertaining enough for me to thoroughly enjoy it. The story line is one of the things that holds this movie back from true greatness; but at the same time it is also one of the greatest things about. The bad things include Kitty Pride getting some new power that has nothing to do with her current power, and it not being explained at all. It is supposed to be just generally accepted that this just happened, and we all have to role with it. The good things are subtle. Like strong messages about drug use and how it drives even the greatest of men into turmoil. Basically Professor Xavier is a junkie in this, it gives him the use of his legs but suppresses his powers (making him human). When you see James McAvoy holding a needle to his skin, in a cold sweat, and his friend begging him not to use, you get the picture pretty quick. The sentinels themselves having a strong message to them (but than again they always had this message in X-Men). It goes a little something like this "what if someone did want to extinguish an entire section of humanity? (homosexuals, African Americans, Hebrews, etc.) What would stop that thing from killing everyone with the potential of making more?" As I said it isn't the newest message from the X-Men, but the delivery here is unique and pretty great.

The acting in this was absolutely superb, that should come as no surprise when you look at the names attached to this (even though other movies with big names had those actors fall flat... looking at you "Amazing Spider-Man 2"). Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart give their usual flawless performance. Hugh Jackman gives a newer, fresher performance as a more caring; yet, still gruff Wolverine. Peter Dinklage does amazing as Bolivar Trask, which was actually a real worry for me since I didn't know if he would translate well to big budget action movies.  Jenifer Lawrence does what she can, while seeming like she didn't really want to be in the movie (since she is at a time in her career where she is probably swimming in scripts). I wasn't really surprised by Evan Peters' ability to play Quicksilver since all he had to do was play an annoying asshole with incredible power. The real show stoppers here were James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender. catching the magic from "X-Men: First Class" these two were absolute scene thieves in this movie. James plays a distraught Professor Xavier even better than he played a young, hopeful Professor Xavier. Fassbender sells an evil, murder happy Magento like very few others could.

The action scenes in this were pretty spectacular, even tough the movie could have done with a little more of them. The big scene that everyone is probably going to be screaming about is the "slow time Quicksilver" moments. They were very entertaining, just not really the newest thing in the world. The rest of the action scenes were pretty great besides those few moments that will probably be blowing up your Facebook wall. I liked finally being able to see Ice Man surf on his ice, I liked seeing Colossus as more of a useless character, and the Mystique action sequences that we missed in "X-Men: First Class" are now back with a vengeance. These scenes are some of the best directed, high graphic fight scenes I have seen in a while, and it is refreshing to say that when I am not talking about "Pacific Rim" or "The Avengers".

I know that Bryan Singer's recent allegations are probably going to have a bulls eye pointed on me for saying this, but the man did extremely well with this movie. So well that he blew his other two X-Men movies out of the water. I don't really care about the man's personal life, it has nothing to do with his ability to make a quality film. The older movies were good for the time being, since that is the best we could get; but, now we have a Bryan Singer that apparently found the secret sauce of making big budget action sequences.

Final Verdict: See it in Theaters A few missteps keep this from my highest honor, but this movie was definitely worth the price of admission. I can only hope our next big super hero movie took its ques from movies like this and "Captain America: The Winter Soldier."