by Joseph Rossi
X:MEN: Days of Future Past is a big, loud, superstar heavy, illogical film with plot holes so big one could drive a truck through them. But what the hell– its summer. For all its faults, this is the X:MEN flick fans have been waiting for.
We start off in a bleak future where Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and his arch enemy and sometime chess mate Magneto (Ian McKellan) are on the run with a band of their mutant cohorts. They are being hunted by an army of mutant killing machines called Sentinals. A plan is devised where Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) will be sent back in time to 1973 via the powers of Kitty Pride (Ellen Page) to stop these Sentinels from being built.
The future Wolverine must contact the X:Men’s 1970’s selves, specifically the younger Xavier (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) in order stop the mutant Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from murdering the man who is responsible for the Sentinel program, the mutant hating Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage). They believe that if Trask lives the program will be aborted.
Bryan Singer returns to the franchise that basically kicked off the whole superhero movie era and he delivers with guns blazing. The man knows what he is doing. His action scenes have a visceral edge that other directors wish they could pull off. Watching Magneto levitate a stadium inspires awe, something we rarely get in the movies these days and Singer knows how to use the medium for max effect. Singer is an innovator, creating sequences, such as the Pentagon Escape, that boggle the mind.
The cast is huge. I was never a big X-Men film fan because they had too many mutants flaunting their powers, all mugging for screen time. But here, the massive cast works. Probably because the older actors are kind of pushed out of the picture when the whole time travel thing kicks in so more time is spent following one specific set of individuals. It sort of reduces some major players to basic walk on cameo roles but it’s no matter since the film has enough character development that would impress David Mamet. Tech credits are all first rate and it’s a massive kick to see our wonderful Montreal (the filming location) on the big screen.
