X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

Release Date: May 22, 2014

In Days of Future Past, the X-Men face their biggest threat yet, requiring not one, but two teams to thwart it. This film uses the famous comic arc as a starting point, but since it only lasted two issues, there’s a fair bit of expansion here.

This spoiler buffer is the greatest thing, seriously.

This time, we pick up an unspecified period of time after X-Men: The Last Stand, in a world where both mutants and humans have been hunted to the verge of extinction by the Sentinels, nigh-indestructible robots that can adapt to their surroundings and targets. The last of the X-Men, as well as Magneto, who has now switched sides, plan on sending one of their number back in time to the 1970s to stop Mystique from assassinating Bolivar Trask, creator of the Sentinels, whose death persuaded the US government to put them into production. Wolverine is the only person whose mind could survive the trip, so he’s chosen to go on the adventure to stop the Skynet-esque uprising.

When Wolverine gets to the 1970s, he finds that following the events of First Class, Xavier has become a recluse and become an alcoholic, as well as getting addicted to Beast’s mutant suppression drugs, which allow Xavier to walk again. Wolverine recruits him and Beast to get Magneto out of prison, recruiting Quicksilver for the rescue since he’s gotta go fast.

Mystique finds out that Trask has been experimenting on mutants, including most of the First Class cast, and plans on killing him to avenge their deaths, but Wolverine’s group are able to stop her, though she flees. But the future refused to change, as Richard Nixon is convinced by Trask to put the Sentinels into production due to the attempt on Trask’s life. From analysing Mystique’s blood (it’s not magic this time), Trask finds out that it will allow his Sentinels to adapt to their opponents because they’re given the powers of dead mutants, though more is needed for the Sentinels to get Mystique’s power. Meanwhile, Past Xavier is convinced to stop suppressing his powers and become the leader he’s destined to be after talking to his future self.

Magneto uses his X-Men 2 trick of turning mutant-killers against humans by controlling the Sentinels to attack ordinary humans, and easily defeating Wolverine since in the past he doesn’t have his adamantium skeleton yet and can’t damage the Sentinels. Mystique is able to stop Magneto by shooting him with a plastic gun, saving the lives of Richard Nixon and his cabinet. Thus, the Sentinel program is shut down, mutants are respected and no longer feared, Trask is sent to prison, and the bad future never happens, even erasing most of X-Men 3 for good measure by bringing back Jean Grey and Cyclops for the first unambiguously happy ending of the series. Hooray!

The film does an admirable job of balancing both the original and First Class-era casts. Despite the bulk of the film’s events taking place in the past, the original cast don’t get shafted in terms of screen time or relevance and manage to hold their own. Wolverine’s presence is used as a bridge to connect the two eras, which works well. Another method used to connect the two eras is to introduce past incarnations of older characters such as Toad and Stryker with hints towards how they would end up in the future (No wonder Stryker hates mutants, considering how much he gets humiliated here, but it’s hard to feel sorry for him since he’s a jerk.) These appearances are able to avoid feeling gratuitous since attention isn’t drawn to most of them, meaning that those who haven’t seen the earlier films don’t feel left out.

Another element of the film that gets balanced successfully is the impact of characters on the plot. Wolverine isn’t the centre of attention here, which is a pleasant surprise for those who feared that would happen since he was the one to time travel. The complicated relationship between Past Xavier and Past Magneto is built on from First Class and offers a contrast to the present day, where they’re friends, in an inversion of their relationship in the past films. Mystique also gets more character development to build on what was introduced in First Class, which helps it feel less like it comes out of nowhere, which was a nagging feeling in First Class at times.

A lot of new characters are introduced here, but fortunately they’re all well-handled. Trask makes for an effective racist human villain, who is shown to exert power over ordinary humans as well as mutants. His willingness to exercise his influence, as well as his depraved experiments combine aspects from both Senator Kelly and Stryker to make a villain that can compare to them, as well as be more dastardly in their acts. The new recruits to the X-Men in the bad future fit in smoothly and feel as if they’ve always been there, making the most of their screen time. However, the standout is Quicksilver. He never fails to be entertaining to watch, managing to steal all the best lines despite only being in the film for about 10 minutes. His big running set-piece is a contender for the most creative action sequence of the entire series, and is definitely the funniest. Hopefully, he’ll get a bigger role in the next film, as I suspect he wouldn’t wear out his welcome as happens sometimes when scene-stealing minor characters have their role expanded. Either way, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has its work cut out if their Quicksilver is to compete with this one.

With Days of Future Past, the X-Men’s wilderness years are officially over, with the franchise finally clawing its way back to the level of quality the first two films established. The next film is set to adapt the Age of Apocalypse, which this film announces with a suitably ominous post-credits tease, and given the good health of the franchise, that couldn’t have come at a better time. Considering how the film ends, this could well be the last time we see the original cast, and the balanced focus between the two eras works as a way of passing the torch to the current First Class cast and saying goodbye to the old cast.

Bonus: X-Men: The Last Stand featured a minor character called Trask, who was previously thought to be the film version of Bolivar Trask. Fortunately, that character could be explained as having the same surname, but no relation to Bolivar Trask, because he was never referred to by his first name, or did anything relating to the Sentinels. This Trask was played by a tall black actor, whereas Peter Dinklage is white and has dwarfism, so they wouldn’t have been able to get away with claiming it as a recast due to the two actors looking nothing alike each other. (Then again, the Harry Potter films did it at least once…)

Next Time: I’ve already done this one in a spoiler-free capacity.