2014 Movies: #28

#28 X-Men: Days of Future Past

I read a number of positive reviews over the summer about this one and wasn't able to make it, for whatever reason. That said, I wasn't in a hurry because with the exception of the cuban missile crisis sequence, X-Men: First Class was hot garbage; so too was the embarrassingly bad Wolverine and the totally underwhelming The Last Stand. I never claimed to be a mathematician, but that's eleven years (X-Men 2, in '03) since a decent outing for the beloved comic book squad. And there's one common thread running through the first two and Days of Future Past: Director Bryan Singer. Thank goodness he's back to right the ship.

Charles Xavier's future gifted youngsters find themselves locked in a battle with giant metal Sentinels, much more terrifying than the ones I remember from the comics and the cartoon. Bishop, Colossus (he of the power-sneeze in the video game), Iceman, Blink, Warpath and Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) are doing their best to fend them off, but are getting their asses handed to them. In fact, everyone except the injured Bishop and the cleric Kitty Pryde are actually vanquished. Before the Sentinels can get them, Kitty vanishes them and it is revealed that she has sent Bishop's conscience back in time to warn the others, so in actuality, they have survived the attack because the attack was avoided in the past.

Whaaa?

Future X , Future Magneto, Storm and Wolvie show up and begin to hatch a plan. Wolverine (because of his unique healing abilities) will be sent back to 1973 to stop Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from killing engineer Bolivar Trask (GoT's Peter Dinklage), who had created the Sentinels. The fact that Trask was assassinated by a mutant means that the government saw the utility in his project, and the sentinels get the funding he was looking for. Wolverine requires the help of young X (James McAvoy) young Beast (Nicholas Hoult), and Quicksilver (Evan Peters) to take her down. Knowing that she will listen to him, they decide to spring Magneto (Michael Fassbender) from his concrete underground prison at the Pentagon. Why, do you ask is he imprisoned in that fashion? Because he killed JFK by manipulating the direction of the bullet, of course! From there, lots of exciting and visually engaging sequences: Quicksilver slowing down time to stop a room full of government agents; Magneto lifting up an entire sports stadium to hover above Nixon and his goons to show he means business; another holds-no-barred battle with the sentinels of the future. Even though the plot itself is somewhat convoluted, Singer and co. pull it off. Wish I had seen it in theaters. And you can bet Oliver Stone wishes he had thought of the "magneto theory".