Bryan Singer made a pair of singular superhero flicks with X-Men and X2: X-Men United, then departed the franchise, leaving the various prequels and sequels in somewhat lesser hands. He returns to the fold with the cool-sounding X-Men: Days of Future Past, a somewhat convoluted installment that he manages to make very much worth your viewing while, replete as it is with some exciting set pieces and a trio of great performances.
Destined to be remembered as “the one where Wolverine goes back in time,” it opens in a future in which most mutants have been exterminated by giant, man-made robots called Sentinels. In a last-ditch effort to arrest their demise, the surviving X-Men (Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry and Ellen Page among them) send mutton-chopped speed-healer Logan (Hugh Jackman) back to 1973 to stop a scientist (Peter Dinklage, just sinister enough) from inventing the things.
More specifically, they send back Logan’s mind to his ‘70s body, and from there he enlists the help of a young Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), who in turn drafts a young Magneto (Michael Fassbender). A clever conceit, certainly, one that allows actors from previous installments to mingle, or at least exist in the same film, most notably when Stewart, reprising his franchise role as the older version of wheelchair-bound Xavier, has a literal meeting of the minds with McAvoy.
And yet the overall plot feels just a little too dense, comprised as it is of a lot of moving parts. Singer, who obviously wanted to go epic with this entry, sometimes seems overwhelmed by all of them, and so the narrative fails to flow quite as smoothly as in his first two times at X-Men bat. This applies in particular to the finale, a somewhat frenzied thing involving Richard Nixon and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium that, resolution-wise, left me unsatisfied.
Singer also crams in a lot characters, but justifiably gives McAvoy, Fassbender and Jackman the most attention. McAvoy, so good as a cocky young Xavier in X-Men: First Class, does equally excellent work as the broken and bitter version, while Fassbender again makes his Magneto elegantly arrogant. And Jackman’s still a lot of fun as Wolverine (especially decked out in ‘70s threads), even if he is starting to look a little too old to be playing a man who’s not supposed to age.
Stadium climax aside, Singer does deliver the action goods, including some terrific opening-act combat between the fearsome-looking, abilities-absorbing Sentinels and the younger mutants (including franchise player Shawn Ashmore as Iceman). He tops that with a very cleverly done sequence in which supersonic speedster Quicksilver (Evan Peters) helps Jackman and McAvoy bust Fassbender out of a Pentagon jail cell. You don’t need super powers to see that it’s the highlight of the film. – [DVD/Blu-Ray]
Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi
Rated PG-13
DVD Release Date: 10/14/14
