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It’s here! The long-awaited X-Men: Days of Future Past is finally on our screens! Our favorite mutants are back and ready to save their present by going in the past and changing the course of history. I’ve waited a long time for this movie, getting more and more excited by the trailers, the pictures, and the buzz around it, thinking that maybe it would be a bit different from all the rest.
Well, boy was I wrong.
I went in with an open mind: Wolverine replacing Kitty Pryde in the time travelling? It’s not the same timeline in the movies as in the comics, so it makes more sense that he replace her. No Rachel Summers? Considering her parents’ fate in the movies, it’s probably excusable. Kitty having Rachel’s power? Very strange, but at least she’ll get some screen time. No Mystique’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants or Senator Kelly? I guess it’s understandable too etc.
You can’t ever be completely satisfied with an adaptation because some things are great on paper, but don’t work on a screen. So like I said, I went with an open mind. However, not only was I completely disappointed by X-Men: Days of Future Past, but it left me angry. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a good piece of entertainment and you can have a lot of fun watching it, but it’s messy and incoherent.
Days Of Future Past feels like an old movie, and not in a good way: It’s tiresome, just like the rest of the X-Men franchise. There is no balance between their present (2023) and the past (1970s). The ”future” is mainly used as a too long ”Previously in X-Men”, whose only purpose is to highlight the Past. Nothing is developed, the names of half the characters are barely spoken (if you haven’t read about them beforehand, you have no idea who most of them are) and we are drowned in dialogues re-explaining half of the previous storylines, that we already all know by heart at this point.
As for the ”Past”, nothing really exists outside the main 4 characters (including the supposed ”baddies”), and the reason of their mission gets lost in their emotional and personal feelings towards each other, which is very annoying to watch. Also, the overuse of the 1970s card and the historical events mixed with mutant history, it’s just ridiculous.
The first thing that bothered me with this movie (and it’s linked with First Class) is the younger versions of Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr and Raven Darkholme, played by James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Jennifer Lawrence respectively. Even if I appreciate Lawrence & McAvoy, and dislike Fassbender, individually they all are very good actors. Put together, I found myself being unable to feel or form a bond with their characters, as there is no chemistry. Most of the scenes they have together, their dialogues are almost robotic, and those characters are so stuck on one particular moment in their lives that they never talk about anything else. Plus, as an experienced audience, we all know from the very beginning that everyone is going to be just fine, so all the drama just slows the action in addition of being sometimes useless. I was quite bored during a lot of scenes.
The main reason why I’m angry, is that once again the director is unable to reinvent and go forward with this franchise (it’s true with Singer, and it was true with Ratner). It’s always the same thing, and they don’t know how to use or develop a character. All through the years, I really feel like I’m watching the same movie over and over again, in slightly changed and less convincing versions. Maybe it’s just me, but X-Men is not just about Wolverine, Mystique, Jean Grey, Magneto & Prof X. I get that Singer wanted to show a separation between the first 3 films and this new generation, but it’s confusing and nothing is resolved.
Of course, it’s not all bad! There’s still great battle scenes, visually it’s good, but the major good point of Days of Future Past is Quicksilver (even though I’m not quite sure about what they did with his back story, but anyway). It goes without saying that every time he was on screen, it was a pure delight. Evan Peters embodies Pietro Maximoff perfectly, and his scenes at the Pentagon are the main reasons you should see this movie. Unfortunately he was sent home a little early, which is a bad move if you ask me, because he has super speed aka a great advantage on everyone! Now I’m only waiting to see if Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s take on the part in Avengers: Age of Ultron will be as good as Peters’.
The open end could be the sign of change: Since a big part of what we used to know disappeared (The Last Stand and part of United), they’ll able to take little more liberties with the story for the next one, and I hope they’ll shake things up a bit. I didn’t quite like it, but I can see why so many people enjoyed it. It’s still an action-filled entertainment, that is definitely watchable, but for me, X-Men: Days of Future Past is a disappointment.
Ratings: 2/5
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