X-Men: Days of Future Past was a really good movie. It’s the second installment of the Bryan Singer X-Men “Origin” series. X-Men: First Class which was the first was set in the 1960’s and this new movie was set mostly in the 1970’s. X-Men First Class was really good and initially I had been skeptical about another X-Men movie because I have to be honest in saying that prior to First Class I hadn’t been a big fan of the X-Men movies at all with the exception of X-2 but these retro X-Men movies as we are getting them now are very well done and we get more of an involved backstory as to who the X-Men are and how they came to be, that being said let me give you a general idea of what Days of Future Past is about without ruining it for you. This is a spoiler free review so expect me to be vague.
Plot
The plot of this isn’t too elaborate, it’s basically this. There is an ongoing war and its a direct result of a government program put together back in the 1970’s by Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage) and the US Government. The “Sentinel” program was created as a means to exterminate mutants out of a fear that they would ultimately render the human race extinct. The Sentinels are large armed robots programmed to hunt down and kill mutants and protect their human counterparts. What ended up happening as a result is the Sentinels not only exterminated mutants systematically but they also began to turn on humans who may or have a possibility of a mutant gene in the present or future and prevent them from reproduction thus leading to war and imprisonment for humans and surviving mutants alike.
The movie starts off in a post-apocalyptic NY or what’s left of it and the X-Men and fellow rebel mutants are running out of time and ways to fight the Sentinels and are in hiding. The X-Men that remain devise a last effort plan that requires Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) to go back in time with the help of Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) and her teleportation ability to prevent the creation of the Sentinels and the war that ensues by changing events leading to the “Sentinel” program being approved by the US government in the first place. The bulk of the movie’s plot revolves around Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) as well as the mending of the relationship between a younger Charles Xavier / Professor X (James McAvoy) and a young Magneto (Michael Fassbender). This movie also incorporates the present day Professor X (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen) to help make the movie make sense by explaining the path for Wolverine to follow when he goes back in time. So by default he becomes the hero of the movie and this is basically the crux of the story. We get a few nice cameos from some notable X-Men and mutants such as Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), Sunspot (Adan Canto), Bishop (Omar Sy), Blink (Fan Bingbing), Colossus (Daniel Cudmore) and probably the most important cameo in the movie from Quicksilver (Evan Silver). It’s a collective effort to stop the Sentinel program before it starts and change the fate of human and mutant kind.
Wrap-Up
Like I said from the beginning X-Men: Days of Future Past is a very good movie. The plot does at times seem all over the place sometimes and the movie started to (at least for me) feel like a drama as opposed to the action flick I expected considering the outcome that we saw from the beginning of the movie. There were also just a few things that bothered me as a purist right from the start I’ll name one, for instance, where the hell did the Professor X find time to re-materialize into a human being especially since Jean Grey’s character vaporized him in the last X-Men movie? I need an explanation. This is just one example of something that bothered me. You will for sure have your own questions after watching this movie but make no mistake IT IS a good movie. We also know that this movie is a lead up to the next one X-Men: Apocalypse so make sure you sit back and watch the credits for a bonus scene. ENJOY!