Film review: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) with spoilers
X-Men: Days of Future Past, directed by Bryan Singer, acts as a sequel to both X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men: First Class.
The story begins in an apocalyptic future where robots named the Sentinels are exterminating mutants and humans, as a band of X-Men such as Professor X (Patrick Stewart), Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and a whole ensemble of heroes are clinging on for survival.
It’s only through the powers of Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) that can help send the conscious of Wolverine back into the past to stop the creator of the Sentinels, Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage).
Even though the comics refer to Kitty being the one going back in time, Wolverine goes to the 70s and encounters familiar faces, including the young Professor X (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender).
It’s a struggle though, as the young Professor X struggles with emotions and Magneto is… well, imprisoned for killing the President who may have been a mutant.
Throughout the film, there’s no feeling that characters are shoved into the story for the mere fun of it. Rather, it seems that every character has a role to play. Even the comedic Quicksilver (Evan Peters) – criticised by many for his mere clothing – adds to the story, and that is to help Magneto escape.
We see appearances from the likes of Blink (Fan Bingbing), Sunspot (Adan Canto), Rogue (Anna Paquin), Warpath (Booboo Stewart), Bishop (Omar Sy) and even Beast (Nicholas Hoult and Kelsey Grammer). We even see some brief appearances of Cyclops and Jean Grey.
The film merges both past and the present spectacularly, especially during the climactic scenes when the Sentinels destroy everything in their wake as events shape the present.
The Sentinels, practically indestructible, give the X-Men such a good clobbering that if they arrived any sooner the heroes would cease to exist. Wolverine’s present body would cease to be alive hereby his conscious in the past would probably vanish.
The saved-just-in-time cliche was predictable but the climax fight probably had a lot of us on the edge of the seat. The Sentinels showed no remorse as they hunted down each superhero, sometimes quite brutally.
If there’s one thing going through the minds of X-Men fans right now it’s the end credits scene.
For those who did manage to stay after the film, they would have seen the scene that creates the perfect buildup for X-Men: Apocalypse, the next film expected to be released in May 2016 set in the 80s.
The scene shows the evil En Sabah Nur (known as Apocalypse), regarded as one of the first mutants, using his powers manipulating the ancient pyramids of Egypt. Not far off we see the outlines of his four horsemen.
It’s also interesting that in the comics, even Wolverine becomes a Horseman. So maybe he encounters the dark side in the upcoming film.
Back onto the end credits, Apocalypse looks different from the comics and games and rather human like. But perhaps he’s yet to realise his true potential.
But we know for a fact he’ll be a fantastic villain. The ability to have superhuman strength, to be invulnerable, to fly, to change size, and to have rather god-like powers makes him rather indestructible. If a hero had every power it wouldn’t be as gripping, but it begs us to question how the X-Men will be able to defeat him.
Rating: 9/10
