X Men: Days of Future Past Review

The premise of X-Men: Days of Future Past is great (Wolverine goes back in time to the ‘70s). The film doesn’t really deliver though, underusing the best actors and characters, suffering from a lacklustre plot and no real villain.

So the future is really bleak. For some reason it’s cloudy and dark everywhere all the time, and robots are chasing the last surviving mutants across the globe. The old favourites are back, and it’s a real treat to see Iceman, Kitty, Magneto and Xavier for the first time in eight years. They’re barely escaping the scary robots who were invented by Peter Dinklage's Bolivar Trask in the 70s, and so send Wolverine back in his own consciousness (with his memories intact but into his younger body; unfortunately there aren’t two Wolverines knocking about) to stop a chain of events that causes the mutant apocalypse. Wolverine finds Xavier at his worst, without his powers and stumbling around drunk like Kurt Cobain or Jim Morrison, bearded and robed. There’s a neat bit later in the film in which the two Xaviers (Patrick Stewart and James MacAvoy) meet, but it’s one of too few ‘new meets old’ moments in the film. It’s disappointing how little this happens, and the huge potential for self-reflection, and seeing two actors play the same role in one shot would’ve been great, but it’s underused.

The first third of the film is fun, the future is depressing and scary, and it’s great seeing Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart back together.  Stewart still brings wisdom and authority to a ridiculous world, even managing to retain dignity in a leather suit and a flying wheelchair.  They’re not in it enough though; you would think they would use the two best actors in the movie a lot more. This is partly because they’re passing the franchise on to the First Class crew, so really it’s got to be about the young actors who can actually do all the action stuff, and there’s no Rogue, Cyclops or Jean Grey to run around either. It’s sad to see Stewart and McKellan go, but at least they can keep Hugh Jackman, and X-Men: Apocalypse will be set in the ‘80s, which should be cool.

The film’s biggest problem is its plot, which is kind of boring. There’s no space time continuum stuff, and they don’t really play with time travel at all. It doesn’t really feel like an action movie - there’s a lot of talking – but action set pieces are stuck in there anyway, and it’s all CGI nonsense. Big action scenes come down to lifting giant things like Superman, which is really, really boring to anyone who’s ever seen a movie before, and giant flying robots, which are unremarkable, and  have been done to death in the last ten years. The film also lacks real villain; Lawrence’s Mystique is fine, as is Dinklage’s Bolivar Trask, but there’s too much sympathy for both characters. The threat comes from the robots in the end, and they have no personality.

Evan Peters’ Quicksilver is the highlight of the movie, a slacker teen mutant who can move in bullet time. The section of the film in which he appears is the best; he’s funny, cocky and reminiscent of a young Johnny Depp. Again he’s not in it enough, and you’d think the X-Men could’ve used him in the last third of the film.

Despite a fantastic cast and some shining moments DOFP underuses its best bits, instead going for  all out CGI, or boring talking bits.