X-Men: Days of Future Past
At the
beginning of the movie we find the community of the mutants in their darkest
hour. The species of homo sapiens has finally created the ultimate weapon to
beat their enemies, and this time there is no way out. The last few mutants,
among them professor Xavier, Magneto, Storm, Kitty Pryde and Logan, are
desperately fighting against their final defeat, while most of their companions
are already dead. But this time they have no remedy against the humans and
their weapon: the sentinels, giant robots with detectors to identify mutants
and the formula to destroy them with deadly vigour. Those sentinels have been
developed by the Trask Company in the early 70s of the 20th century,
led by Dr. Bolivar Trask, who has committed himself to deliver mankind for once
and for all from the evil represented by the mutants. His program has been
controversial, but a mutant himself helped to install it, unintentionally
though: Mystique (the young version, played by Jennifer Lawrence), raging against
all enemies of the mutants, had killed Trask, who she thought the worst of all.
That killing made way for the sentinel program to be fully established and the
mutants were doomed.
Their
mysterious gifts have always worried the humans, and now these gifts leave one
last chance to survive. Kitty Pryde is able to send people through time and
Logan is chosen to go back to the year 1973, to prevent Mystique from killing
Trask. Logan is the only one who is able to go on this mission, because of his
self healing ability only he can survive the physical stress of time
travelling. He has to find Mystique (not an easy task with a shape shifter…)
and stop her by all means. To succeed Logan has to form a team with the younger
selves of Charles Xavier, Hank McCoy and Magneto, he, Logan, the single
combatant who never felt part of a team has to free Charles and Magneto from
each of their prisons by using patience and sensibility, traits that are not
his strongest suit.
Charles,
always open minded, doesn’t have many problems with believing that Logan was
sent from the future by Charles’ older self, but he is going through a major
depression, self destroying and full of doubt and pessimism. Logan has to fight
one of his hardest battles against the professor who he always looked up to in
awe, only this time his weapons are neither fists nor claws, and it is great to
watch him grow with his task, until he finally brings out the man Charles has
yet to become.
The other
task is a demanding one too: to get Magneto out of the safest prisons on earth
– a room deep down underneath the Pentagon, where he has been held more than
ten years after allegedly killing president Kennedy. This quest has enough
potential for a movie itself, yet time is limited here… But how it is done is one
of the little masterpieces, that add to the superb masterpiece that is the
whole movie. Bryan Singer succeeds to fulfil the expectations for a blockbuster
movie, delivering opulent, fast and breathtaking 3D action scenes. But he also
manages to fill in adorably funny scenes, that are full of surprises and
technically challenging as well. The way Quicksilver handles the action under
the soundtrack of Jim Croce’s wonderful song “Time in a bottle” is simply
fabulous!
After
building the team around Logan and Charles, the plot follows it’s dramatic
path, forced by the Sentinels getting closer to their aim on the future
timeline.
There’s no
need to worry about time travelling and the different time lines, no one will
stumble over plot holes or is in danger to get lost in the space time
continuum. The story always follows a strict logic, that too a piece of art
that Singer and his script writer Simon Kenberg create. Singer merges
successfully the “old” X-Men around Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellan with
the young generation around James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender. The combining
link is slow aging Logan, which makes it possible for Hugh Jackman to play both
roles. Singer brings on excellently shaped characters with depth and emotions,
a fact not easily adopted by action movies of this kind, this merit of course
also goes to the brilliant cast! Bolivar Trask – superbly delivered by Peter
Dinklage – is not the hate driven Dr. Evil on his way to fame and fortune. He
also follows the idea of finally uniting mankind against a common enemy after
thousands of years of butchering themselves. He doesn’t mind eliminating
another species for it, which is his mistake, a mistake that seems to be common
for the human race: kill what you fear or what is different!
Mystique’s
mistake is to believe that she is eliminating the biggest menace for her
species. In her eyes she does the right thing to help the community of the
mutants, instead she makes way for their final elimination. From her point of
view at the moment of the action she is doing the right thing, if she knew the
results, she would have stopped, not for moral but logic reasons. Both, Trask
and Mystique, believe to do the right thing as many before them have done in
history who have been responsible for so much grief and pain, a correction by
viewing it from a point afterwards comes always too late. But here by going
back with the knowledge of what is to happen there is a chance to correct
mistakes. For sure that’s why the time travelling theme is so common in science
fiction.
But even by
not going deeper into these thoughts, the movie offers the best of
entertainment, the way it should be: bombastic, sometimes pathetic, with
suspense and funny scenes, and therefore: definitely go see it and submerge for
two hours in a complete different world!
Director: Bryan Singer
Writers: Simon Kinberg, Jane Goldman (story), Mathew Vaughn
Cast: Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Ellen Page, Peter Dinklage, Evan Peters, Omar Sy, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Bingbing Fan,
Music: John Ottman
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