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X-Men: Day of Future Past - Reviews/Discussion (1 Viewer)

Rian

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I just saw it Thursday night. Quite a treat to see an X-Men movie again with some of the old cast. Really good film with tension mounting towards the end. There is a scene post credits so stick around!
 

Robert Crawford

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I really enjoyed my 3-D showing. Not a big crowd at my 10p showing. I thought the cast was very good. One of the best X-Men films if not the best.
 

hanshotfirst1138

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(Mod note - lots of spoilers in this post, read at your own risk)

"Stick with me, baby. Stick with me anyhow. Things should start to get interesting right about now."Bob Dylan"You'd best be careful what you wish for friend, 'cause I've been to hell and now I'm back again."Steve Earle"Keep what is useful, discard what is useless, and add what is uniquely your own."Bruce Lee Sing-LungBuckle up fanboys. Summer is here at at last, with a blast of a blockbuster to set the bar remarkable high. It's hard to believe that it's been almost 15 years since Bryan Singer first kicked off the still-strong wave of superhero films with 2000's X-Men. With top-shelf thespians and sleek direction, Singer followed in the footsteps of Donner and Burton in developing a way to depict comic-book superheroes with seriousness and a degree of intelligence. X2 was even better, a bigger and more complex sequel that set up many possibilities with its finale which unfortunately never came to fruition. Sadly, the X-Men franchise was left floundering directionless with the director's departure, devolving in a serious increasingly poor sequels. Elsewhere, Singer's career disappointed frequently, with the misconstrued Superman Returns and the amicable but unimpressive Jack the Giant Slayer. Finally regaining a degree of sanity with the the Singer-produced First Class, the man who started it all is back in the director's chair to attempt to untangle the franchise's increasingly unwieldy mythology, massive cast, and increasingly irrelevance against Marvel Studios excellent lineup. And he succeeds wildly, with easily the best superhero outing since at least Joss Whedon's The Avengers, juggling the film's ensemble cast, pop gravitas, twisty time-travel narrative, and slick, James Cameron-style action sequences, in adapting one of the comics' most celebrated storylines. It took ten years, but this is finally the sequel X-fans deserved, and more.The story opens in the not too distant future, when the X-Men are on the verge of extinction, being hunted by massive robots known as Sentinels, designed by eugenicist Bolivar Trask in an attempt to wipe out mutant-kind. Hunted in a horrify holocaust in a post-apocalyptic world, the surviving mutants, hunted to near extinction, have discovered a method to travel in time and avoid their pursuers, at least in the short term, but there's a catch going back further than a short time, allowing the temporary avoid the ever-more powerful hunters. Going back any further is too rigorous for anyone to survive. Except maybe a certain iconic adamantium-clawed mutant with healing powers. Going back to 1973 to stop Mystique from assassinating Trask and starting the anti-mutant mayhem, Wolverine finds Xavier a bitter and broken man from the events of First Class, and desperately tries to convince him to and his only remaining pupil, the Beast, to try to change the course of the future.Wisely discarding most of the irritating "X-kids" from Vaughn's overrated X-Men: First Class while retaining the effective cast members-Mcavoy, Fassbender, Hoult, and Lawrence-and throwing in a delightful bonanza of cameos from the original cast, giving them a proper send-off after Brett Ratner's hideous X-Men: The Last Stand, Singer swings for the fences. Though the future cast is disappointingly underused as they aren't the meat of the narrative, seeing McKellen and Stewart back is simply wonderful, their chemistry and repartee remaining as delightful as ever and adding gravity to the proceeding, though the majority of the narrative takes place within the past, with Hugh Jackman returning to the role he was born to play in Wolverine. Jackman remains the most perfect bit of superhero casting since Christopher Reeve donned the Man of Tomorrow's cape, Fassbender and McAvoy, especially with Stewart and McKellen alongside them (McAvoy and Stewart meet in one of the film's most inspired passages) as counterpoints, and Lawrence continues to justify her superstar status, blending sexy femme-fatale action chops with surprising vulnerability, even under layers of makeup.Finally free of the gaudy excesses of Ratner, Vaughn, and Hood, Singer's sleek style, reminiscent of James Cameron at his peak, lends pop-gravity to the proceedings, succeeding in precisely what Vaughn attempted in First Class-tying the films historical setting with social upheavals like the original comics did. Whereas Vaughn felt like he was simply connecting the dots though, Singer properly shakes things up as much as you can in a comic-book world where nothing ever really changes, making full use of his massive budget and getting every cent up on the screen. Though the underutilized future cast feels a bit disappointing, it allows Singer to thin the ever-growing cast to allow for stronger narrative focus. The central fulcrum-the relationship between Mystique, Xavier, and Magneto-allows for an actual character-based narrative with understandable motivations on all sides. As a result, it approaches that obvious but all-too-rare point in blockbuster FX-fests of giving actual weight to the proceedings and reasons to care among the fireworks.Elsewhere, the jokes are all zingers, particularly some lines for the fans, without spoiling too much, the resolution is wholly satisfying both on its own and a retcon to hideous previous finale, and the set pieces are all rollicking good fun. Singer's action sequences actually make spatial sense, the Sentinels are inspired in design and execution, both as futuristic hunters and clunky 70s tech, the many set pieces executed with the clean choreography of the best pop cinema, reminiscent of James Cameron at his peak, full of clean lines and a clearly delineated sense of who's doing what to whom, ending with an action climax that's both visually spectacular and emotionally satisfying. Singer cites many of his favorites as pop cinema's very best-Nicholas Meyer's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Spielberg's Jaws-and if he's not quite in their company, he's certainly on the right track. Qucksilver is an inspired creation, his bullet-time style FX as a particular highlight. Signer's use of silence, tension, judicious slow-motion, impressive choreography (some of it courtesy of ace second-unit director Greg Smrz, a John Woo alum who's clearly learned his lessons well), and the stylish cinematography and punchy editing of his top lieutenants- superb DP Thomas Newton Seigel and and editor and composer John Ottman, who lend the film a gorgeous, slightly expressionistic color palette (shot in rich digital) and strong rhythm. For once, bloat isn't a problem as the film's outward expansion actually suggests a larger universe (rumored deleted scenes hint at future treats as Blu-Ray extras) and the film's running time flies by.Setting the bar impressively high for the rest of the summer, X-Men finally earn some of their glory back, suggesting that this franchise, once on life support, might still have some life left in it yet. Sleek, smart, stylish, funny, and thoroughly entertaining, the gang's all here, and they're better than ever. Though this proves a satisfying denouement, a post-credits stinger nonetheless hints at a new villain and future adventures. But if the world is in peril again, we needn't worry. With Singer back at the helm, we're in good hands. It's great to have him back at last. To me, my X-Men.
 

TravisR

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I don't want to get into spoilers but I thought it was a very entertaining summer movie that the majority of fans are going to be happy with it.

Not a knock against the movie but for it to have cost $225 million, some of the actors must be getting massive paychecks. It's not like it isn't a big movie but it doesn't seem like one of the biggest movies ever made either.
 

Tino

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Careful of Mikes review from above as it contains many (unintentional I'm sure) spoilers. I'm glad I don't read these threads till AFTER I see the film. I liked it a lot. Better than Godzilla but not as good as Captain America. Lots of fun especially one scene which had the crowd laughing cheering and clapping. Wish the film had more of those type inspired moments. Nonetheless a Very entertaining film and I would say the third best after x1 and x2.
 

Robert Crawford

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TravisR said:
I don't want to get into spoilers but I thought it was a very entertaining summer movie that the majority of fans are going to be happy with it.

Not a knock against the movie but for it to have cost $225 million, some of the actors must be getting massive paychecks. It's not like it isn't a big movie but it doesn't seem like one of the biggest movies ever made either.
I read the budget being estimated at 250M which really caught my eye.
 

Tino

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I gotta agree with Travis as it certainly doesn't look like all that money was on the screen.
 

DustinPizarro

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Watched it earlier today and it was a great summer movie. Great story and even better performances. I could go on but I'll just wait until official review page is open.
 

Stephen Brooks

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$250 million on one movie is ridonkulous. This movie could do $600 million (far beyond any of the other X-Men movies) and still be considered a disappointment.
 

Sean Bryan

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I thought this was pretty great. Possibly the best entry of the series, but I think I need to rewatch X2 and then see this again. Great character stuff for Charles, Eric, Raven and Logan. Beautiful visuals, good action beats, and lots of heart. Well done!The ending was pretty perfect. This movie managed to fix a multitude of sins from The Last Stand and also patch lots of continuity errors fans could pick up on from the other entries. There are still some continuity errors throughout the series that couldn't be fixed, but most are smoothed out. Also, this entry works as a nice lead into additional "First Class" films while also functioning as a nice cap for the original series, and at the same time it sets things right and cleans the slate for new stories with the original series folks if they want to pursue that erra (which I think they should). I still think I'd put The Winter Soldier at #1 for the movies I've seen this year, but Days of Future Past comes awfully close. I'm really looking forward to a second viewing.
 

TheBat

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i watched cap 2 right before xmen. .while they are very differnt from each other . i would give xmen the better movie. that is just me. I am a fan of captain america. the amazing spider-man 2 is my second favorite of the summer. I had watched the 6 xmen movies before watching the new one. I think that make it much better for me.

Jacob
 

mattCR

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I'd still say Cap2 is better, but this film and Cap2 show what went amazingly wrong with Amazing Spiderman 2.This X-Men stayed completely focused on the menace of the sentinels, and how they stop them. This made all of the interactions of all of the characters have real impact on the final goal, which they kept going back to. This allowed characters to change their narrative, to alter their behavior, to be good guys or bad guys but in the end they all had the purpose of serving the larger story.This is what went wrong in Amazing Spiderman 2. The larger story couldn't hold itself together and they couldn't pull that second villain (really the first) effectively into the main thrust of the story without it feeling clunky.More importantly, the 'deaths' and risk felt within both X-Men and Cap2 felt far more deserved,
The death of Blink, a character with very little (any?) speaking role within this film had more impact to me the major death in Amazing Spiderman, because although her role was small the tension was taught and you understood that the loss of this character could potentially change things so you rooted for them to hold out against the onslaught.
This film wasn't perfect, but it was better realized than I had expected, and I was and I thought the acting elements were great.
 

Patrick Sun

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Time travel movies always give me a headache once the smoke clears, but other than that, this latest X-Men film installment had good single-minded focus in its plot, along with some bits of characterizations and inter-personal dynamics mined for personal costs amongst our favorite mutants.

Oddly enough, the Quicksilver segment was the most entertaining segment to me, and since it shows up in the first half, it almost had that same effect of when Superman saves the airplane in "Superman Returns", where the rest of the film never quite gets as exhilarating as that bit. But still a solid film, nonetheless.

I give it 2.75 or a grade of B-.
 

Tino

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Yeah. Don't get all the spoilers lately in these threads. A simple spoiler warning at the beginning of the post would be helpful.
 

mattCR

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Added spoiler. It wasn't something I spoiled because that event appears in the TV commercial trailer. But if you've avoided all media, I guess it's a spoiler of sorts
 

Sam Favate

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It was great. I thought it had a really sharp script, tying so many elements together nicely and straightening out pretty much the entire series. Jackman remains the series MVP - it's in Fox interests to keep him around as long as humanly possible. I thought McAvoy was the best thing in the movie - his character showed real growth, through struggle and sacrifice. His scene with Patrick Stewart (which almost strained credibility) was wonderful. Fassbender was great too; he has such a presence in these films that they'd be crazy not to resurrect that dormant Magneto film. Lawrence was also really fun to watch - she was on the same kind of mission Magneto was in First Class and was just as intense.

The future scenes were a bit too dark visually, but otherwise fit the mood of the original books. I guess they had to stretch Kitty's powers to give Ellen Page something to do; I don't ever recall that character with those abilities. Those future sentinels were awesome and terrifying.

(Mod note - SPOILERS!!!!)


But the best thing was how the movie erased all the stuff that left a bad taste in our mouths from previous entries. The closing scenes in the mansion were joyful. Logan's journey through heartbreak and suffering was apparent, as was his relief when he saw everyone he saw. He succeeded.

I have a couple of questions: 1) That was obviously Raven masquerading as Stryker at the end. Does she set about transforming Logan to the adamantium-laced character we know? Or does the Wolverine at the end of the movie still have bone claws?

2) Who was the person in the desert in the post-credit sequence? It's not someone I'm familiar with. I know the next movie is about Apocalypse - a character I don't know as well - but isn't there an X-Men villain named the Living Pharaoh or something? Could this be that?

Bryan Singer has seemingly done what I would not have thought possible - he has not only crafted a terrific movie, one of the best in the series, but he has lifted up the entire series, even the weak entries, making them all part of a larger, cohesive whole. A great job.
 

ScottJH

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SPOILER






Sam Favate said:
2) Who was the person in the desert in the post-credit sequence? It's not someone I'm familiar with. I know the next movie is about Apocalypse - a character I don't know as well - but isn't there an X-Men villain named the Living Pharaoh or something? Could this be that?
That was En Sabah Nur aka Apocalypse.
 

Sean Bryan

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SPOILER
ScottJH said:
SPOILER That was En Sabah Nur aka Apocalypse.
SPOILERSPOILERSPOILERYes, that Apocalypse with his Four Horseman. I believe Simon Kinberg has said that the look of the character in this tease isn't the look he will have in "present day". The teaser was maybe a few thousand years ago.
 

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