“The X-villain I’ve been most wanting to see on screen is the Sentinels. Well, I had been anxiously anticipating Juggernaut, but I’m gonna pretend we don’t all remember how that turned out. The teaser after The Wolverine got me so giddy. Sentinels were finally coming! But I’ve been disappointed by superheroes in the past, so I approached with cautious optimism.
When the movie was over, I was smiling wide. Was this really that good? Or did I just get caught up in it? I was sitting with a frequent movie buddy friend and two shiny new friends, one of whom knows his X even better than I do. I was scared to utter my opinion first. Old friend gave his approval of the film. I hedged with a not fully enthusiastic endorsement. New friends gave excited responses. I loosened up. Okay then, this really was good.
I really liked the story. Sure, some of the logic was iffy and maybe the future wasn’t that fleshed out. But it was absorbing enough that I didn’t notice the flaws in the moment. Time travel stories are very tricky to get right, and they opted for the safer bet of Back to The Future logic, a sort of hybrid of change the past vs fulfill the past. Bit more on the change side this time.
The strongest part of this franchise, especially with the “”past”” or “”first class”” cast, is the actors. However, I see it less as ‘This person turned in a great performance”” as I see it as “”this person fully embodied and brought that character to life””. James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Hugh Jackman, all top notch.
What was really fun this time around were some of our new additions. Evan Peters’ Quicksilver was easily the best part of the film. His sequence was wonderful and my only complaint is that he was quickly dismissed after. Friend turned to me “”I want his powers”” “”I want him”” “”Yeah that too””. Pretty much sums it up. Also, Peter Dinklage as Bolivar Trask was perfection. I love that Dinklage has come up enough in the world that he’s able to nab a high profile role that had nothing to do with his size. He used it as character motivation, but it was never an explicit part of the film, and I applaud whoever made the casting choice. I didn’t care too much for new Sentinels, and we didn’t quite see enough of old Sentinels, but Trask was enough to have made them worthwhile villains. The other new addition I enjoyed was Blink. I was previously unfamiliar with that character (other than an enthusiastic article in EW a couple weeks back where the author was _really_ excited she was in) but I think she’s brilliant. Both brilliant in the creation of the character and how smart she has to be in order to make her portal power so effective.
I also very much appreciated how much Beast was used in the story. He’s always been my favorite X-man, for reasons I never quite figured out. Nicholas Hoult is a great fit, and I was thrilled to see he was in most of the film instead of relegated to a minor featured role, as was the case with Kelsey Grammar’s Beast in the original set of films.
I’m glad to see that Bryan Singer took back the franchise and seems to have placed it back on track. It’s gonna be tough waiting for the next installment
X-Men: Days of Future Past – \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/