Escape to the Movies: X-Men: Days of Future Past

[LobsterFeng]

The X Men movies just don't do it for me. I can't explain why I've just never liked them. I especially had a hard time understanding why so many people liked First Class. So yeah I think I'll pass on this one.

 

[Tumedus]

I think Bob was too nice actually. This movie's main redeeming quality is that everything is so mediocre its really hard to hate it in any meaningful way.

Everyone in the future feels like red shirts so there is zero sense of consequence or urgency when they are in trouble. And there is no escalation to that conflict at all, so its pretty much just two scenes in which every visible X-men who have zero character arc, gets one moment to use their power before being offed by the Sentinels.

As for performances, it wasn't just Lawrence that was phoning it in, it felt like everyone apart from Jackman and Evans were here for the paycheck and that was all.

The present story completely abandons any concept of team to focus on a story about Wolverine giving Charles his confidence back. Because watching Professor X be in a depressive funk for 90 minutes is so entertaining. And the present story doesn't have stakes because they are never facing a worthy adversary. The only sense of consequence is the future timeline but, due to the above mentioned issues, you didn't really care about it all.

Worse, they abandoned the majority of what First Class set up. So the movie that made the franchise somewhat relevant again got thrown in the trash so they could erase the Ratner film from happening.

I think the fans will gravitate towards the Quicksilver action sequence, not because it was necessary or even all that good, but because it was the only scene in the movie that had the kind of tone that this kind of movie should have. It was fun. Nothing else was. But in terms of the story they were trying to tell, he didn't fit into the movie at all.

 

[daxterx2005]

Im so lost in the continuity of this franchise.
Are the wolverines in continuity with the others ones? I thought the movie in 2011 wiped a bunch of movies out of continuity...

 

[Mr. Q]

I'd like to add my two cents on this after seeing the movie, but I'm gonna have to go into some MAJOR spoilers. Short version: It is pretty good despite its flaws. The final portion of the movie sets a lot of possibilities and I'm not just talking about the end credits stinger. Long version...

Spoiler

I need to get the cons of this movie out of the way. My first nitpick is that Kitty Pride has the ability to mentally project someone's mind into the past. That confuses me since its one power I don't think she's ever had. I could be wrong, I don't follow X-Men comics that much, but you would think that would have popped up somewhere like in the books or a wiki. If anyone knows the answer to that, please inform me.

Another complaint is that Quicksilver's part in this movie is mostly Fox trying to get into a pissing contest with Marvel/Disney. Unfortunately, its not much of a pissing contest since his role is rather brief. It's more like a few squirts and some straining on Fox's part. He's introduced, he performs his duty of Magneto's breakout (which is quite awesome to see), they part ways, and, aside from a brief return at the end of him watching TV (with his little sister. Wink, wink), that's all she wrote. He doesn't come along for the rest of the movie to help out in anyway. Its just "Hope you got your money's worth, moviegoers!" and that was it. Did anyone writing the script not figure out ways to use a mutant with superhuman speed for more than one or two scenes? Maybe Charles or Eric didn't want to see this kid get hurt but its never explained. Just hope to God Marvel/Disney can do a lot more with their Quicksilver.

Speaking of brief appearances, Havoc is the only returning member of the First Class team aside from the main characters. Just a brief point of him in 'Nam along with other mutants (including a revamped Toad, which is way more fugly than Ray Park's version) and that's it. The rest became off-screen victims of Trask's experiments which sets Mystique on her mission. I would have loved to see more of Banshee but that's not gonna happen. Well, maybe we'll get Siryn in a sequel, but still...

I would say the same for the mutants in the future (Blink, Sunspot, Bishop, etc.) but the focus is the characters in the past. It is cool to see the original cast back together for the future portion of the movie (even Colossus comes back if the Hardee's and Carl's Jr. ads didn't make it apparent). While its a shame we don't spend more time to know these characters, its a good amount of fan service that shows us the stakes of the movie. BTW, Anna Pacquin's Rogue is in the movie and you talk about brief appearance...

Also, no one explains how Professor X is alive in the future after dying in X-Men: Last Stand. Unless I missed that part. ^^;

And, yet, I wasn't bored or felt totally let down. despite all of my gripes, its still a good movie. Not great but serviceable. I'll take this over Godzilla, which was like Transformers (focus more on less interesting humans and less on the actual title character) but without the shitty dialog, God awful jokes, and intellect-insulting moments. Perhaps the best scene of the movie is near the end where the good guys win and the future is no longer shit. I'm not gonna spoil it all but, for those of us who suffered through Last Stand, ou prayers have finally been answered. Seriously, the last part might as well have gotten the entire cast together, offered the middle finger to the camera, and shouted "SUCK IT, BRETT RATNER!!" Not sure if this also deletes the two Wolverine movies. If it does, bonus.

If this movie does good at the box office, I hope that Fox will finally nut up and take this series into other directions. It's been spinning its wheels for far too long. Time to retire the black uniforms and bring some color back into the wardrobe. Time to explore other fascinating realms other than the "humanity fears and hates us" angle that's been beaten to death for too long. Let's not waste this second chance, people.

And, yes, the end credits stinger does show us the next baddie for the X-Men. Just hope to God he's more... beefy when the sequel hits. Not gonna lie, he was looking rather puny IMO. Maybe I'm just use to his appearance in the 90s animated series.

 

[Gerardo Vazquez]

Bob's reviews basically boil down to "I don't like this movie because it isn't Avengers" now. It's getting pretty sad. I know he loves Avengers but it was in essence, a dumb action movie with big budget CGI sequences and big names. A fun movie, but nothing amazing.

DOFP was a really good movie with loads of great acting and a great ensemble cast. Focusing on the trio of Mystique, Xavier and Magneto as main characters really made the movie work. Wolverine is more of a background character compared to those 3. Peter Dinklage was great, the visuals were spectacular and it was great to see the old cast and some new mutants turn up and partake in some great action sequences. Plus it was really emotional and character driven.

I always find myself disagreeing with people who call The Avengers a "Big Dumb action movie", because that diminishes how well it's made, and what it accomplishes, especially since half of what you used to praise DoFP could be said for the Avengers, since it still had great acting from a large cast, all the characters interacted well on-screen, the visuals were spectacular, with old and new heroes coming together for great action sequences. DoFP is pretty ambitious, but it's held back by key flaws. I can't say for sure whether one film is better than the other, each film has strengths and weaknesses. One thing I will say through, First Class, better than DoFP, and Avengers in my opinion. I also never got the "I don't like this movie because it isn't Avengers", vibe from this review at all. He never offers any sort of compare and contrast between this movie or that movie at any point, only briefly mentioning the fact that DoFP was made as Fox's Big Crisis Crossover answer to The Avengers, and..... yeah it pretty much was, especially when you consider that Fox had no real interest in expanding the X-men universe before The Avengers made big money, if so they would have immediately followed up on making strong sequels to First Class instead of basically going "Eh. Wolverine's the only X-men anyone really cares about, so let's give him a movie. Oh yeah, and Avengers, we need to make one of those, but with X-man." "But sir, doesn't something like that take time, genuine effort, money, and several movies worth of proper world-building in order to properly set up?" "No.", but perhaps I'm just being cynical. It's best to focus on the actual movie, rather than the business that goes into making the movie. So....
TL DR: Avengers or DoFP, I don't consider one better than the other, and First Class was better than both.

 

[Strain42]

Wait, hang on, the X-Men movies are using Quicksilver? I assumed the reason he was able to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films was because he was licensed SEPERATELY from the rest of the X-Men characters, or something?

Sort of. The thing about Quicksilver (and Scarlet Witch who is not in Days of Future Past as far as I know) Is that yes they are mutants, and yes they are X-Men characters, but since they are also fairly big parts of The Avengers as a team and as a series, there was basically a loophole that basically states they're just as much Avengers as they are X-Men.

So they can be used by both studios, but Marvel is not allowed to call them mutants or make any references to Magneto being their father. So I think they're just being addressed as super powered (which if you really think about it, we haven't had many naturally powered characters in the MCU yet) and Baron Strucker is taking over the role of their adoptive father...also I guess these twins will be replacing Strucker's actual twin children, Andrea and Andreas.

I'm not entirely sure how certain copyrights for certain characters work when it comes to securing movie rights. For instance, neither Wolverine nor Mystique made their debut appearances in X-Men related books of any kind. They first appeared in Hulk and Ms. Marvel respectively. So they appeared in stuff Marvel does own the movie rights to, but Fox gets them because they have X-Men. So I wonder how a character like Squirrel Girl would work. She is a mutant, but first appeared in Iron Man. I'm not sure where she falls film rights wise (Given that I don't think SG has ever really worked with the X-Men, I'm sure she falls under Avengers, but like the twins, I'm sure they couldn't call her a mutant)

On another side, Punisher first appeared in Spiderman. Yet Marvel has Punisher rights despite Sony refusing to let go of Spiderman.

So I'm not entirely sure how the whole copyright thing works. I guess it's not where the character first appeared, but where they tend to fall as far as comics go, which is why I get why Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch certainly fall on both sides.

...I'm mainly curious where Alpha Flight falls. They first appeared in X-Men, but c'mon...the Canadian Avengers. I totally want that to be a part of the MCU.

 

[Swarmcrow]

BoB... you DID NOT get the film... otherwise you wouldn't be asking stuff about quick silver that are self explanatory in the film, if you bother to pay attention in the film and think for yourself a bit

 

[AgDr_ODST]

I don't know why but the lack of explanation regarding Kitty's new powers not being explained didn't really register with me as being a problem until now after Bob pointed it out. When I saw the movie I was more bothered by the fact that I didn't recognize and know the names of some of the 'secondary' mutants who were on the run from the super sentinels in the future and that Magneto implied that JFK was a mutant and that he had been trying to save him, but then left it at that. As for Quicksilver and Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique: I thought he was hilarious in every scene he was in and that him speeding around the kitchen and bullying/beating on the guards was a thing of beauty, in my opinion bob's gripes about her are completely unfounded.

 

[tzimize]

Watched it yesterday, and loved it. The only thing I'm ticked off about is that they didnt explain why old Xavier was alive. The fight scenes were brilliant and the story made surprisingly much sense for a time-travel story. Its quite a feat to write together two universes like that and still make sense. Lots of nods to previous films, and some forecasting of new future events. I'm excited!

Off topic: There was a trailer for the new transformers movie, and god damn it. I swore I would never watch another terminator movie after T3...but it looked soooooooo coooooooooool. Plus Mark Wahlberg is fantastic....how bad can it be? :O You cant go any lower than T3 anyway...

 

[Nomanslander]

Yeah, I have to agree with Bob on this, and I haven't even seen the movie. I've been reading X-men comics since the 1990s, and even back when the first movie came out I remember thinking, "meh... well I guess that's the best Hollywood can do with the material, even though it's completely off." And just about every other X-men movie I've seen I've felt the same. I mean, the cartoon from back in the early 90s is still much better than these movies, and captures the essence of the X-men more. And truth be told, it's not all about keeping the story n sync with the comics. The cartoon didn't do that either, but it was still much better.

The only thing I can commend the movies for doing is, they at least gave Wolverine his fair share since the comics back then tended to treat him like a "worf effect" character. Unlike Bob, I still can't deny me my love of that character, but after all this time I was hoping they'd do Wolverine's story a bit more justice in the movies.

 

[Doomer08]

Also, no one explains how Professor X is alive in the future after dying in X-Men: Last Stand. Unless I missed that part. ^^

Professor X transferred his conscience to a brain dead patient in a scene after the credits of X-Men: Last Stand.

 

[endtherapture]

Bob's reviews basically boil down to "I don't like this movie because it isn't Avengers" now. It's getting pretty sad. I know he loves Avengers but it was in essence, a dumb action movie with big budget CGI sequences and big names. A fun movie, but nothing amazing.

DOFP was a really good movie with loads of great acting and a great ensemble cast. Focusing on the trio of Mystique, Xavier and Magneto as main characters really made the movie work. Wolverine is more of a background character compared to those 3. Peter Dinklage was great, the visuals were spectacular and it was great to see the old cast and some new mutants turn up and partake in some great action sequences. Plus it was really emotional and character driven.

I always find myself disagreeing with people who call The Avengers a "Big Dumb action movie", because that diminishes how well it's made, and what it accomplishes, especially since half of what you used to praise DoFP could be said for the Avengers, since it still had great acting from a large cast, all the characters interacted well on-screen, the visuals were spectacular, with old and new heroes coming together for great action sequences. DoFP is pretty ambitious, but it's held back by key flaws. I can't say for sure whether one film is better than the other, each film has strengths and weaknesses. One thing I will say through, First Class, better than DoFP, and Avengers in my opinion. I also never got the "I don't like this movie because it isn't Avengers", vibe from this review at all. He never offers any sort of compare and contrast between this movie or that movie at any point, only briefly mentioning the fact that DoFP was made as Fox's Big Crisis Crossover answer to The Avengers, and..... yeah it pretty much was, especially when you consider that Fox had no real interest in expanding the X-men universe before The Avengers made big money, if so they would have immediately followed up on making strong sequels to First Class instead of basically going "Eh. Wolverine's the only X-men anyone really cares about, so let's give him a movie. Oh yeah, and Avengers, we need to make one of those, but with X-man." "But sir, doesn't something like that take time, genuine effort, money, and several movies worth of proper world-building in order to properly set up?" "No.", but perhaps I'm just being cynical. It's best to focus on the actual movie, rather than the business that goes into making the movie. So....
TL DR: Avengers or DoFP, I don't consider one better than the other, and First Class was better than both.

To clarify - I liked The Avengers and had a great time in the cinema watching it, but it is a dumb movie. It's there for the action sequences and one liners, and not any sort of character development. And comparing 2 ensemble superhero movies, DOFP gets it right in terms of character development because there actually is some, compared to Avengers where it is non-existent.

Wolverine isn't even the main character at all. He was pretty useless overall. You're being waaaay too cynical. Oh well, everyone on this website has an irrational hard-on for Marvel, especially Bob. The films are enjoyable yeah, but a lot of them are very flawed - for example both Thor films are incredibly average movies. But everyone on this website loves Marvel so much they just don't see the flaws at all.

 

[Batou667]

Moviebob's video had spoilers, this thread is full of spoilers, my post has spoilers.

I went into the cinema expecting First Class 2, but what I got was two hours of very, very over-familiar angst and whining punctuated by the occasional deus ex machina and the even more occasional action scene.

I disagree with Bob; the Quicksilver scene was the high part of the movie and his character, although two-dimensional, was arguably the best of the bunch. That's how phenomenally flat everything else falls. Jackman and Lawrence get plenty of screen time but don't actually do much - Wolverine doesn't "Wolverine" much, if you get what I mean, and Mystique just walks sullenly from one situation to the next compelled by nothing more than "muh revenge". The elite-level espionage and intelligence skills she must have employed to get into those situations goes unexplained; it's like she just gets shoved in from Stage Left and does her shtick of turning blue.

Talking of turning blue, that's almost literally all Beast does. Imagine if you were watching Hulk in The Avengers, and in times of drama he'd turn green - but not punch anything. Just stays green until the danger has passed. He's a redundant character. He isn't the muscle of the group, he isn't the brains either, and he's not even the peace-maker. It's criminal how two-dimensional the characters are rendered just for the sake of driving the simplistic narrative - Xavier is a one-note wallowing drunk who inevitably finds his greater purpose and cheerfully throws away the suppressants he's "addicted" to, Magneto's IQ has halved since First Class as he decides the best way to promote mutant interests is to murder President Nixon on live TV (what's the worst that could happen, eh), Mystique develops tunnel vision pursuing her passionless vendetta before being inevitably talked out of it at the last minute. Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart and Halle Berry also may as well not have been in this film for all the screen time and relevance they get.

In summary: a boring and disappointing movie, bookended by fairly good action scenes but with a lot of very flabby material in the middle. The brief flashes of brilliance and the acting talent that goes unused makes the whole thing not just poor but cruelly disappointing. By the time the credits rolled I was too drained to stick around for the teaser.

 

[Kaimax]

First off, I disagree with Movie Bob about this movie. I thought it was quite good. Maybe not quite First Class good, but better than any other X-Men movie besides First Class.

Did you not watch this video?
Bob pretty much Said DoFP is Pretty Good, he said it's the third best X men movie after First Class, and Xmen 2. All his talk in the video is more about the story building on a plot hole.

 

[Jon Watson]

This isn't original to this movie, but still bothers me: does Raven naturally not have nipples or a vagina, or does her 'natural form' come with a removable seamless bikini? I'm seriously not 100% sure how she's supposed to have kids unless they come out of her mouth, or if she can even have sex when she's in blue girl mode.

I'm under the impression in the comics she not only has mothered children but also fathered them.

Also, no one explains how Professor X is alive in the future after dying in X-Men: Last Stand. Unless I missed that part. ^^;

In the post-credits stinger to the Last Stand he's seen to talk to Moira through the body of a man in a vegetative coma/paralysed/life support - presumably assuming the body of the guy. Why he can't walk and looks exactly like Patrick Stewart isn't really addressed. Though, the entire sum of Last Stand's conclusion was that Cyclops and Jean Grey are dead, given the cure wears off and no one else significant died.

 

[seditary]

Hugh Jackman really does save the Wolverine character in the X-Men movies. The only reason I give a crap about him at all is because of Hugh.

God I wish the creators of the movies gave as much of a shit as him.

 

[Silverspetz]

Bob's reviews basically boil down to "I don't like this movie because it isn't Avengers" now. It's getting pretty sad. I know he loves Avengers but it was in essence, a dumb action movie with big budget CGI sequences and big names. A fun movie, but nothing amazing.

DOFP was a really good movie with loads of great acting and a great ensemble cast. Focusing on the trio of Mystique, Xavier and Magneto as main characters really made the movie work. Wolverine is more of a background character compared to those 3. Peter Dinklage was great, the visuals were spectacular and it was great to see the old cast and some new mutants turn up and partake in some great action sequences. Plus it was really emotional and character driven.

I always find myself disagreeing with people who call The Avengers a "Big Dumb action movie", because that diminishes how well it's made, and what it accomplishes, especially since half of what you used to praise DoFP could be said for the Avengers, since it still had great acting from a large cast, all the characters interacted well on-screen, the visuals were spectacular, with old and new heroes coming together for great action sequences. DoFP is pretty ambitious, but it's held back by key flaws. I can't say for sure whether one film is better than the other, each film has strengths and weaknesses. One thing I will say through, First Class, better than DoFP, and Avengers in my opinion. I also never got the "I don't like this movie because it isn't Avengers", vibe from this review at all. He never offers any sort of compare and contrast between this movie or that movie at any point, only briefly mentioning the fact that DoFP was made as Fox's Big Crisis Crossover answer to The Avengers, and..... yeah it pretty much was, especially when you consider that Fox had no real interest in expanding the X-men universe before The Avengers made big money, if so they would have immediately followed up on making strong sequels to First Class instead of basically going "Eh. Wolverine's the only X-men anyone really cares about, so let's give him a movie. Oh yeah, and Avengers, we need to make one of those, but with X-man." "But sir, doesn't something like that take time, genuine effort, money, and several movies worth of proper world-building in order to properly set up?" "No.", but perhaps I'm just being cynical. It's best to focus on the actual movie, rather than the business that goes into making the movie. So....
TL DR: Avengers or DoFP, I don't consider one better than the other, and First Class was better than both.

To clarify - I liked The Avengers and had a great time in the cinema watching it, but it is a dumb movie. It's there for the action sequences and one liners, and not any sort of character development. And comparing 2 ensemble superhero movies, DOFP gets it right in terms of character development because there actually is some, compared to Avengers where it is non-existent.

Wolverine isn't even the main character at all. He was pretty useless overall. You're being waaaay too cynical. Oh well, everyone on this website has an irrational hard-on for Marvel, especially Bob. The films are enjoyable yeah, but a lot of them are very flawed - for example both Thor films are incredibly average movies. But everyone on this website loves Marvel so much they just don't see the flaws at all.

Avengers worked because all of those characters had already HAD their development in their individual movies, and having some character development does not excuse having MASSIVE plot-riddled throughout the movie.

 

[Cpt. Slow]

"IT'S NOT BY DISNEY IT'S FUCKING SHIT! FOX GIVE BACK X-MEN YOU CUNTS, DISNEY FOREVER"

I laughed harder than I should. But yeah, this review is basically that.

Boy, I'm so happy that Disney doesn't own the Star Trek franchise. Not that it stopped J.J. Abrahams for burning it down, and then piss on it to put the flames out. But I am still happy about them not owning the rights to Star Trek.

 

[lebuteur]

Some of what Bob said in this review is highly suspect. He hated Quicksilver, but everyone I know who watches these kinds of movies that has seen it, really liked him. One of my friends even felt he was the best character in the movie (obviously a questionable judgment call). Mystique had ZERO character when she was played by Rebecca Romijn. She was just there. It was an awful character till First Class came along. But opinions are opinions and I can't wait to see it tomorrow.

Yeah I agree 100%

Quicksilver was great in this, really likable and witty, and his matrix-style big scene left the whole cinema in stitches. I do wish they'd kept him around longer but he's a pretty unpredictable, immature kid at this stage so it kinda made sense that they just used him for when they really needed him. Felt like they were setting him up to be used again in the next film.

And Jennifer Lawrence was terrific as well. I don't know what Bob means, she carried the more emotionally intense parts of the movie really well. This was a really cynical and bitter review IMO.

Plus the "plot holes" he points out are actually all explained in the movie, maybe he wasn't playing attention. The reason they send Wolverine back is because Kitty only usually sends people back a couple of days and even then it damages their brains. 50 years is a much bigger jump and Logan's healing powers means he's the only one who can handle it. Plus he doesn't age so they can send him back in his own timeline and use the same actor. Bob's criticisms are largely based around him personally not liking Hugh Jackman in that role - and if you don't like Wolverine you're not gonna like any of these movies, period.

 

[endtherapture]

Avengers worked because all of those characters had already HAD their development in their individual movies, and having some character development does not excuse having MASSIVE plot-riddled throughout the movie.

If you're referring to the fact that Kitty now has a random power allowing her to send minds back in time as a plot hole - in X-Men lore you have secondary mutations, which give extra powers or characteristics. For example Wolverine has his healing factor and then his bone claws as his secondary mutation. Nightcrawler has teleportation and also fuzzy blueness. Rationalise it as Kitty having this secondary time travel mind thing as her secondary mutation instead of just calling it out as "PLOT HOLE PLOT HOLE".