5/25/2014

Old and New Cast Join in X-Men: Days of Future Past - NYTimes.com

http://nyti.ms/1jI7LXe

MOVIES

MOVIE REVIEW

Saving Their Future, in Bell-Bottoms

tsaP erutuF fo s yaD :neM-X ni nio J tsaC weN dna dl O

By A. O. SCOTT

MAY 22, 2014

Even compared with other self-serious superhero franchises the

brooding Dark Knight saga, the agonized Amazing Spider-Man, the
hectic Avengers house party the X-Men series wears its allegorical
heart on its sleeve. In chronicling the adventures of a despised minority
with extraordinary powers, the movies, like the Marvel comic books before
them, poke around in some interesting social and political hot zones. The
central conflict is the endless moral and political argument between
Professor X and Magneto: in other words, between the accommodationist
idea that the mutants should fight for the moral redemption of the
humans, and the militant insistence that they should defend their own
interests by any means necessary.
X-Men: Days of Future Past, directed (like most of its predecessors)
by Bryan Singer, situates this struggle in the 1970s, though how it arrives
in that era is a bit complicated. The main action, which takes place around
the Paris peace talks that ended the Vietnam War, is framed by an
apocalyptic battle in the distant future. A bunch of familiar mutants,
including Professor X and Magneto (played as older men by Patrick
Stewart and Ian McKellen) are under siege by the Sentinels, fearsome,
human-designed robots that descend from coffin-shaped airships and that
seem to have neutralized any genetic advantage the mutants might have
had.

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5/25/2014

Old and New Cast Join in X-Men: Days of Future Past - NYTimes.com

The only hope is to send someone back in time to prevent the things
from being invented, a journey that only Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is
strong enough to undertake. Assisted by Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page), he zips
into the past and wakes up in a strange bed with a pretty companion
beside him and Roberta Flack on the radio.
Wolverines task is, in effect, to get the band back together, which
means rousing proto-Professor X, Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), from a
drug-addicted malaise; springing proto-Magneto, Erik Lehnsherr (Michael
Fassbender), from lockdown (hes been blamed for the Kennedy
assassination); and tracking down the elusive, shape-shifting, bright blue
and super-angry Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), also known as Raven.
Crucial assistance is provided by the Beast (Nicholas Hoult) and a speedy
teenager (Evan Peters) who will eventually become Quicksilver and who
anchors a showstopping action sequence in the kitchen of the Pentagon.
Not every moment is quite so inspired as that one, an intricate, freezeframe slapstick ballet that fuses the pop playfulness of the old comics with
the latest digital gimmickry. Far less effective, for example, is a climactic
bit in which the enraged Erik, having donned a helmet that pays incidental
homage to Professor Chaos of South Park, levitates a sports stadium and
plops it down on the White House lawn. This must have seemed like a
good idea to someone, but, in practice, it seems, for both Magneto and Mr.
Singer, like gratuitous, imagination-deficient grandstanding.
And that, of course, is the big risk in a movie like this. So much has
already been done, so much is supposedly demanded by fans, that any
given installment in a multisequel enterprise can feel like the hysterical
pursuit of diminishing returns. In the case of Days of Future Past, the
plot is as overelaborate and muddled as some of the effects. The clever
historical revisionism of X-Men: First Class (a high point in the series,
along with X2: X-Men United) has given way to a more slapdash mix of
period detail and clumsy anachronism.
The logic of the story a time-travel pretzel that strains after the
brain-teasing power of an old Star Trek episode requires too many

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5/25/2014

Old and New Cast Join in X-Men: Days of Future Past - NYTimes.com

variables. The frantic crosscutting of the culminating battles, which take

place simultaneously and also a half-century apart, requires too much
thought on the part of the audience because it has received too little on the
part of the filmmakers.
But, as usual, the characters and the performers playing them
step unto the breach to provide just enough wit and feeling to make Days
of Future Past something other than a waste of a reasonable persons
time. The film has found an excellent villain in the person of Peter
Dinklage, playing a mutant-hating arms manufacturer with the excellent
name of Bolivar Trask.
But the psychology of anti-mutant prejudice has never really been Mr.
Singers main concern. The anger of the mutants remains the most
interesting part of his X-Men movies, and the dramatic and emotional
heart of the franchise. Each of the main mutants deals with it in a different
way: Erik with icy, self-righteous fury; Charles with melancholy
humanism; Mystique with an anarchists drive to mess things up;
Wolverine with world-weary stoicism. The actors tackle the roles without
winking or condescension, and it is nice to see them together again,
however distracting the circumstances. They will, of course, return, since
in the superhero world, as in the real one, some problems can never really
be solved, only put to rest in between episodes.
X-Men: Days of Future Past is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly
cautioned). High-impact, mostly bloodless violence and a few glimpses of
mutant buttocks.
X-Men
Days of Future Past
Opens on Friday.
Directed by Bryan Singer; written by Simon Kinberg, based on a story by Jane Goldman and
Matthew Vaughn; director of photography, Newton Thomas Sigel; edited by and music by
John Ottman; production design by John Myhre; costumes by Louise Mingenbach; produced
by Mr. Singer, Mr. Kinberg, Lauren Shuler Donner and Hutch Parker; released by 20th

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Old and New Cast Join in X-Men: Days of Future Past - NYTimes.com

Century Fox. Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes.

WITH: Hugh Jackman (Logan/Wolverine), James McAvoy (Charles Xavier), Michael
Fassbender (Erik Lehnsherr), Jennifer Lawrence (Raven/Mystique), Patrick Stewart
(Professor X), Ian McKellen (Magneto), Halle Berry (Storm), Anna Paquin (Rogue), Ellen
Page (Kitty Pryde), Peter Dinklage (Dr. Bolivar Trask), Nicholas Hoult (Hank
McCoy/Beast), Omar Sy (Bishop), Shawn Ashmore (Bobby/Iceman), Evan Peters (Peter
Maximoff/Quicksilver), Daniel Cudmore (Colossus), Lucas Till (Havok), Fan Bingbing
(Blink), Booboo Stewart (Warpath), Josh Helman (Bill Stryker), Evan Jonigkeit (Toad) and
Adan Canto (Sunspot).
A version of this review appears in print on May 23, 2014, on page C6 of the New York edition with
the headline: Saving Their Future, in Bell-Bottoms.

2014 The New York Times Company

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