There are very important things to know about me before you read this review. The X-Men are my 2nd, maybe 3rd, favorite thing. My list of favorite things ever goes something like this: (1) Buffy the Vampire Slayer (2) The X-Men (3) Pugs (4) Veronica Mars (5) To Kill a Mockingbird (6) Mac & Cheese. The order can vary depending on which way the wind blows—but those things are my favorite things. Also, I am very emotional—especially when it comes to any specific group dealing with inequality. And, especially, when said inequality is dealing with the wonderful mutants from the Marvel Universe. The X-Men were such a big deal for baby gay Ian. Also also, it was really hard to write a review that wasn’t just, “OHMYFUCKINGGOD DID YOU SEE X-MEN DAYS OF FUTURE PAST!? DID YOU LOVE IT AND SOB AT THE END LIKE I DID!?” Also also also, it’s important to note that X-Men: The Last Stand is maybe my biggest movie letdown of all time. A mostly spoiler-lite/free review below.
But, really, did you SEE X-Men: Days of Future Past? Because, in my humble opnion, it’s the best fucking X-Men film to date—and I really really love X2. It was so great to see the cast from the original trilogy back in a dark future—and the new additions to the cast were pretty great too. Colossus, Blink, Bishop, Sunspot (my childhood and current comic book crush), and Warpath got most of the action scenes and the least amount of lines—but I think they were so great. It was absolutely fantastic to see the really wonderful Ellen Page back as Kitty Pryde. Casting Ellen Page and Kelsey Grammar were the only things X-Men: The Last Stand did right by the franchise. From the opening of this movie to Kitty Pryde’s utterance of, “Too late, assholes,” you know the stakes are incredibly high. The action scenes in this movie were ten times grander (and just generally better) than anything we’ve gotten to witness in any previous X-Men film. This is also the first of the X-films that tries to keep up with any sort of canon/continuity. Although, we never get an explanation for Xavier being alive in the future when Jean basically vaporized him in Last Stand (but that movie was a shitmess, so like, whatever).
We get a bunch of future action/exposition. Kitty sends Wolverine back in time (my only gripe is I wish they could’ve explained, “HEY, Kitty can do this now, deal with it.”), he wakes up in the 70s and hilarity ensues. Wolverine is at his best when he’s part of an ensemble cast. He also works really well with Fassbender’s Magneto and McAvoy’s Xavier. Some of his best lines are him saying something shitty after a really intense scene (see: “Are you gonna pick all that shit up,” in the plane after Magneto’s tirade). I think one of my biggest worries going into this film ended up being one of my favorite parts: Evan Peters as Quicksilver. He sold me on Quicksilver the moment he appeared on screen. Also, the scene where they break out Magneto and Quicksilver races around the kitchen might be my 2nd favorite scene of the film.
If anything, I felt there was almost too much focus on the past cast. But, BOY, does Fassbender do great as a young McKellen-Magneto. The Xavier drug metaphor is a bit…much, but it (mostly) works. Mystique needs better dialogue (and I still wish she’d wear clothes because it makes no sense for her to walk around naked and yet all her junk is still covered—I MEAN, HOW DOES SHE GO TO THE BATHROOM)—but JLaw still kills it. Nicholas Hoult is a teen dream, as always, and really freakin’ charming as Hank McCoy. I almost wish this movie had just changed the X-Men and had Magneto and Xavier become the BFFs they were meant to be and lead the X-Men together. Sadly, it, unsurprisingly, doesn’t end that way.
So, the whole movie is basically a build-up to the end. Which I really appreciate. The last 30-40 minutes of the film are pretty intense. The action of the dark future mixed with the action of the past really works. I can’t say that enough. The bleak losing-battle the future X-Men are fighting is enough to break my X-Men filled heart. You know it’s coming, but that doesn’t make it any less sad and awesome. You know Magneto will eventually raise an entire baseball stadium (it’s in the trailer)—but that doesn’t make it any less awesome.
In the end, I enjoy that the day isn’t saved by who you think it’d be saved by. But, nonetheless, the day is saved. We then get a glimpse of Wolverine back in his future timeline and I can’t say this enough—I loved everything about the end. I cried happy tears. It was the ending the movie X-Men deserved. I’d love to see more of the future timeline (I mean, we still never got enough Kitty Pryde), but I also think it served as a perfect end for those lovely bunch of mutants. I was genuinely surprised by the ending—and in an age where every single detail of every movie is usually spoiled online, if not in the trailer—it was really great to feel so surprised. So, go see this movie and then come talk to me so we can hold hands and cry about how wonderful it was.
Twitter: @ianxcarlos
