X-Men: Days of Future Past (Movie Review)

Personally, I just really wanna see more of this guy. What a boss.

Let’s face it folks: We live in an age of film where the only two superhero franchises that are really causing widespread debate are Marvel Studio’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, for all the right reasons, and Warner Bros. ‘ DC Cinematic Universe for, let’s say, less commendable reasons.

“Dawn of Justice”? Holy God.

Often lost in the discussion, however, is the X-Men film series from 20th Century Fox, especially after it faded from the public’s collective memory after the massive turd that was The Last Stand and the final nail in the coffin that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The series has been reestablishing itself, though, with a great origin story in X-Men: First Class and the likeable action movie that was The Wolverine. In 2013, a massive publicity campaign was launched for the next movie in the series, the $225 million dollar budgeted X-Men: Days of Future Past, which incorporates the original actors from the original trilogy and the newbies from First Class. How did it work out? Well, at the very least, it ensured that Shawn Ashmore and Halle Berry remained employed for a bit.

 X-Men: Days of Future Past

Directed by: Bryan Singer

Produced by: Lauren Shuler Donner, Bryan Singer, Simon Kinberg, Hutch Parker

Screenplay by: Simon Kinberg

Story by: Simon Kinberg, Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman

Based on: Days of Future Past by Chris Claremont and Josh Byrne

Sequel to: X-Men: First Class, X-Men: The Last Stand, The Wolverine

Series: X-Men (Seventh installment)

Genre: Superhero

Starring: Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas  Hoult, Peter Dinklage, Evan Peters, Ellen Page, Halle Berry, Shawn Ashmore, Omar Sy,  Daniel Cudmore, Fan Bingbing, Booboo Stewart, Adam Canto, Josh Helman, Mark Camacho,                                                                                  Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen

Plot: The year: 2023. In this dystopian future, the mutants have been all but wiped out by murderous robots known as Sentinels, who were created in 1973 by a military scientist named Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), whose Sentinel program was largely criticized by the American government until his assassination by rogue mutant insurgent Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), which convinced the people of the world to adopt it. After Mystique’s capture, her DNA was replicated for use by the Sentinels, who gained Mystique’s shape-shifting powers, making them into essentially the perfect mutant-hunting killers. After years of resistance , the only mutants left include Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), Magneto (Ian McKellen), Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page), who has the power to send another person’s consciousness back in time to deliver warnings.

Realizing that it’s not long before the Sentinels find their hideout in China and extinguish the mutants once and for all, he decides to send Wolverine back to 1973 in order to stop the assassination of Bolivar Trask from ever happening. In order to do so, Wolverine must team up with the younger version of the deceased Beast (Nicholas Hoult), the younger version of Magneto (Michael Fassbender) who has been incarcerated in the Pentagon as the suspected murder of President Kennedy, and the younger version of Charles Xavier, who, now jaded and cynical,  has shut down his X-Men and regained the use of his legs through the use of a serum, at the expense of his telekinetic powers.

I’ve gone on and on about how recent superhero movies have seemed to commit the same error of making themselves much more convoluted then they really need to be. Both of the superhero movies released this year prior to Days of Future Past (Captain America: The Winter Soldier and The Amazing Spider-Man 2) , while both at least enjoyable, suffered from this problem, although one of them definitely handled this problem a bit better than the other.

Can you guess which one?

And you’d assume that a movie like this one, involving time travel, of all things, would be no different. However you would be wrong. Stop being so presumptuous.

At no point did the film ever lose me through convoluted dialogue or sloppy editing. Nor was it full of elaborate, pretentious dialogue that requires constant hand-holding (Cough-cough. House of Cards). When you’re making a movie that features Wolverine beating the shit out of a bunch of dickheads, you don’t need to mix in a bunch of convoluted crap in to make it feel like the Dark Knight. This movie holds off on that, which is greatly appreciated. All you need to know about the rules of time travel in this universe is neatly explained right from the get-go.

The movie also maintains a crisp pace throughout its’ relatively short run-time of 130 minutes (Ten minutes shorter than the new Spider-man). I never got bored, or felt my mind wander as boring dialogue took over. The movie finds a nice balance between witty dialogue, dramatic exposition and kick-ass action scenes. Sure, it had the minimal amounts of superhero cheese, but hey, you’re not watching Dark Knight. A little bit of cheese every now and then isn’t going to kill you.

Well, not right away, anyways.

Speaking of the dialogue, the movie hits the perfect balance between dark and funny, with most of the humor being provided by Hugh Jackman (Once again excellent as everyone’s favourite Canadian rage-monster), who provides surprisingly well-done quips and banter. and Evan Peters, who easily steals the show as everyone’s favourite new  X-Man, Quicksilver. Peters, otherwise known for his roles in American Horror Story  and Kick-Ass (Before he wisely jumped the ship of the latter franchise) brings his knack for comic timing to the table, which works all too well with the character of Peter Maximoff, who ends up having what could possibly be one o the best scenes in the entire movie.

My one problem with the character of Quickilver is the way that he is left behind by Wolverine and his berry band o’ mutants once they’re done using him. Couldn’t they have used somebody who can move at light-speed? I feel like that would’ve been extremely useful.

As for the rest of the giant cast, there isn’t really a weak link among the bunch. Jackman and Peters are great before, as mentioned, and Booboo Stewart, Shawn Ashmore, Halle Berry, Ellen Page, Fan Bingbing and Omar Sy and company, while they may not have all that much lines, do what is required of them, which is, look cool in action scenes, and stand around stoically.  Patrick Stewart an Ian McKellen (Old Xavier and old Magneto) are great in their limited scenes in this movie, and Peter Dinklage does good work as Bolivr Trask even if I was a bit shaken by him using his natural American accent instead of the English one he uses in Game of Thrones.

The best performances in the movie, however, clearly belong to the characters returning from First Class. James McAvoy is downright fantastic as the cynical younger version of Charles Xavier, as is Michael Fassbender as the radical mutant idealist known as Magneto. The scenes between the two can be downright heartbreaking, as the two old friends continuously butt heads over their extreme ideological differences, but remain painfully aware of the bond they share as former brothers in arms.

Nicholas Hoult (Beast) is good as well, but his real-life girlfriend, Jennifer Lawrence is pretty damn great. Nobody’s gonna scream “Oscar” this time around, but she did a fine job considering that a) I didn’t find her too be that good in First Class and b) Her character, Mystique, is disappointingly one-note this time around, and basically serves as a plot device to move the story forward.

And hey, when it comes to one-note characters, you could do a lot worse than casting the most bankable movie star on planet Earth right now.

 

Overall: Side-stepping the many dangers that come with making a large-scale superhero movie like this, Days of Future Past is an action-packed, dark, and surprisingly funny film, and is comparable to The Avengers when it comes to sheer enjoyment level. It’s not exactly Dark Knight (The best superhero movie ever), and The Avengers is still superior in my mind, but hey, when Wolverine is tearing a bunch of punk-ass motherfuckers to shreds, who needs that “Why so serious” bullshit?

Rating: 9.5/10

And, for what it’s worth,  the Sentinels now top my list of movie robots to be fucking terrified of.

 

 

 

 

 

My Oscar Picks

Well, it’s not like I can do so much freaking Oscar reviews without doing a quick prediction. These predictions will have the same format as my Razzie predictions, with my top three picks for every category, except the ones which I haven’t checked out because they didn’t have any Best Picture Nominees (Categories with an “*” are categories in which I’ve seen less than three of the nominated movies). Also, if any movie that I did not watch wins their respective category, that movie will be added to my seemingly never-ending queue of reviews.

Honestly? I just look at the trophy and see a golden novelty dildo.

Best Visual Effects:

1. Gravity
2. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
3. Star Trek Into Darkness

This one is pretty much a no-brainer. While Benedict Cumber-Dragon was amazing and J.J. Abrams lens-flared Star Trek into beautiful oblivion (I’m hoping that nonsense I just pulled out of my ass makes sense to somebody), Gravity had some of, if not the most  the most, beautiful visuals I’ve ever seen in my seventeen years of watching movies.

Best Film Editing:

1. Gravity
2. 12 Years a Slave
3. American Hustle

I’m still not entirely sure how one critiques editing, so admittedly, this category is kind of a crapshoot for me.

Best Costume Design* 

1. 12 Years a Slave
2. American Hustle

American Hustle could beat out 12 Years, because it did have a pretty fantastic costume design team, or whatever (And Amy Adams’ necklines sure help), but I think that the latter’s  costumes were just a little bit better.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling*

1. Dallas Buyers Club

I’m shocked that American Hustle wasn’t nominated for this category, but honestly Dallas Buyers Club should win this award, based solely on the work they did with Jared Leto.

Best Cinematography*

1. Gravity
2. Nebraska

I’m kinda surprised that Nebraska was nominated for this category, because I really didn’t like the choice of black-and-white colouring, but whatevs. Gravity should and will win, anyways.

Best Production Design

1. 12 Years a Slave
2. Gravity
3. American Hustle

Assuming that “Production Design” means “film sets and such”, I’d give it to 12 Years, mainly for the stunning contrast between the natural beauty of Louisiana and the brutality of the subject matter.

Best Sound Mixing/Editing

1. Gravity
2. Captain Phillips
3. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug 

Yes, I know I mixed the categories of Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing, but a) It’s pretty much the same movies, and b) I don’t know what the fuck the difference between sound editing and sound mixing is supposed to be.

That said, Gravity‘s soundtrack was downright gorgeous.

Best Original Song (I Haven’t seen most of these movies, but the songs are on YouTube, so all’s good.)

1. “Let it Go” from Frozen
2. “Ordinary Love” from Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
3. “The Moon Song” from Her 

Let’s face it, Disney songs are pretty much the bomb. Keep in mind that this is coming from somebody who thinks that any song off London Calling is the pinnacle of Western Civilization.

Best Original Score

1. Gravity
2. Her
3. Philomena

Like I said, Gravity‘s score is fantastic. I liked Hers’ soundtrack too, but Philomena‘s just seemed nondescript to me.

Best Animated Short Film, Best Live Action Short Film, Best Documentary-Short Subject, Best Documentary-Feature, Best Documentary Film, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Animated Feature Film

I  haven’t seem any of the movies nominated for these, because a) Honestly, these are the least interesting categories to me and b) While I actually love animated movies, there’s no way I’m going to a theater filled with screaming eight-year olds to watch Frozen.

Best Writing-Adapted Screenplay

1. 12 Years A Slave
2. The Wolf of Wall Street
3. Captain Phillips 

I didn’t find any of these scripts to be legendary, per se, but they were still pretty damn great. It could really go any way.

Best Writing-Original Screenplay

1. American Hustle
2. Dallas Buyers Club
3. Her

I wonder if I could somehow develop David O. Russell’s amazing dialogue-writing ability without also developing his crippling douchiness…

Best Supporting Actress

1. Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years a Slave
2. Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle
3. June Squibb, Nebraska

Holy shit, I son’t think you could have picked three cuter nominees for this category.

Pictured: The Axis of Adorable.

Jennifer Lawrence is my favourite actress, and June Squibb was awesome too, but there’s just no way they match up to Mexican-born Kenyan Actress Lupita Nyongo’s film debut.

Best Supporting Actor

1. Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club
2. Michael Fassbender, 12 Years a Slave
3. Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips

Fassbender played Edwin “Evil Incarnate” Epps to perfection, and Somali actor Barkhad Abdi was awesoome in his debut, but they just had bad luck this time, going up against Jared Leto as the tragic Rayon.

Best Actress

1. Sandra Bullock, Gravity
2. Amy Adams, American Hustle
3. Judi Dench, Philomena

I think that Cate Blanchett is gonna win, considering the love she got at the Golden Globes, but I loved Sandra Bullock.

Best Actor

1. Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club
2. Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave
3. Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street

Man, does Leo ever have bad luck getting easy opponents on Oscar ballots, huh?

I had to pretty much flip a coin to decide who I thought was better between McConaughey and Ejiofor. All I can say is that I hope I don’t have to type either of their names again until next Oscar season, at least.

Best Director

1. Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity
2. Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave
3. Martin Scorsese, The Wolf of Wall Street

I’m not that big of a director guy, but you don’t have to be one to know that Cuaron did a fantastic job with Gravity.

Best Picture

1. 12 Years a Slave
2. Dallas Buyers Club
3. Gravity

Just read my review of 12 Years a Slave, it’ll tell you all you need to know.

Oscar Movie Review: 12 Years a Slave

You know what? The opening that I had planned for this year strayed a little bit too much on the uncomfortably dark side of the “Edgy” spectrum, and so, considering the subject matter, I decided to just jump right in.

12 Years a Slave

  Directed By: Steve McQueen (No, not THAT one)

  Produced by: Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Bill Pohlad, Steve   McQueen, Arnon Milchan, Anthony Katagas

 Written by: John Ridley

Based on: Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup

 Genre: Epic, Biographical drama

 Starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong’o, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti, Sarah Paulson, Brad Pitt

Other Actors: Adepero Oduye, Scoot McNairy, Taran Killam, Michael K. Williams, Garret Dillahunt, Alfre Woodard, Quvenzhane Wallis (Jesus Christ, that name!)

Oscar Nominations: Best Film Editing, Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Adapted Screnplay (Ridley) Best Supporting Actress (Nyong’o) Best Supporting Actor (Fassbender) Best Actor (Ejiofor) Best Director (McQueen) Best Picture

Plot: Solomon Northup is a free black man living in 1841 Saratoga Springs, New York. He has managed to eke out a nice living for his family as a carpenter, and an extremely talented fiddler. While his wife and children are away on a trip, Solomon is offered and accepts a two week job as a travelling musician. Unfortunately, at the tour’s end in D.C., his employers (McNairy and Killam) drug him, and he wakes up bound in chains, kidnapped, and about to be sold into slavery.

Heads Up: This plot summary is a little more revealing then I’d like it to be, normally, so if you don’t want to learn too much about the story (Although I don’t actually mention any spoilers) go ahead and skip to the photo of Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult and Peter Dinklage being cute.

Solomon is packed onto a ship and shipped to New Orleans, where he is renamed “Platt” (The name of a runaway slave from Georgia) and put on the market by the evil, unrepentant slave owner, Theophilus Freeman (Giamatti), which has got to be one of the most ironic last names in the history of cinema. Freeman sells Solomon to the plantation owner, William Ford (Cumberbatch). Ford is generally a good person (Or, you know, as good a person who believes that owning other people is fine by God could possibly be), and takes a liking to Solomon after the latter engineers a waterway for transporting logs through the plantation, even giving him a violin in gratitude.

Unfortunately, not everybody on the plantation is as fond of Solomon as Ford. The plantation carpenter, John Tibeats (Dano), resents him , and routinely verbally abuses him. One day, Tibeats pushes Solomon over the edge, and Solomon attacks him, beating him with his own whip. However, this provokes a lynch mob, and, to protect himself and Solomon, he sells his prize slave to a cotton plantation owner, Edwin Epps (Fassbender). While Ford probably wasn’t as compassionate as he thought he was, Epps is much, MUCH worse.

Epps uses a literal interpretation of the Bible to justify his and his wife (Paulsen)’s horrific abuses of their slaves. While there, he befriends Patsey (Nyong’o), a young slave woman who has gained Epps’ favour by picking a shitload of cotton every day (Slaves on Epps’ plantation are expected to pick 200 lbs of cotton each day, or they get beaten to hell) and Samuel Bass (Pitt), a Canadian carpenter who displays anti-slavery sentiments.

Man, what could I say about the story of 12 Years a Slave that hasn’t been said already? Yes, it’s heavy-handed (But y’know, so was slavery) and it was extremely brutal, disturbing and difficult to watch sometimes (But y’know, so was slavery).

And yeah, you may routinely shed tears (As I admit that I nearly did) over the suffering being witnessed, and you may wish that Solomon would pull a Django Unchained and just start massacring these slaving sons of bitches, but that’s just not realistic, and ultimately, it’s a necessary viewing experience that everybody should experience at least once (Y’know, unlike slavery) to truly understand some of the darker truths of the history of the Americas. And for all the ugliness, the film still manages to be beautifully shot, and the locations really take you back to the Deep South in the 19th century.

Acting: The actors had a fantastic script to work with (Kudos to John Ridley) and each and every one gave it their all. Even the bit players (Pitt, Dano, Giamatti, Raising Hope’s Garrett Dillahunt, etc.) all make their marks on the movie. Benedict Cumberbatch and Sarah Paulsen are also excellent as William Ford and Edwin Epps’ evil wife, Mary.

However, as you may have guessed, it’s the Oscar-nominated actors who steal the show. Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o radiates tragic brilliance in her first-ever full length movie (She landed this role shortly before graduating from Yale). She had previously only appeared in a short film called East River and a documentary about the albino population in Kenya, which she also directed. Her performance was  contrasted wildly with Michael Fassbender’s wonderful performance of Evil Incarnate (Er, I meant “Edwin Epps”). It’s been a long time since a villain has frightened me as much as Epps. He’s a bully, a racist, a sadist, a slaver, and a religious fundamentalist who treats other human beings as objects or (In the case of Patsey) sex slaves for his own personal gratification. He may be everything that I despise rolled into one frustratingly good looking human being.

Wow, I immediately regret typing that.

Chiwetel Ejiofor steals the show, however, as Solomon Northup. The British-Nigerian actor has immortalized himself with this star-making performance, taking the audience on an emotional roller coaster with his facial expressions alone. Hell, if the movie was just an hour-long compilation of Ejiofor’s lines, it would still probably get a good rating from me.

What Oscar Nominations Does It Deserve?

• Best Film Editing: Okay (I’m still unclear as to what exactly that is, but sure, why not?)
• Best Costume Design: Yes, yes, absolutely.
• Best Production Design: Like I said, it may have ugly subject matter, but it’s still beautifully shot.
• Best Adapted Screenplay (Ridley): Yup.
• Best Supporting Actress (Nyong’o): Absolutely. I’d even say she was better than Jennifer Lawrence in American Hustle, which is significant when you consider how much of a Jennifer Lawrence fan I am.
• Best Supporting Actors (Fassbender): Without a doubt, Edwin Epps is one of the greates (For lack of a better word) villains in film history.
• Best Actor (Ejiofor): Hell yeah.
•  Best Director (McQueen): Yes.
• Best Picture: Absolutely. Hell, I’d nominate this movie for Best Animated Picture, if I could.

Overall Rating: 10/10