So I saw
the latest offering in the X-Men movie franchise a little time back, and as
with Captain America I went in with a slight sense of dread. You see I really
liked the two first x-men movies, and my reaction to the later ones have ranged
from a mild sense of WTF for the first class movie to a flat out “why in the
name of all things holy and sane did you do that” for the Wolverine: Origins
one and having the two others sitting in a murky pool of “I am not sure if I should
feel angry or just pity you”
So when I heard
that they were going to do the days of future past storyline my initial
reaction was… That’s it… Complete with throwing my hands in the air like a diva
and stomping around like an angry child. It is safe to say it was not a
dignified display. You see the DoFP storyline is kind of a convoluted mess to
begin with and it is not one that I feel adapt very well to film. And seeing
how well they handled the whole phoenix... thing… I did not put much fate I this
new project. The news that they were going to weave together the original
storyline and the first class one did not exactly make me any happier. You see
while I like first class as a superhero movie it plays a bit too fast and loose
with the X-Men I know. I am well aware of the fact that the movies are
adaptations and not letter by letter faithful to the comics. That is no excuse
to in essence take the lore bible of the X-Men and use its pages to roll a
joint.. light said joint… inhale deeply and then use whatever your feverish brain
come up with as a base for your story… It was still better than to make
Deadpool a mute in the Wolverine origins movie… I know we all have wished it at
one point or another reading a Deadpool story but when a character has the
tagline “the merc with the mouth” and his entire thing is that he talks a lot
and breaks the fourth wall… Making him a mute is pants on head stupid.
Any way I get
of track and I will perhaps at some point sit down and re-watch the entire
X-Men saga and put up a wall of text about what I think works and don´t. So the
short of it is, I went in with the lowest expectations one could have. The idea that they were going to ret-con a
decent amount of the movies away gave me a glimmer of hope. I came out from the
movie feeling very… satisfied actually. First of they made the story from DOFP
work. Sure a few people where switched and it was set in a time that made it
link up to the first class movie rather than “present”. But all in all the details
were present and it was a good representation of characters and powers.
Now I am going
to stay away from spoiling the plot until this have been off the big screen for
a while but it suffice to say that there are a few little fun twists in there
and it is really fun to see Peter Dinklage as Bolivar Trask as he brings the
right level of menace to the character.
It is worth
mentioning that this is in every way a sequel, it explains nothing really and
if you are not familiar with the films that came before or lack a familiarity with
the Marvel universe you will be very confused and sometimes even a bit
irritated.
Also… It
was fun to see the mutant Blink in there… She had a very short stint in the
regular comic but made her mark big time in the event-storyline Age of
Apocalypse. So I guess we will be seeing a bit more form her in the next movie
since the next movie is indeed titled apocalypse and the end credit scene
leaves little doubt. Days of Future Past is a good stab at resetting the messy
and downright broken continuity of the X-men movie franchise and really fun
film. It does not get all the notes right and I know that there are sites out
there who have long lists of the things that still does not work if we are to
look uon all the films as one single continuity. But for me it did enough and I
look forward to see what the next installment can bring now that there seems to
be a driving vision behind it all.
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