Does the latest X-Men: Days of the Future Past solve all the problems of the previous films...or add to them?It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has ever read any of my previous comments on this site concerning Bryan Singer's (and other Directors) 'X-men Movies. I do not like them. I think they are subpar as movies in general and abysmal as comic book movies. To helm the direction of an X-men movie, one should know the nuances that make the team such a fan favorite for decades and understand the long standing legacy it has created in the comics and other mediums to fully convey how they should be portrayed on the silver screen. To me, Bryan Singer and subsequent directors in the franchise have severely failed in showing in their films what it is that truly make the X-Men stand out from other superhero teams in comics. The book in essence isn't just about a group colorful costume characters just trying to stop the 'bad guy' but an attack on the social and moral ill of prejudice including those who have let the bitterness of being discriminate and persecution miscued their view of what is right and wrong (Magneto). However, just as if someone is discriminate because of their sex, race, religion or sexual orientation, the X-Men are portrayed in their colorful costumes in the comics as part of who they are and yet are still hated by the world in contrast with similar colorful costumed heroes in the comics because of how they are born. For anyone who have been discriminated you can related to this if you are minority in society because no matter how much you change your looks or how you act to fit in with the majority, you will never be fully accepted because of how you were born. The same is true with the X-Men, no matter how much they look like the Avengers or any other superpower group they will be hated because they were born different. But with anyone who is a minority or has been decimated against knows that you have to be yourself or you will lose yourself in trying to fit in with the majority. So when you learn to love yourselves as you are and where your colorful costumes to let society know that you will be yourself and society will have to conform to you. As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet: to Thine Self, be true. Or as Jimi Hendrix said: Let your freak flag fly! Or as Scott Summers said in Astonishing X-Men' 'We're heroes Logan...and Heroes were costumes.' That one little detail about the value of showing the X-men in their colorful costumes, be it the original yellow and black team ones or when they are presented in their various uniform to express their individual 'gifts' that they were born with, not being shown in this franchise movies is just ONE of the many problems that I've had with them The other issues I have with them is that the chronology of the X-men legacy being ripped to shreds, the watering down the fantastic and the main protagonist of the movies being Wolverine. Singer and others and their blatant disregard to anything that comes close to what have been established in the X-men comics is a 'slap in the face' to the incredible creators that have contribute over the decades to make the X-men of the bestselling and most admired comic in history shows their audacity in thinking they have a better grasp on the concept of the X-men than the creators.However, to go into them in greater detail would be an editorial... and this is a movie review. So last night a good friend of mine, who knows how I fell about this franchise convince me to join him and seeing 'Days of the Future Past'. I only agreed because my original plans for last night fell through and he said he would pay (I haven't paid for an X-Men movie since the first one). However, with the rave reviews the movie have been getting from the press as well as reviews from those on here whom opinions I respect, I decide to go in with a clean slate knowing what have been set up with previous movies are nowhere what I have always hope for in an X-Men movie because it is so far away from the source the material.So I decide to see this movie with the mindset based on what have been established in the previous movies that have already part of this franchise and not a long time reader of the comics. This movie have been herald as cleaning up the continuity problem and bringing the X-Men movies back some respectability to the franchise before Singer initially left and what was somewhat recaptured with 'First Class' to the fans and media. However, after seeing it with a mindset of basing it of the previous movies, I can only say that Bryan Singer have NOT delivered an X-Men movie that clean up the continuity problems or brought it back to some respect that it had but have only added to the confusion and have now gone so far to blatant disregard the ground work they have already established I their own films. Before the movie came out Bryan Singer (and producer Lauren Donner) ask if the movie goer will forgive him for the contradictions this movie will have and forget certain previous movies (X-3, Wolverine: Origins) but they are so obvious in the movie that it was hard to simple 'forget' what have gone on before. This is not what I want in a movie that was made a movie to clean up previous mistakes by adding to them by ignoring their own movie history.I want them to produce a script thoroughly and present a movie to us that answer and rectify these issues and not ask the movie goer to simply forget or look the other way. Just making that suggestion public you are already shooting yourself in the foot.And with a plot this thin and simplistic (in the bad way) they didn't even come close to answering those nagging continuity questions. Why wasn't it explained how Professor was able to get back in his body after being destroyed by Jean in X-3 and inhabiting the paralysis body of the vegetable state man in X-3? Why is William Stryker younger in this movie if he had recruited Wolverine when he was older during the Vietnam War in Origins? And wasn't his adamantium given in to him in that movie? Why wouldn't he have it in '73? Additionally, I also had a huge issue with the acting of Jennifer Lawrence. I don't know if he is worn out from all the work that she been doing of late, but she basically walked through this movie. Why did she change to a woman that was in the crowd after being shot by Magneto? Wouldn't that make it worse since it was established in 'first Class' that it takes more effort and energy to mimic someone else? Energy she could've used to get away. And why do it at all since everyone there had seen her jumped out the window in her true blue anyway? And the scene where she's watching herself on TV in the hospital talking to the nurse about how it must fell to be a mutant was about as flat as a pancake instead of showing some true emotion. Pete Dinklage was laughable in some scenes as Trask and never shown the depth of the 'antagonist'' that he has shown in other performances. What a waste. Magneto being able to learn how to rearrange the circuitry by examine the specs in one night and rearrange the Sentinels on a train (Not protected by guards mind you) is more astonishing than him moving RFK stadium over the white house.Since when is Magneto the master of Complex Circuitry? How does having the ability to walk through walls and subsequently take other make it able for Kitty to send Wolverine back to his former self in the '70s? I still haven't figure out why someone named Ice man need a jacket or the Beast being a lighter shade of blue than previous movies? And when you rearrange the future, only the people disappear and not the actually place they were at itself? (The cathedral underground was still there after everyone disappeared). And the climatic events of the future X-men with the Sentinels reminded me of the first Matrix that it reminded me in X-2 Singe used the ending of Star Trek 2: Wrath of Kahn in the movie. He has a knack for 'borrowing' other examples of a climactic scene for his these movies. Sound like I'm being nitpicky? Maybe so. But these questions about the movie stood out like a sore thumbs in relation what had already gone by that I couldn't excuse them or forget some of the contradictions of previous movies to enjoy the film. Buy there was things I did enjoy and though they got right. Michael Fassenbender as a younger Magneto is amazing! He just commands a presence with every scene he was in! Lessing the main story arc about Wolverine (relatively speaking from the previous movies that mostly about him) and making it more about the professor was a pleasant surprise. The scene when the younger Professor X meets the older professor X was exquisite and very touching. And as everyone has been mentioned the Quicksilver save of Magneto from the pentagon was quite funny and entertaining. The cameos of Kelsey grammar as Beast, Jean and Scott was a nice touch. (Scott appearance got the some in the audience clapping at my showing). But I felt that overall the movie did not convey what it should been when it comes to cleaning up the convoluted and contradictory nature that is seen too permeate all of these movies. And if ever watched in a chronological order from the first movie to this last one it would leave the view more confused than before. Singer and company have now gone so far as to contradict their own movies as well as disregard the comics and that just adding another insult to the injury and is just bad movie making. I know many of you on this site enjoyed the movie and think it's one of the best CBM even made, but if I learn anything from reading the X-Men comics for almost 4 decades is that you have to be TRUE TO YOURSELF regardless of how the majority or how the mainstream may disagree with your views. And before any of you think I'm towing some kind of 'Hater' line, I don't have any agenda with my distaste for this movies. I Am not a Marvelite' if you are someone inclined to describe people you disagree as such. I honestly went in last night to enjoy the movie despite my own issues with the previous ones. And I'm don't hate Bryan Singer or have anything against him (unless he found guilty of the charges against him) and actually have like and enjoyed some of his work (Apt Pupil for one). But he has not yet delivered a proper X-men film that fully expresses what the fundamental essences of what the X-men in any of his films. Unfortunate, while in the movie the X-men and history was change, but in their movie the story remain the same: A subpar movie in general and abysmal as a comic book movie.
Posted by Unknown on Monday, May 26, 2014 - Rating: 4.5
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