X-Men: Days of Future Past - Review

In the future, mutant exterminating machines called Sentinels are sent to destroy the mutant race. A small group of survivors send one of their own back into the past to help destroy the future in X-Men: Days of Future Past.



I'm going to just go right into this and say this movie disappointed the hell out of me. I had very high expectations given how great X-Men: First Class was. I have to say I enjoyed First Class a lot more than Days of Future Past.
It has a great start bringing us into the future and re-introducing us to mutants we already know and it brought us into the past very well, but it soon became really jumbled together and it flipped back and forth way too freely. I have quite a few problems with this movie...

1. Character development was seriously lacking in this installment. There were way too many mutants that needed explanation and way too many with explanation of things we already knew. For example, there was no need to constantly explain what happened to Wolverine. He is probably the most developed and most utilized character of the X-Men franchise so far. He was a main character in the first three films and has two solo films. We know what happens to him and we don't need it explained to us all the fucking time.

2. Overhyped characters that were fairly irrelevant at the end of the day. The biggest offenders here were Bishop and Quicksilver. These two characters were hyped up at an alarming rate, especially Quicksilver, and they each failed to bring anything major. Bishop turned out to just be a surviving mutant battling Sentinels in the future. He had no explanation, no character development, and I don't think his name was said more than once.
Quicksilver was approached in the past simply because Wolverine said he knew him in the future. Again, no explanation other than the fact that he was fast. He has like 10min of total screentime and was one of the most hyped characters in the promos. Not to mention the Carl's Jr. commercial.

3. Despite being the main villain, Mystique was overshadowed heavily by both Trask and Magneto. Simple as that.

4. Not enough Sentinel action in the 70's. Actually, there wasn't enough action in the 70's at all. It was mostly Charles complaining and Wolverine struggling.

5. The time jumping got to be confusing. In the end, they focused more on the future than in the past and that was a huge mistake. The storyline we were invested in was not the mutants in the future. It was in the attempt to stop the Sentinels from being created. That was why Wolverine was sent back to begin with!

6. The way the mutants from First Class were utilized was stupid. Angel, Azazel, and Havok were completely wasted and would have been better off not being mentioned at all.



I think I just have to stop now. I am not saying I hated Days of Future Past because I didn't, but I did not love it like I thought I was going to. Definitely not the way I love First Class. There were things I enjoyed, but unfortunately they are a bit overshadowed by the bad. Nice try Bryan Singer, but Matthew Vaughn did a better job.

First official X-Men: Days of Future Past image

Say hello to awkward, 70's versions of Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), and Professor X (James McAvoy). This isn't anything special seeing that a majority of the effects aren't close to done, but at least it isn't a random Twitter pic from Bryan Singer.

The Wolverine - Review

The Wolverine follows Logan to Japan where he is summoned to meet a friend from the past. Little does he know the physical and personal conflicts that are ahead of him will show him not only what it is like to be mortal, but they shape who he is destined to be.


Going into The Wolverine I didn't really know what to expect. I knew it was a sequel to X-Men: The Last Stand and has Logan isolated after the X-Men disbanded and Jean Grey was killed. I also knew it took place in Japan. That was about it.
The film begins in WWII at the Nagasaki bombing where Logan is being held captive along with other American POW's by the Japanese. He saves the main villain, Yashida, from the blast and is later summoned by him to return to Japan when Yashida is an old, dying man. He tells Logan he wants to give him a gift of mortality and an ordinary death in exchange for the healing powers Logan possesses. That is the basic set up of this movie. As far as the plot goes I thought it was decent. Basically a man who was saved by a mutant became obsessed and wanted the power for himself. Pretty standard but solid. Everything else was just a bump in the road for Logan.
Acting wise I thought everyone did a pretty good job. Hugh Jackman, of course, did a great job as Wolverine. I don't think he will ever shake this role as long as he is able to do it. The only character I thought was a bit dumb was Viper, the poisonous mutant who was basically a biochemistry genius. Yashida uses Viper as a means to obtain Logan's healing powers and produce Adamantium.
I did like the flashbacks to Jean Grey, though. I thought they weren't overdone and they served a really nice purpose. It shows the struggle Logan has been dealing with. 

There were things I didn't like, though. The main one was the ridiculous train sequence with the Yakuza trying to kill Yashida's granddaughter. I thought it was overdrawn and a bit ridiculous. Another was the whole Yakuza subplot in general. It gave Yashida's son, Shingen, a potential God complex in basically predicting everything that happened was going to happen before it even happened and placed precautionary measures years in advance. I really hate that in movies and it was very prevalent in The Wolverine with quite a few characters. The love plot between Logan and Mariko was forced, too, and Yukio's character and mutant abilities were severely underdeveloped.

Overall it was good despite the hiccups. Well, it was better than X-Men Origins. I wouldn't say this was a great movie but it did its job. Similar to the Hulk, I just think Wolverine is one of those characters that works best in an ensemble piece and not by himself. I have loved Wolverine in each of the X-Men films but when he's put out there by himself it just isn't the same.

There is one spoiler alert regarding an after credits scene, so click the jump to read on.