Monday, May 26, 2014

Days of Future Past

 During my youth I was a major DC comic book fan, counting Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Flash as my favourites.  I occasionally read Marvel comics with Spiderman, Hulk, Thor and The Fantastic Four being my favourites.  When it came to TV, DC seemed to have the edge in live action series including Wonder Woman and Batman with Marvel’s Spiderman ruling Saturday mornings.  Then came super hero movies and it first it appeared that DC would rule this genre with Superman and Batman leading the charge.  But now Marvel is the dominant force with several concurrent series including The Amazing Spiderman, The Avengers both as a team and separately and of course the most spectacular of all, The X-Men.  It is interesting that a comic book series than I never read and actually had little or no knowledge of has become my favourite action movie series.

This weekend we saw a collision between two X-Men worlds when Patrick Stewart’s Charles Xavier and Ian McKellan’s Magneto send Wolverine’s consciousness back in time to recruit James McAvoy’s Xavier and Michael Fassbinder’s Magneto into helping him defeat Mystique’s plot to assassinate defence contractor Bolivar Trask (anagram of Stark, nudge nudge wink wink).

For the past two X-men movies Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine has been the force that has held the stories together, but with the return of Bryan Singer as director the story is again the force and the characters players on his stage.  While still have trouble recognising Stewart’s Xavier in McAvoy, Fassbinder makes it very easy for us to believe that he grows up to become the totally bent Magneto that McKellan plays so perfectly.  As much as I think that Jennifer Lawrence might be the most gifted actor of her generation I still prefer Rebecca Ramjin’s Mystique.  Somehow Ramjin just looks more evil in the blue body suit than Lawrence.


The past in Days of Future Past is full of villains and although Magneto, Major (he hasn’t been promoted yet) Stryker and Trask are all deliciously evil they can’t hold a candle to one of the 70’s worst villains Richard Nixon.  Singer seamlessly blends archival footage with modern scenes to create a very realistic Trick Dicky.

Being set in 1973 also allows Jennifer Lawrence to dress up 70s style but this time considerably down market from American Hustle.

After of course saving the past Wolverine returns to a now completely altered future where all the X-Men who bought the farm in Last Stand are standing again.  One has to wonder though how long Kelsey Grammar had to spend in make-up for his 15 second walk-through as the Beast.  Of course even in the new future Wolverine loves Jean Grey and Cyclops dislikes Wolverine and of course somehow Charles Xavier knows everything.

Although at times I suffered from disorientation vertigo as I tried to remember who was who, what was their power and who was dead but not anymore this was a great movie in a great summer that has already given us Godzilla and Captain America: Winter Soldier.  Let’s hope Maleficent lives up to her hype!

No comments:

Post a Comment