Thursday, May 22, 2014

X-men: Days of Future Past

Warning... Spoilers ahead.. You have been warned..

I watched X-men Days of Future Past yesterday during the sneak preview. My friend was very eager so when he bought the ticket and offered me one, I just said yes. We watched at Lido and I was surprised that it was sold out! The last time I watched a sold out show at Lido was for Harry Potter.

I have not read the comics prior to this as I just hate the style of the drawings in the 80s and I am never a fan of a time travel stories. But who can resist all the hype and promo surrounding this movie, especially with its larger than life casts.

I am very disappointed with the movie so this shall set a "negative" tone in what I write subsequently. To summarise, the movie contains all the elements that I hate in a book/movie: time travel, alternate realities,  and finally pointless death and resurrection. The movie itself is lacking of actions and has too much of talking. I am watching a superhero movie and thus I am expecting a lot of cool action scenes. The action scenes are rather repetitive and full of CG. Kinda expected since the enemy are sentinels this time.

In the present day, there are 2 fights. Storm and Magneto only fight at the second or the "climax" fight and they showed their awesome superpowers which made the rest looked like crap. And considering how crazy Storm and Magneto's superpowers are, I sort of understand why Jean Grey is omitted. With her Phoenix power, she could wipe out the whole Sentinel army and the dystopian future won't even take place. Haha.. No idea why they choose Bishop when his power is rather boring (and he isn't really a good guy in the recent comics). Warpath, Blink, Sunspot, Colossus, and Iceman participated in both fights and it is boring to watch them on the second fight as it is just a "repeat" of the first fight. No matter how their deaths are dramatised, it failed to invoke any emotion since you know everything will just "reset" again once Wolverine is successful in his journey to the past. Basically the mutants involved in these fights are just cannon fodder as the main story happens in the past.

I have to admit the initial journey in the past was hilarious. I really did not expect that even Wolverine can be involved in many funny scenes. Quicksilver is rather redundant but it is obvious that he is in here for the comedy factor and it works. Unfortunately, despite all the hoo-hah in the past, everything becomes lame when the mission turns into "persuading Mystique to turn back into a good girl". Everybody, including Wolverine, sort of loses their personality except for Magneto who is a bad as through and through. Even in the past, his personality to show mutant superiority never changes. In the end, Magneto wanted to kill the president and the cabinet and Mystique saved them all by shooting Magneto. I find it weird that the conclusion is "a mutant saved the president and the cabinet" and hence the Sentinel project was abolished -__- What on earth happened to the fact that a mutant tried to kill them in the first place?

The best part of the movie is only the ending which show the new "present" without Sentinel. Everyone is basically alive in the X-mansion. And surprise surprise, even Jean Grey and Cyclops are back!! Oh gosh.. Famke Jansen is hot in her crimson dress and hair. Rogue is shown with Bobby too. Yep, sadly just a cameo for these 3 so I guess the whole movie is just to "reset" the whole X-men universe which was screwed upside down by the X-men: The Last Stand movie. Sadly, no mention of Magneto and Mystique in this new "present".

There are some big questions marks in this movie considering the previous movies. Firstly, why is Professor X alive but no Cyclops and Jean Grey when all of them died in The Last Stand? Secondly, is Logan of the same age with Professor X and Magneto? I know he does not age but it is kinda weird to see Logan as "old" as Professor X and Magneto since his behaviour/personality is not like someone who has lived through 70-80 years. Thirdly, Pietro is supposedly Magneto's son so it is kinda weird to see him as a teenager/young adult in the 70s when Magneto himself is still very young.

People hate The Last Stand but ironically I find Days of Future Past worse than it. The only thing I hate about The Last Stand is Cyclops and Professor X being killed by Jean Grey which is sort of out of character for Jean. However, the action scenes and the mutant-vs-mutant fights are great to watch. There is great balance between fist fight and CG for the mutant powers. Days of Future Past is damn boring in comparison.

And ironically, after watching this, I have to say that The Amazing Spiderman is better. At least it does not make me feel bored throughout the movie.

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