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X-Men: Days of Future Past (Film Review)
So, a certain movie has arrived in my part of the world. Above cut I can say: loved it, loved it, and also, loved it. Not least while, fond as I am of Magneto/Xavier individually and apart, one of the things I appreciated most about X-Men: First Class was that it made Mystique the McCoy to their Kirk and Spock, so to speak, the third in a central trio instead of the sidekick position she had in the previous X-movies. Well, this one goes one step further.
Not "just" because it's Mystique who gets to make the big call and Mystique who saves mutantkind/ the world, but because the key relationship of the whole damm movie isn't Charles/Erik, it's Charles and Raven. It's the love for Raven that first gets 70s!Charles out of the cycle of despair, self-pity and self-loathing he's sunk into, but that's just the start. The problem between Charles and Raven in First Class hadn't been that he didn't love her (or didn't love her romantically as opposed to sibling-esque) but that he expressed it in a paternalistic fashion (with a sideline of contributing to her body issues), and that their entire relationship had been on his terms. Which is why the key thing Charles says to Raven in this movie in the climactic scene between them is "I tried to control you all my life, and that was wrong", and the key thing required of him is to surrender all control to her and have complete and absolute faith in her.
It did occur to me during watching that this film takes elements of more than one previous X-movie to twist, turn and (imo, of course), improse. Now, one of many, many things that I disliked about X3 was that a) Magneto abandons Mystique as soon as she's infected with the "cure", only moments after she saved him (again), and b) that she subsquently collaborates with the authorities against mutants, because hey, it's not like Mystique might have feelings about the mutant cause that aren't about Magneto. Bah. Boo. Days of Future Past takes the "Erik stabs Mystique in the back" plot but does it so much better, because a) he has a ruthlessly pragmantic and in character cause for this, to wit, preventing the future mutant genocide (and if its mutantkind versus one individual, then of course Erik would kill that individual, no matter who she/he is) and b) Mystique completely gets his reasons and it doesn't stop her one bit from fighting on behalf of mutantkind after he's foiled, because it's not about Erik (or for that matter Charles) for her, it's about saving mutants.
Another redo/twist, less obvious: I loved X2, but one of the problems is that while Jean gets to do the big heroic rescue (and death) at the climax, the preceding narrative isn't about Jean getting to this point. Jean's emotional dilemma in X2 before the big moment at the end is framed as being about her attraction to Logan. Here, Mystique saving the day (which comes without her dying, in case you're worried because of the parallel/contrast I'm drawing) in the big climax feels earned because she's established as the key to the whole apocalypse from the get go, and because her scenes with pretty much everyone (from the mutants she saves early in Vietnam to Trask to Erik to Charles) lead up to this.
Back to X3: wherein Logan getting basically Scott's role in addition to his own in the Dark Phoenix saga was another problem I had. Now, from the moment Wolverine was mentioned as being in this film it became clear he got the time travelling role which in the comics Days of Future Past Kitty Pryde has, and since I'm okay with Logan in an ensemble but not so keen on him as the hero of an X story (one reason why I didn't watch either of his two solo movies), this worried me a bit. However, the way this film uses him utterly works for me. Not least because it does tie back to X1 where the movies made Logan the introduction pov to the X-men, and there is a great counterpoint to this here. But also because Days of Future Past isn't about Logan's angst. (There are just enough callbacks to ensure the audience gets this is a Logan who's seen Jean die and has been experimented on by William Stryker, but no more than that.) He's focused on the preventing the apocalypse mission, and the dynamic he gets with a younger Charles Xavier is unexpectedly entertaining. Instead of overwhelming the story, he functions as a good chronicler between past and future - that is his purpose in the story, not to save the day, because, see above.
New characters: you could tell there were a lot of Game of Thrones watchers by their reaction the moment Peter Dinklage appeared on screen and one heard his umistakable beautiful voice. But one quickly got to see him as Trask, who, as villains go, wasn't presented as raving and spitting but in a frighteningly calm and rational manner. The other more-than-a-cameo ensemble newbie was Peter (sic, not Pietro) Maximoff, who does have an unnamed sister as seen in a late montage in the film (though we never see more of her than him hugging her while they watch Magneto on tv) and gets one line that's a heavy hint he may be Erik's son in this continuity after all, though Erik doesn't know this ("so your thing is controlling metal? My mother knew a guy who could do that"), but otherwise is very different from the comicverse incarnations of Quicksilver I've encountered. Not that I'm an expert, but the occasional Pietro versions I've read were all angsty in varying degrees, and most were angry. Meanwhile, movieverse Peter Maximoff is a cheerful brat who delights in his powers and is decidedly angst free. The audience in my cinema was amused and cheered him showing off his powers durin gone of the movie's set pieces, the gang springing Magneto from prison.
Obvious touch is obvious but no less lovely: Hank watching an original Star Trek time travel episode (which keeps on running in the background - does 20th Century Fox have the TOS rights, I wonder?), because of course Hank is a Trekkie, and well, Star Trek wrote the book on world saving time travel.
Speaking of Hank, I wonder whether this movie willl inspire some Hank/Charles, what with them living alone together for years? Mind you, it's not an altogether healthy dynamic, what with Hank being basically Charles' heroin supplier (err, not literally, but the sci fi parallel to heroin, which they both use, is glaringly obvious and we do see Charles using the needle in classic heroin addiction fashion just in case we missed it) and Charles in his gloom and doom cycle which isn't helping Hank's own issues), but there's also strong affection, and Hank's not young enough to be a son figure in this continuity but around Charles own age.
Older Magneto and Xavier have relatively short roles, which on the one hand robs me of as much McKellen and Stewart as I want but otoh the emphasis in this story really needed to be on the younger incarnations who still can avoid (or not) making those mistakes. But hey, they're together in the future, making for a counterpoint to their post-bitter-divorce dynamic in the present. (I was a bit torn as to whether Charles' bitterness at first towards Erik was believable given this wasn't the case on the beach in Cuba, and I couldn't by the Kennedy assassination making such a difference to Charles (btw: as it turns out, Magneto was framed there!), but then years onheroin a drug which while restoring the ability to move takes telepathy away plus the Vietnam war and no more school to distract might do the trick. Also the part where being left crippled on a beach probably took a while to sink in in its full implication. Around half way, we're back to chess playing, though that's before Erik doublecrosses him again (see above re: Erik trying to kill Raven), and I definitely could buy Charles at that point isn't particularly surprised (not in a cynical way, btw, just, well, Erik). But as I said: if First Class was at its heart about Charles and Erik, Days of Future Past is at its heart about Raven and Charles, with Raven/Erik and Charles/Erik as secondary important relationships, and thus it's his relationship with Raven Charles tries to repair through the fillm.
As in every movie, most of the actors get their turn at playing Mystique, and I especially like the guy who plays her when she's impersonating a senior officer in Vietnam, who gets the balance just right between conveying to the audience that this is Mystique and not making it so glaringly obvious the other solidiers come across as dumb for not immediately noticing. Jennifer Lawrence, of course, does the majority of the character stuff (and at one point looks great in 70s fashion), and I thought did an excellent job at playing Raven somewhere between the young woman in First Class and the ruthless experienced operative in the first three X-movies. She's already somewhat hardened but still capable of being deeply shocked when she discovers the extent of what Trask has done, does on the one hand say "That's not my name anymore" when Alex Summers calls her Raven but on the other refers to Charles as family, the mixture of affection and anger (when he's doing his paternalistic thing early on) with Charles comes across as clearly as the mixture of first hurt, then anger and then cool resolution in her Erik encounter. There's even an echo of the playfulness she had with the other youngsters when she winks at Alex, while there's definitely the cold disgust experienced older Mystique has with her targets. Like I said, very convincingly Raven/Mystique in between. And when she has to make the big call, she's sublime.
Best 70s gag: when Future!Logan is temporarily knocked out of his younger body and 70s Logan is back with no idea who these people around him are, Charles comes up with the unbeatable: "You're having a bad acid trip."
Worst actor recognition on my part: I honestly thought they'd recast Bobby Drake/Iceman because Shawn Ashmore looks SO different with a beard and didn't find out differently until I saw his name in the credits.
Speaking of the credits: there is a post credit scene, but honestly, I fail at Marvel. I have absolutely no idea who that was supposed to be. Someone help and explain?
And finally: Mystique doesn't solely prevent the mutant apocalpyse in Days of Future Past. She also by her actions starts a new timeline in which, as Logan finds out, Jean and Scott are both alive in the present/future. This works for me, not just because I like Jean and Scott but because Jean's death at the end of X2 (and thus also her resurrection in X3) was the indirect result of Magneto and Mystique setting Charles up with Dark Cerebro and leaving him there to commit global genocide. Given all younger Raven, Charles and Erik learn in this film, and given the new dynamic they have at the end of it, I doubt this would happen. Hence no dead Jean and no dead Scott.
Not "just" because it's Mystique who gets to make the big call and Mystique who saves mutantkind/ the world, but because the key relationship of the whole damm movie isn't Charles/Erik, it's Charles and Raven. It's the love for Raven that first gets 70s!Charles out of the cycle of despair, self-pity and self-loathing he's sunk into, but that's just the start. The problem between Charles and Raven in First Class hadn't been that he didn't love her (or didn't love her romantically as opposed to sibling-esque) but that he expressed it in a paternalistic fashion (with a sideline of contributing to her body issues), and that their entire relationship had been on his terms. Which is why the key thing Charles says to Raven in this movie in the climactic scene between them is "I tried to control you all my life, and that was wrong", and the key thing required of him is to surrender all control to her and have complete and absolute faith in her.
It did occur to me during watching that this film takes elements of more than one previous X-movie to twist, turn and (imo, of course), improse. Now, one of many, many things that I disliked about X3 was that a) Magneto abandons Mystique as soon as she's infected with the "cure", only moments after she saved him (again), and b) that she subsquently collaborates with the authorities against mutants, because hey, it's not like Mystique might have feelings about the mutant cause that aren't about Magneto. Bah. Boo. Days of Future Past takes the "Erik stabs Mystique in the back" plot but does it so much better, because a) he has a ruthlessly pragmantic and in character cause for this, to wit, preventing the future mutant genocide (and if its mutantkind versus one individual, then of course Erik would kill that individual, no matter who she/he is) and b) Mystique completely gets his reasons and it doesn't stop her one bit from fighting on behalf of mutantkind after he's foiled, because it's not about Erik (or for that matter Charles) for her, it's about saving mutants.
Another redo/twist, less obvious: I loved X2, but one of the problems is that while Jean gets to do the big heroic rescue (and death) at the climax, the preceding narrative isn't about Jean getting to this point. Jean's emotional dilemma in X2 before the big moment at the end is framed as being about her attraction to Logan. Here, Mystique saving the day (which comes without her dying, in case you're worried because of the parallel/contrast I'm drawing) in the big climax feels earned because she's established as the key to the whole apocalypse from the get go, and because her scenes with pretty much everyone (from the mutants she saves early in Vietnam to Trask to Erik to Charles) lead up to this.
Back to X3: wherein Logan getting basically Scott's role in addition to his own in the Dark Phoenix saga was another problem I had. Now, from the moment Wolverine was mentioned as being in this film it became clear he got the time travelling role which in the comics Days of Future Past Kitty Pryde has, and since I'm okay with Logan in an ensemble but not so keen on him as the hero of an X story (one reason why I didn't watch either of his two solo movies), this worried me a bit. However, the way this film uses him utterly works for me. Not least because it does tie back to X1 where the movies made Logan the introduction pov to the X-men, and there is a great counterpoint to this here. But also because Days of Future Past isn't about Logan's angst. (There are just enough callbacks to ensure the audience gets this is a Logan who's seen Jean die and has been experimented on by William Stryker, but no more than that.) He's focused on the preventing the apocalypse mission, and the dynamic he gets with a younger Charles Xavier is unexpectedly entertaining. Instead of overwhelming the story, he functions as a good chronicler between past and future - that is his purpose in the story, not to save the day, because, see above.
New characters: you could tell there were a lot of Game of Thrones watchers by their reaction the moment Peter Dinklage appeared on screen and one heard his umistakable beautiful voice. But one quickly got to see him as Trask, who, as villains go, wasn't presented as raving and spitting but in a frighteningly calm and rational manner. The other more-than-a-cameo ensemble newbie was Peter (sic, not Pietro) Maximoff, who does have an unnamed sister as seen in a late montage in the film (though we never see more of her than him hugging her while they watch Magneto on tv) and gets one line that's a heavy hint he may be Erik's son in this continuity after all, though Erik doesn't know this ("so your thing is controlling metal? My mother knew a guy who could do that"), but otherwise is very different from the comicverse incarnations of Quicksilver I've encountered. Not that I'm an expert, but the occasional Pietro versions I've read were all angsty in varying degrees, and most were angry. Meanwhile, movieverse Peter Maximoff is a cheerful brat who delights in his powers and is decidedly angst free. The audience in my cinema was amused and cheered him showing off his powers durin gone of the movie's set pieces, the gang springing Magneto from prison.
Obvious touch is obvious but no less lovely: Hank watching an original Star Trek time travel episode (which keeps on running in the background - does 20th Century Fox have the TOS rights, I wonder?), because of course Hank is a Trekkie, and well, Star Trek wrote the book on world saving time travel.
Speaking of Hank, I wonder whether this movie willl inspire some Hank/Charles, what with them living alone together for years? Mind you, it's not an altogether healthy dynamic, what with Hank being basically Charles' heroin supplier (err, not literally, but the sci fi parallel to heroin, which they both use, is glaringly obvious and we do see Charles using the needle in classic heroin addiction fashion just in case we missed it) and Charles in his gloom and doom cycle which isn't helping Hank's own issues), but there's also strong affection, and Hank's not young enough to be a son figure in this continuity but around Charles own age.
Older Magneto and Xavier have relatively short roles, which on the one hand robs me of as much McKellen and Stewart as I want but otoh the emphasis in this story really needed to be on the younger incarnations who still can avoid (or not) making those mistakes. But hey, they're together in the future, making for a counterpoint to their post-bitter-divorce dynamic in the present. (I was a bit torn as to whether Charles' bitterness at first towards Erik was believable given this wasn't the case on the beach in Cuba, and I couldn't by the Kennedy assassination making such a difference to Charles (btw: as it turns out, Magneto was framed there!), but then years on
As in every movie, most of the actors get their turn at playing Mystique, and I especially like the guy who plays her when she's impersonating a senior officer in Vietnam, who gets the balance just right between conveying to the audience that this is Mystique and not making it so glaringly obvious the other solidiers come across as dumb for not immediately noticing. Jennifer Lawrence, of course, does the majority of the character stuff (and at one point looks great in 70s fashion), and I thought did an excellent job at playing Raven somewhere between the young woman in First Class and the ruthless experienced operative in the first three X-movies. She's already somewhat hardened but still capable of being deeply shocked when she discovers the extent of what Trask has done, does on the one hand say "That's not my name anymore" when Alex Summers calls her Raven but on the other refers to Charles as family, the mixture of affection and anger (when he's doing his paternalistic thing early on) with Charles comes across as clearly as the mixture of first hurt, then anger and then cool resolution in her Erik encounter. There's even an echo of the playfulness she had with the other youngsters when she winks at Alex, while there's definitely the cold disgust experienced older Mystique has with her targets. Like I said, very convincingly Raven/Mystique in between. And when she has to make the big call, she's sublime.
Best 70s gag: when Future!Logan is temporarily knocked out of his younger body and 70s Logan is back with no idea who these people around him are, Charles comes up with the unbeatable: "You're having a bad acid trip."
Worst actor recognition on my part: I honestly thought they'd recast Bobby Drake/Iceman because Shawn Ashmore looks SO different with a beard and didn't find out differently until I saw his name in the credits.
Speaking of the credits: there is a post credit scene, but honestly, I fail at Marvel. I have absolutely no idea who that was supposed to be. Someone help and explain?
And finally: Mystique doesn't solely prevent the mutant apocalpyse in Days of Future Past. She also by her actions starts a new timeline in which, as Logan finds out, Jean and Scott are both alive in the present/future. This works for me, not just because I like Jean and Scott but because Jean's death at the end of X2 (and thus also her resurrection in X3) was the indirect result of Magneto and Mystique setting Charles up with Dark Cerebro and leaving him there to commit global genocide. Given all younger Raven, Charles and Erik learn in this film, and given the new dynamic they have at the end of it, I doubt this would happen. Hence no dead Jean and no dead Scott.
no subject
He's just a big gesture kind of guy!
Wolverine: search me. I wonder whether letting Stryker's eyes flash yellow, thereby indicating he's Mystique, was a last minute addition and the original intention was to show Logan's still due to get the Stryker adamantium treatment? Because I can't think what Mystique at that point would want with him - other than needing him as canon fodder in case Nixon decides to go for the sentinel option after all, obviously Wolverine would be a good fighting addition if the brotherhood is recruiting again (and 1970s Logan has no idea that Erik is responsible for his stint at the bottom of the river), but that's assuming Raven and Erik make up very quickly after the big show down.
Mind you, given that Logan's time with Stryker and the subsequent amnesia before running into Marie happened with Stryker in his middle aged Brian Cox shape, not in his young man shape, it still may in the new timeline, even if he hangs out with Mystique for a while. Not because Raven or Erik would be keeping stuff from him - younger Erik didn't hear anything from older Logan other than that they had their run-ins in the future but ended up fighting the sentinels together, and Mystique never talked with Logan anyway. (Though wasn't there one trailer in which they had a scene?)
no subject
Even if Erik offhandedly mentions, "Logan? Oh, I threw him in the river", why does Mystique want him? Unless she's working with Charles... Which would make more sense, actually, because Charles knows Logan has to be alive and would want him back, yet can't very well just go dredge the river for him. Mystique can do it under some kind of official guise. But if it's just a case of getting Logan out of the river, why pretend to be Stryker specifically? I guess Mystique may be keeping an eye on Stryker's activities, but... The pieces don't seem to fit together.
What you suggested about the eye flash actually makes much more sense. But I'd tend to assume Singer has plans to pick up on all this in the sequel. Maybe.
no subject
On a Watsonian level, Mystique working with Charles in this case would be the most sense making, yes. re: younger Erik's state of knowledge about Logan's powers, he didn't see them on display (solely the non-metal claws coming out in a fight), Logan just said they were both survivors. I suppose Erik could make an educated guess based on the fact Logan was the one sent back in time and on Logan not having permanently blood knuckles, but then again, he says "so much for being a survivor" when throwing Logan into a river, which would indicate he doesn't expect him at that point to come back. Mystique on her own has zilch idea about what's up with Logan, unless there's a missing scene they're saving for the dvd to explain it all. (I.e. a meeting between Mystique and Wolverine during this movie there he tells her something to intrigue her enough so she goes to the trouble of retrieving him.) Whereas one should think Charles would at least bother to wonder what the hell happened to Logan and to not want to see him on the bottom of the ocean, had access to Erik's thoughts again after Mystique took the helmet away and with the repaired state of relations could have asked Mystique to help getting Logan out of the river at least.
Why Stryker instead of impersonating random waterpolice cop: my fanwank would be that it has something to do with the newspaper article about Trask getting arrested for selling industrial secrets. I mean, that looks like a frame job to me, and playing Stryker would give her access to Trask in order to do it.
...but that's all awfully complicated and headache inducing. I maintain my Doylist theory is right.
no subject
Speaking of missing scenes, where do you think Anna Paquin's missing scene went? I assume it wasn't at the end, given that she had a main credit and was announced for the movie, unlike Grammer/Janssen/Marsden. But if she was in the "future" I don't know where she would've fit in that wasn't as a part of all the X-team. Rogue really should've been depowered in the future too. (Although Charles should've been dead, or able to walk, depending how you look at it.)
Oh, and our Charles/Hank thoughts are echoed by Patrick Stewart. Sort of.
no subject
Re: Rogue, well, since Magneto is at full power it's a safe bet that that small hint in the chessboard scene at the end of s3 was indeed the first stirring of the "cure" losing its effectiveness and everyone's powers, including Rogue's, coming back. So I'm assuming she had a scene with the team in the future, perhaps using everyone's powers to fight the sentinels until one of them got her.
re: Charles, older Charles shouldn't be in his Patrick Stewart shaped body, but in whoever played the comatose guy, and who wants that? I am so not sorry that timeline just got wiped out, let me tell you. Thank you, Mystique.
no subject
See, they shouldn't have gone with the "shooting Trask will result in tons of Sentinels and a postapocalyptic future!" They should've told Mystique, "shooting Trask will result in X3!"
I assume all this means that the first Wolvie movie didn't happen either, which is helpful. (Although more-or-less the same events may have happened in a different way.) This may be the first time that a time-travel movie actually fixed continuity.
no subject
You'd think so, but Arwen was actually in Helm's Deep, i.e. Liv Tyler did film several battle scenes, before they decided not to go there in The Two Towers and pixelled her out of all the battle scenes she's in. That being said, my guess would be that Rogue does early on in the future, yes, not least because it would add poignancy to Wolverine seeing her alive and well at the end. As for Anna Paquin's place in the credits, again, see Liv Tyler in the LotR movies where she got one very high up there - I think she was fourth or fifth named - which in no way reflects the amount of her actual screentime. If you have a good agent and a good current Hollywood standing...
They should've told Mystique, "shooting Trask will result in X3!"
But then she'd gone with Charles or Erik immediately and it would have been a much shorter movie. :)
This may be the first time that a time-travel movie actually fixed continuity.
No kidding. BTW not having watched the two Wolvie solos I wouldn't know what happened in them anyway...
no subject
Perhaps there was a scene with her attempting to infiltrate the Evil Humans of the future, and thus doing what I complained we didn't see: a plan for the X-Men that didn't involve repeatedly dying or this relatively crazy time-travel scheme.
I haven't seen the second Wolvie solo either, so I'm not sure how it fits in. I think I heard he has the bone claws in that one too, though. Plus I think they're doing a sequel to it, so presumably it's still canon and in line with DoFP.