X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST Is The Best and Biggest X-Men Film Yet

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST Review:

- The Bryan Singer-directed X-MEN films were huge in their day. Rarely had we seen beloved comic book superheroes adapted for the big screen with so much seriousness of tone and purpose. Despite some clunky moments, these movies generated an excitement for comic book-based films that had not been seen since the Tim Burton Batman days. And yet ... I don't know if those movies 100% aged well, at least in my own mind. As much as the X-Men films took their characters seriously, there was also a sort of self-hating dullness to the films that now feels dated next to the colorful, comic-book roots-embracing Avengers films. Singer's muted colors, workmanlike black leather character uniforms, and eschewing of beloved comic tropes in favor of realism (reportedly Hugh Jackman had to beg Singer to let Wolverine call someone "bub") was a mixed blessing. It was, likely, what was needed to erase the day-glo nightmare memories of Joel Schumaker's abhorrent Batman films. But the X-films also felt like a bit of a letdown to those raised on the colorful sci-fi soap-opera of the 80's and 90's cartoons and comic books.

But lo and behold, DAYS OF FUTURE PAST is Singer's most sci-fi, most over-the-top, and most epic X-Men movie by a mile. It fully embraces its plot's time-travel wackiness, and revels in comic book-style action scenes, high-concept sci-fi imagery, and a sense of anything-can-happen fun that previously eluded this franchise.

Loosely based on the classic Chris Claremont / John Bryne comic book story from the 80's, the new movie sees Wolverine sent back in time from an apocalyptic present (a grim, black-sky dystopia in which the few surviving mutants wage a hopeless war against the all-conquering robotic Sentinels), to the swingin' 70's ... in hopes of preventing disaster. As in the comics, Professor Xavier believes that if a pivotal assassination attempt planned by Mystique were to be thwarted, then it would prevent a chain of events leading to mass public anti-Mutant sentiment, and thus the creation of the Sentinels. But unlike the comics, where Kitty Pryde sends her older-self's consciousness back in time to inhabit her younger self's body, the movie version has franchise favorite Wolverine make the timestream trek. Since Wolvie doesn't age (theoretically), it makes sense that he'd be the one to go back. Plus, in the movie, it's explained that only Wolverine and his healing powers can withstand the mental toll of the process, which is, it seems, now one of Kitty's abilities (so she can phase through walls, and *also* transfer people's minds back in time - random).

But the great thing about the whole set-up is that it gives Singer and co. an excuse to have a dream-melding of his original X-cast with that of Matthew Vaughan's well-regarded X-Men: First Class prequel. That film was a breath of fresh air, bringing talented actors like Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, and Jennifer Lawrence into the fold. Once again, these three are huge spark plugs, and help to cover some of the weak spots that existed in the supporting cast of Singer's original lineup. And it's also just a lot of fanboyish fun to see the old and young versions of Professor X and Magneto in the same film. In particular, Patrick Stewart gets some great moments with McAvoy as his younger self. And let's face it, any excuse to bring back the legendary duo of Stewart and Ian McKellan is cause for much rejoicing. They quite simply rule (and as great as Fassbender is as a younger Magneto, he still can't match the sheer gravitas of McKellan in rage-mode).

Lawrence's Mystique is also a huge focus here. Rightfully so, I think, given how talented of an actress Lawrence is. And the actress does a fine job of making the character into more than just a badass in leaves-nothing-to-the-imagination blue body paint (though she is that, too). Here, Mystique is sort of the pendulum at the center of the eternal morality play being waged between Xavier and Magneto. To stand up for Mutantkind through peace and understanding, or through blunt force and aggression? The issue is forced by Peter Dinklage's Bolivar Trask, an anti-Mutant crusader and father of the Sentinel program. Future Xavier and his fellow X-Men know that Mystique's attack on Trask would lead to his Sentinels getting funding and eventually decimating the planet, Skynet-style. And so the fate of the future lies largely in Mystique's vengeful blue hands.

Singer populates the film with some of the most ingeniously shot set-pieces he's ever put to film. The biggest highlight comes thanks to the newly-introduced Quicksilver, a laid-back speedster who performs dazzling light-speed feats all while chilling to hippie rock on his slightly anachronistic headphones. Played by American Horror Story's Evan Peters, Quicksilver is one of the best new additions to the cast. And his big showpiece set piece - in which he makes quick (but seen in slo-mo) work of a room full of armed assailants - is emblematic of what makes this movie better than all other X-movies. It's fun, dazzling, funny, and fully embraces the potential of the character's powers. Singer also gets some good mileage out of Nicholas Holt's Beast, who gets to shine both in his geeky scientist guise and in his ass-kicking Mutant form.

The combination of Singer's seemingly reinvigorated direction with a surprisingly lean, mean, and effective script by Simon Kinberg makes the movie work in a way that it probably shouldn't. There's a lot going on here, but Kinberg's script ties everything together in a very digestible way that mixes plenty of solid character and emotional beats into the big sci-fi tapestry. Yes, Wolverine serves as our central character, but the movie soon morphs into a great Xavier / Magneto story that also feels like closure, of sorts, to this entire chapter of the X-Men cinematic saga. That said, the time-travel conceit allows for the kind of big, comic-bookish stuff that we really haven't seen before in the mainline X-movies. We get teams of X-Men fighting off legions of invading Sentinels in a Matrix-esque future. We get big, world-ending stakes. We get an anything-can-happen set-up in which all bets are off - with time-travel shenanigans going on, favorite characters can die at any time, maybe even on multiple occasions. And of course, the movie introduces a concept very familiar to comic book fans, but perhaps a bit of a revelation for newbies - the idea of the retcon. Basically, the time-travel hijinks give Singer and Kinberg the ability to selectively, retroactively undo a few choice developments from previous X-Men films (cough*3*cough), wiping the slate clean for future installments, but also just sort of leaving the house (or manor, in this case) in order.

DAYS OF FUTURE PAST really surprised me. Going in, I was weary of yet another X-Men movie, and weary of yet another film in which Hugh Jackman's Wolverine takes center stage. I wanted Ellen Page's Kitty Pryde to get some love, and for the franchise to move in a new direction more in line with The Avengers and other Marvel studios films. I wanted the bright colors and melodrama of the comics and cartoons. Well, this one may not have bright colors, but it did capture the bigness and craziness that made The Uncanny X-Men the biggest thing since sliced bread in the 80's and 90's. It's a fun movie, plain and simple, and has about everything you could ask for in an X-Men/First-Class passing-of-the-torch film. There are nice callbacks to the previous movies, as well as some nice stage-setting for stories yet to come. This is pretty much the ultimate Brian Singer X-Men movie, both keeping what worked about the older films but also addressing some of the issues. I'd still like to see the X-films take a different path after this one, but this is a film that elevates the franchise as a whole.

My Grade: A-

THE WOLVERINE: Finally ... The Claws Come Out

THE WOLVERINE Review:

- If I've had any one problem with the modern-day X-MEN film franchise, it's that it's always, to me, felt sort of middle-of-the-road. The team's colorful comic book origins were greyed-out (both literally and figuratively), and characters like Wolverine, at times, seemed to lose a bit of their bite. Growing up, Wolverine was always the badass berzerker - the furry ball of rage and bad-attitude whose feral nature made him a less-than-ideal team player. Echoes of the classic Wolvie have shown up in previous X-films, but the Hugh Jackman version has always felt slightly whitewashed. His was Wolverine-as-heartthrob - a gruff-but-lovable loner who felt slightly de-clawed. It's no wonder then that fans responded to the moments in the films when Logan was allowed to unleash his inner badass - his rage in the X-mansion in X-Men 2, or his brief but kickass cameo in First Class.

Sadly, the first Wolverine solo flick, Origins, was sort of a mess. Marred by a weak script and an overload of misused characters, it performed well at the box office, but fizzled with fans. Now though, THE WOLVERINE aims to take things back to basics - mining the classic Chris Claremont / Frank Miller Logan stories from the 80's, in order to present a darker, grittier, streamlined Wolverine story.

Whatever else there is to say about THE WOLVERINE, I give it credit for getting the basics right. On a macro level, this is the Wolverine solo movie that fans have always wanted. It's Wolverine in Japan, on a violent quest to protect a mysterious woman. It is a Wolverine struggling to reconcile his humanity with his animalistic, mutant side - who is grappling with the potential for a normal life vs. the instinct to be a wandering warrior - a ronin. This is a Wolverine movie that directly references the Claremont/Miller classics. It finally introduces Logan's Japanese love interest, Mariko. And it mostly adheres to the pulp-noir, stripped-down sensibilities that Miller brought to the character way back when.

And after all this time, it feels like a slightly older and more grizzled Hugh Jackman has now grown into the role of Wolverine, perhaps more so than ever before. Freed from being just a cog in a large ensemble cast, Jackman has room to breathe here, and to give some additional heft and texture to his performance that I don't think we've seen in previous outings. Jackman does a great job of conveying Logan's inner turmoil - his guilt at having killed Jean Grey in X-3, his creeping doubts about his mutant gene-enabled immortality, and his reluctance to get back into action - after retreating to a life of relative solidarity in the Canadian wilderness. Jackman also does a nice job of dialing up the gruffness. This feels like a legitimately dark and gritty version of Logan - and not the sanitized, PG-ified version from other movies. The added depth in the character is a welcome byproduct of a more mature movie, overall, than what's come before.

That said, director James Mangold seems to waiver between dark n' gritty and more standardized Hollywood blockbuster sheen. The movie *is* dark, and there are times where I was almost reminded of the aesthetics of 70's crime thrillers in the way that Mangold keeps things, mostly, grounded and street-level. At the same time, it doesn't feel like he quite pushes things far enough. The movie never quite jumps off the cliff, keeping at least one foot in the familiar waters of the Marvel movie house-style. Mangold also tends to break up the gritty mood with various scenes that burst forth with more standard-issue Hollywood blockbuster trappings. Some of the movie's more colorful villains, for example - like the poisonous Viper or the robo-assassin Silver Samurai, seem present more to up the film's f/x quota as opposed to any real necessity story-wise.

Mangold does do a nice job with the film's action scenes - giving us a level of brutality that we haven't yet seen in any X-flick. In particular, there is a riveting battle atop a moving bullet train that, I have to say, is one of the best action scenes in any Summer blockbuster this year. It's over-the-top, sure, but it's also thrilling, visceral, and nail-biting. It does sort of reinforce the movie's conflicted nature - trying to be both a stripped-down character piece and also a big-time blockbuster. But I also can't deny that it's an awesome sequence.

The Wolverine does, however, suffer from a problem that is becoming increasingly notable in blockbuster films - plots that are unnecessarily convoluted. I said earlier that THE WOLVERINE really nails it on a macro level - taking a commendable back-to-basics approach. But on a micro level, the details of the plot, the various characters, and their motivations - it amounts to a rather labyrinthine web that moviegoers are going to be hard-pressed to make sense of.

The main plotline involves Logan being summoned to Japan by an old friend named Yashida. During World War II, Logan saved Yashida from the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki by getting him into a bunker in the nick of time. From that point on, Yashida became fascinated with Logan's mutant abilities. Now, elderly and dying - and the billionaire head of a large Japanese corporation - Yashida summons Logan to make him an offer. Yashida wants to drain Logan's mutant abilities, giving him the opportunity to live a normal, mortal life. In exchange, Yashida will gain Wolverine's healing abilities and be able to recover from his ailments - essentially unlocking a fountain of youth. Meanwhile, there is the matter of who will inherit Yashida Industries should its founder die. A war is brewing between Yashida's scheming son - who has ties to the Yakuza - and his beloved granddaughter, Mariko. Yashida sees the kind-hearted Mariko as the natural inheritor of his empire, but her father, Shingen, is not happy about being passed over.

Logan finds himself caught in the middle of these various power struggles, and over the course of the movie, he's pitted against a long line of adversaries. How all of the movie's various villains relate or don't relate to each other is sort of a tangled web - and it's often unclear who, exactly, is after Logan, and why. And yet, the film builds towards a pretty obvious endgame that comes off as a bit cartoonish given what's come before. Point being: when the movie focuses on being a simple tale of Logan-as-ronin, on-the-run, seeking answers, and grappling with his emerging feelings for Mariko - it really works. But that dynamic is undermined repeatedly, especially in the film's final act, by all the various plot convolutions and excessive characters - few of whom really leave an impression.

The one supporting character who is the clear show-stealer is Rila Fukushima's Yukio. Yukio - Yashida's adoptive daughter, and Mariko's friend and protector, is quite simply a badass. Fukushima's unique and striking look makes Yukio instantly compelling, but it's her uneasy alliance with Logan that takes the character to the next level. Yukio gives the film a great female hero who can go toe to toe with even Wolverine.

Mariko, on the other hand, is a little more of a mixed bag. Tao Okamoto is good in the role, but an extra scene or two between her and Jackman might have helped prevent their relationship from feeling just a bit boilerplate. The character also falls a little too much into the standard damsel-in-distress tropes. Part of the film's theme is Logan-as-protector ... so it mostly fits. But Mariko could have used a bit more fleshing out, so as not to feel so one-note. Overall though, Okamoto does some strong work, and there is a sort of interesting dynamic between Mariko and Logan - with Mariko having grown up hearing legends of the mythical Wolverine. Plus, in Mariko, Logan sees the kind of nice girl who he could maybe settle down and drink sake with - so there's that. She represents the quiet life that he could likely never have.

It should also be noted that Famke Janssen pops up throughout the film as Jean Grey, haunting Logan's unconscious mind, appearing to him in dreams. I enjoyed Janssen's inclusion in the film, although I can see how this may eventually be referred to half-jokingly as "that movie where Wolverine wakes up over and over." Suffice it to say, the Logan-wakes-up-disoriented-and-confused moment is used a couple times too many in the movie.

Ultimately, I think the *idea* of THE WOLVERINE is a bit more compelling than the execution. The movie hits a lot of the right broad strokes, but on a scene-by-scene level, it's up-and-down. The first act is the movie's strongest - when the movie really seems to have this Frank Miller-esque grittiness and moodiness. Later, it gets bogged down by too much plot and too many villains, and things begin to collapse under all of the accumulated weight. Luckily, there's a fun, geek-out-worthy post-credits teaser to make sure things end on a high note - setting the stage, just a bit, for the next X-film: Days of Future Past. Even if THE WOLVERINE doesn't hit a home run, it's still nice to know that we got this well-intentioned, reasonably badass Wolverine solo movie before Days of Future Past unleashes a full-on X-epic.

My Grade: B