X-Men: Days of Future Past

Twentieth Century Fox

Rated PG-13

Running Time: 131 Minutes


Click below to watch a movie  trailer of X-Men: Days of Future Past




In Twentieth Century Fox's X-Men: Days of Future Past, the near future has most mutants, and the humans who helped them, placed in internment camps, while the rest of the mutants are hunted down and killed by mutant hunting robot Sentinels. In order to save what's left of the mutant X-Men - Professor Charles Xavier/Patrick Stewart and Magneto/Ian McKellen sends Wolverine/Hugh Jackman 50 years into the past to change history.

After traveling back into the past, Wolverine/Jackman returns home to a run-down Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters to try to convince a young broken and disheveled Xavier/James McAvoy to free and recruit Magneto/Michael Fassbender from the Pentagon and join them to stop Mystique/Jennifer Lawrence from changing history.

The movie is basically The Avengers meets Captain America: The Winter Soldier and just as political as Captain America. The seventh film in the X-Men series, and the third X-Men film Directed and Produced by Bryan Singer, X-Men: Days of Future Past is based on the X-Men story line by Chris Claremont and John Byrne in the comic book The Uncanny X-Men issues #141-142, "Days of Future Past" published in 1981. The first issue of the story line was voted in 2001 as the 25th greatest Marvel comic. It is great that Claremont was brought in as a consultant to this film.

While I have not read "Days of Future Past" since it was published in 1981, I am pretty sure the movie followed the story fairly closely with some minor changes - or major changes depending on your point of view, since in the original story it was Kitty Pryde/Sprite who went back in time. But Wolverine/Jackman is the more popular protagonist character to the audience and can be used as an ageless immortal time travel character since he does not age. Also in the comics, the key time character was Senator Robert Kelly who was the head of an anti-mutant platform. In the movie, the key time character is cyberneticist Bolivar Trask/Peter Dinklage who created the robot Sentinels, since Senator Kelly/Bruce Davison appeared in X-Men.

With Bryan Singer's casting of Dinklage as Bolivar Trask, there could have been a lot of characterization developed on Trask and to why he had created the Sentinels. As a writer, I would have asked Dinklage's opinions of why Dinklage himself would have done something like creating the Sentinels. Too bad there was hardly any characterization developed for Trask/Dinklage. A new enemy and a new weapon for this war is not enough characterization.

The X-Men from the future you never get to know at all, aside from their powers. As a fan of the X-Men, I knew who these future X-Men all were - but even then, I have not read the books since the eighty's and I do not know if these characters have been prominent in the books since then. So the general public would most likely not have any connection to these future X-Men aside from appreciating their powers - which were pretty kick ass. The movie is basically Wolverine's/Jackman's movie. In the books, the dystopian near-future was the year 2013, which was last year as of this writing in 2014. It is good to know that near-future did not come to past in this reality.

Several people from the previous X-Men movies reprise their roles, like Nicholas Hoult/Beast, with most of the people being in cameo roles. The movie includes footage from the previous X-Men movie for these characters - as well as people appearing in some surprising live-action cameos.  The new character in the movie, who was also the most fun character in the movie, was Pietro Maximoff/Evan Peters. Too bad Maximoff/Peters did not have a larger role to offset some of the heavy drama that would play out in the rest of the movie. I am looking forward to Maximoff/Peters future connection to Magneto/Fassbender. It was sad to hear from Magneto/Michael Fassbender that several characters from the X-Men movies had been killed off. It was heartbreaking to hear Magneto/Fassbender yell at Charles Xavier/James McAvoy because it was Xavier/McAvoy as the one who had abandoned those who were lost. Mystique's/Jennifer Lawrence's character is the one character in the movie who was the most tragic after all the things that had happened to her, although we never really get the reason why Mystique/Lawrence was really after Trask/Dinklage aside from the obvious. The real reason is too subtle to pick up. Halle Berry's/Storm's character presence was reduced in this film due to Barry's pregnancy.

I liked the DNA graphics that were shown during the opening credits, which stresses the idea of genetics, leading into the theme of mutants. The prototype Sentinels in the past look just like the ones of which I am familiar with from the comics, and visually look pretty cool, while the Sentinels from the future are the ones that are the most dangerous. While X-Men: First Class used historical footage of President John F. Kennedy as part of the film to help make it believable, X-Men: Days of Future Past casts actor Mark Camacho as an historical figure. Using an actor for this historical figure loses credibility to the reality of the role, especially considering everyone's perceptions of this historical figure. The international implications of mutants as well as the news coverage of the mutants added to the reality of the situation outside of this figure.

There was no Stan Lee cameo in this movie, so don't bother looking for him, like I was doing. You can concentrate on watching the movie instead and not worry about missing something important like Lee.

While the events of this movie might change the events of previous X-Men films, Singer believes in multiverses and that certain events would be part of the history of alternate universes. This will help the fans keep from being so upset that things keep changing. I know it would help keep me from being so upset. There are a lot of good stories from the alternate universes in the 50 years of X-Men history.

I saw this movie on an opening weekend matinee and the theater was pretty full. At the end of the movie, the audience applauded. While most of the audience left, those who had stayed while waiting for the closing credits scene were sitting around talking about X-Men as the end titles credits music played. The closing scene character, while different from the drawings from the comics - so much so that I did not recognize the character, suggests the story that I am looking forward to in the next X-Men film - X-Men: Apocalypse coming out in 2016. I should point out, that while the scene at the end of the credits in the movie The Wolverine teased at what was going to happen in X-Men: Days of Future Past, that scene does not appear in Days of Future Past.

Rated PG-13 for violence, language, and nudity. Running Time: 131 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews

THE HOBBIT - AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY

Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer

Rated PG-13

Running time: 169 Minutes



Click below to watch The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey trailer.



In MGM's The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey, hobbit Bilbo Baggins, Martin Freeman, is recruited by the wizard Gandolf, Ian McKellen, to help the dwarfs of Middle Earth reclaim their homeland from the dragon Smaug, Benedict Cumberbatch.

Directed by Peter Jackson and co-written by Guillermo del Toro, The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey is the first of three movies that is the prequel to the Lord of the Rings trilogy written by J.R.R. Tolkien. While I have not read the book since college, this film seems like a good adaption to the first half of the book The Hobbit as Freeman goes on an adventure as the company's burglar.

The dwarfs were great, although I could not tell most of them from each other. At least we knew the leader of the dwarfs, Richard Armitage - who was the most vocal of questioning Freeman's burglary skills and not having Freeman join them on their quest of reclaiming the dwarfs home when the dragon Smaug attacked their home and claimed the dwarfs treasure. I always wondered why Gandolf/McKellen as so determined to have Baggins/Freeman join the dwarfs company. having Baggins/Freeman giving Gandolf/McKellen courage is not enough of an answer for me. With Freeman and the dwarfs the same size, you normally do not realize they are supposed to be small people unless they are standing up next to McKellen. This lack of size ratio often throws me as I forget what creatures these magical characters are supposed to be, thus forgetting that you are in the world of Middle Earth that you are experiencing. I kept thinking they were all human. Even the ponies seemed the appropriate size for humans. When they were all up against the disgusting trolls, you would think the trolls were giants, but considering the size of dwarfs and hobbits, the trolls were probably human size, which makes the orcs as almost dwarf size as they were basically the same size as the dwarfs when they were battling. I just wish there was more singing as Middle Earth was full of song. I am not expecting a musical as this is not that kind of movie, but I was hoping for more singing. My favorite scenes of the movie were in the beginning of the movie where Bilbo was home in the Shire where the dwarfs gather. I never quite understood his sudden desire to join the dwarfs on their adventures.

I saw the movie in 3D. Maybe it was the glasses, but my eyes got tired and I had to rest my eyes by the time  when Bilbo met Gollum, Andy Serkis, who was also the second unit director - so I unfortunately missed out on most of their dialog, which was a shame for me as I am sure there was some nice characterization between Freeman and Serkis. The Hobbit is the first film shot and projected at 48 frames per second, which is twice as fast as the movie industry standard of 24 fps to give a smoother and more realistic motion with reduced picture strobing. This was supposed to be benificial when watching the film in 3D which helps to synchronize the images for each eye. I did notice that there was less strobing when I watched the film which made it easier on my eyes to watch, but there was still some strobing which was noticeable during the camera moves. The performance capture of Serkis was great and Gollum's computer generated eyes were very expressive. Cumberbatch is also supposed to be performance captured, but that will probably happen in the later movies as there was very little exposure of the dragon Smaug. Actors from the Lord of the Rings trilogy made cameos such as Elijah Wood, Christopher Lee, Cate Blanchett and Orlando Bloom in The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey, whether or not those characters were in the original The Hobbit book or not. Former Doctor Who, Sylvester McCoy's character of Radagast appears - even though his character was omitted from the The Lord of the Rings films.

 Click below to watch another trailer of The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey.




Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 169 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

 Pancho's Movie Reviews