X-Men: Days of Future Past

Unlike X-Men Days of Future Past, I'm going to get straight to the point: that's two hours ten minutes of my life I'm not getting back.

I really hate wasting time. As soon as I become aware that that is what is happening all I can think about are the other things I could be doing instead – like finishing articles, or working on music, or by trying to solve the philosophical puzzle: Would you rather be a worried genius or a joyful simpleton?

I was really looking forward to this X-Men movie. Now granted, I am not an aficionado, I hadn’t even watched any trailers for Days of Future Past. Perhaps that is where I went wrong. If I had I might have known to not waste my time.

What is worse though is that even after watching the film I don't know what type of film it was meant to be.

The outcome was inevitable – it is a long running franchise so of course everything was going to work out – but it didn't even hold up as its own film.
Within its 131 minute running time, not much of anything really happens.

There is no drama, no suspense, no real action, not much of anything.
To explain in detail will involve spoilers, so finish up now if want to avoid those...

OK, we very quickly learn that the X-Men, when under attack from the Sentinels – engineered super weapons designed specifically to target anyone with the mutant gene – can send one of them back in time to warn their own slightly younger selves of the attack and therefore avoid it. So the attacks are pointless. Watching various X-people die at the hands of the Sentinels holds no meaning of any kind, because it is all just about to be wiped from history. No drama, no suspense, no investment in anything that has/is/will happen.

Honestly, once you've seen this bit of the film, about 15 minutes in, you can leave.

Speaking with a friend afterwards, he said that it might mean more if I was familiar with the comic book storyline. But surely, if these films hope to, and clearly do, appeal to the widest audience possible they have to presume an unfamiliarity with the comics and not just cherry pick little segments of a larger story and knock out a movie on it?

Because that is how it appears. "Hey those first couple films did better than expected, quick find us a little segment to pick out and we'll make a film of it. Cha-ching!"

In my completely X-Men legacy-less opinion, we are being mugged.

It is possible to take a big encompassing storyline and produce great movies from it – Lord of the Rings being an obvious example – but you need the forward planning to know that is what you are going to do. You can't just randomly select bits of a storyline and throw it together every few years to bump the bank accounts by a few more million. Well, you can, because they have.

Not even the alliance of Charles Xavier and Magneto is given anything in this film. What was the point?

What was the point of any of it? No drama, no suspense, no action, no point.

Hornby

X-Men: Days of Future Past is showing now at Moviehouse cinemas.