X-Men: Days of Future Past

I loved the new X-Men film, bringing together the casts of the smash-hit film series with the prequel cast of First Class, as hinted in the post-credits scene of The Wolverine. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it was my all-time favourite superhero film, certainly surpassing The Avengers, the Iron Man series and all the previous X-Men films.

Though taking inspiration from the classic, very short Days of Future Past series, this is very much a follow-up to First Class, which is why it works. Yes, it’s a slight shame that Kitty Pride is not the one to go back to seek help, instead being the source of the power to send a person’s consciousness back in time – also quite cleverly used as a contingency plan in the dismal future to escape the Nimrod-style Sentinels – if not because I’m a Shadowcat fan, then because it would be nice to have a female-centric superhero flick. But Wolverine is the big box office draw and plot-wise it makes sense: he was both physically the same in the past and able to heal through ill effects of a consciousness transfer, a condition that ensures the plot isn’t very quickly concluded by Professor X going back instead.

It’s the fact that this is a near-future X-Men going back to the 70s rather than a further-off future X-Man coming back to the present that I feel works very nicely, though, and allows for an excellent sequel. After the schism at the end of First Class, Magneto and Xavier have gone their separate ways – Magneto to a militant defence of mutants, culminating in an involvement in the JFK assassination that has seen him incarcerated under the Pentagon itself, and Xavier into depression, alcoholism and addiction to a drug that allows him to walk despite spinal damage, but suppresses his powers. A lot of the big players of the first film are gone, including Emma Frost – so portentously freed at the end of First Class – but can largely be seen as casualties of Magneto causing a stir ... and shady experiments. Into this reality comes the Wolverine of a future that, of course, has Bishop in it, one of extremely powerful adaptive sentinels wiping out mutantkind. Sending Wolverine back is a last-ditch effort to stay alive in a devastated world, where the sentinels are not only killing mutants, but any human they determine likely to produce mutant descendants – no matter how many generations down the line.

Wolverine’s task is not easy. First, he has to rescue the Professor from his depression, with only Hank to help. Then he has to bust Magneto out of his very tricky cell, which is done with the help of a wonderfully cocky Quicksilver – whose parentage is dealt with in just the right way – in scenes that show how a Flash film could work brilliantly, and make me curious about the character also appearing in the Avengers films, which is a very odd crossover point given the rights issues. Then, in a pleasant echo of the original story, they have to stop Mystique from performing an assassination – not of a senator, but of Sentinel creator Boliver Trask (it’s become odd hearing Peter Dinklage using an American accent), which makes him a martyr and leads to the dystopian future. But this Mystique is of course the Raven of First Class, and has become hardened to the world since we last saw her. That the film pivots on her humanity is one of its triumphs.

Though there’s a lot of annoying paradoxes with this kind of time travel, one of its advantages is that it allows for the worst-case scenario to be fully played-out. The far-future storyline is essentially one long action scene in which the likes of Storm, Colossus and Sunspot are overcome in brutal ways, which is oddly affecting. There’s also the brilliant use of Blink, very Portal in presentation, and the awesomeness that is Bishop – though he dies the same way Bishop always, always dies. I have to say, I would have had a real bit of pleasure if instead of just keeling over, Xavier had put up a fight, preferably joining with Magneto to bring out Onslaught (now there’s a good place for a possible Fantastic Four crossover to go, given the Franklin element), but these allowed a second layer of ‘big climax’ to the film.

Though the main storyline had its own, remarkably independent of Wolverine, who is actually not of much use here. Magneto shows the full extent of his power, and it’s immensely satisfying to watch, even if ole Erik is a fool not to simply play the hero and make the world love rather than fear him – which would have been very easy to set up. Far more so than the Hellfire Club and the hammy posturing of Kevin Bacon, this feels like a mature film with serious dilemmas and enemies, for the first time with the X-Men.

The ending is also intriguing, essentially resetting what happened in the original films while preserving their cast and a basic continuity – with lots of feel-good cameos to back it all up. There are intriguing changes possibly meant for more Wolverine films, not least Stryker’s true identity now, and the possibility of seeing Jean and Scott again.

But best of all was who showed up post-credits. The best villain, without a doubt. The films better do him justice!