The pReview Re-viewing of..
X-Men: Days of Future Past
CLICK BELOW TO VIEW THE TRAILER!
(it is highly recommended to view the trailer and THEN read)
(warning: We're going back in time!)
by Jeff Finck
written: 5/18/2014
Look, it is a well known fact that the X-Men franchise has turned into one big heaping bowl of freshly fucked hot mess, right now. I mean, at this point, I've gotten more coherency out of my nearly one year old niece-in-law than the last four outings of the series. Now, X-Men was just fine-- A nice way to say, "Hey, how ya doing? I'm just here to tell you that super hero movies don't have to be utter shit." And then X2 came along and kept the story rolling.. Then shame-stared down every comic book movie that came before it. They introduced new characters in a subtle way. They made it seem like comic book movies could do no wrong.. But then X-Men: The Last Stand came along and sprayed mutated ejaculate on just everything the series was doing right like some kind of insane, movie-themed elephant at a water park.
Regardless, the first three movies made a ton of money and 20th Century Fox wanted more. So much more. They thought, "We really hit the nail on its balls with Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. Let's do that!" When asked what exactly "that" was, the guy-- that I totally didn't make up for this story-- said, "Make Hugh Jackman keep being Wolverine!" And so two very different Wolverine movies were made. One was all right in a barely understandable way, and the other was an affront to comic book-- and comic book movie-- fans.. And also Wolverine himself. Wolverine Origins was so bad, that the fictional character actually killed himself out of shame.
Which brings me to X-Men: First Class. The new X-Men. The younger X-Men. The X-Men that rewrote the history of X-Men. Don't get me wrong, I respected what they were trying to do. They needed to find a way to clean up their stories, their characters, and their fans memories of just how insulted they were over Last Stand and Wolverine: Origins. So they rebooted the series in, what some would call, a lazy maneuver. I'm gonna call it genius, though. Because finding a way to keep casting muscley Hugh Jackman as Wolverine-- And making it make sense-- requires some skill.
The last movie left the whole world painfully aware of mutant existence. It left Xavier (James McAvoy) and his friend Magnus (Michael Fassbender) on opposite sides of a hot button issue: Racism. I mean, gay rights. I mean, mutants! (Mutant-ism?) It left the whole First Class completely divided! Friends became enemies, enemies remained enemies.. And some friends who became enemies, accidentally paralyzed former friends with stray bullets fired from another, different former friend.. And, in a twist, the friend who did the shooting didn't become enemies with the friend that got shot. They became lovers.
Well, after the X-People and people formerly known as X-Men inexplicably become the reason for the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, life goes on.. Well.. The movies go on! The trailer for this one kicks off with a shot of a well-worn Xavier Center For Mutants Who Can't Be Human Good And Who Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too, while Wolverine tries to convince young Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) that he's really very sorry for telling him to fuck off not too long ago.. And also that he's from the future. This conversation would normally go pretty well, except Xavier can't read minds anymore on account of the fact that he gave up his powers so he can become an alcoholic person of walking status once again.
Wolvie goes on to tell him how the Sentinels used to (in the future) only be the mutants' number one enemy.. But then, in time (again, still in the future), they turned on humanity, as well. He, unfortunately, doesn't explain what the fuck a Sentinel is or why it's relevant (to the past). He does, however, explain that he's come back from the future to unite all mutants under one Apocalyptic future-preventing flag and he needs past-Xavier's help because future-Xavier (Patrick Stewart) commands it! And then he runs into his parents and almost erases himself from history. (I assume.)
Speaking of Back to the Future, future-Magneto (Ian McKellen) rallies the troops around a good ol' fashioned hobo fire barrel, showing us that, in the future, the mutants have finally settled their differences by.. Uhmm.. I guess, owning their.. Differences(?).. And joining together in their mutual love of hobo fires.. And.. Also.. to fight a war for survival.. I guess. And because this trailer has a lot of dark, heavy themes about genocide and grim possibilities, Wolverine and past-Beast (Nicholas Hoult) have to have a jovial interaction that, interestingly enough, did not involve a cat fight about hairstyling choices.
Wolverine, apparently, convinces the Professor that he is who he says he is and he is from where he says he's from and he was sent by who he was sent by and more words of encouragement.. And then they go hunting. They recruit Beast by punching him in the mouth. They recruit Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) by calling her names. Wolverine convinces Pre-Prof X that they need Magneto, but in order to get to him (one hundred floors below the Pentagon), they need to recruit Quicksilver (Evan Peters).. I mean Maximoff.. Or whatever the fuck they have to call him so they don't get sued by Disney. So they recruit him by just asking him, I guess. When they finally reach Magneto (Michael Fassbender), who is hiding in what looks like the pantry of some Pentagon kitchen, they have themselves a pretty ragtag group of mutants. Of note, Magneto being held in a pantry one hundred floors below the Pentagon is pretty weird, right? Hey, I guess this was a pre-9/11 world, so, who knows how they used to treat extremely dangerous prisoners back in the day? Violent tea parties?
Now that the band's back together (technically for the first time), the first thing Magneto does is reenact his favorite scene from The Dark Knight Rises and fucks up some sports stadium. This, of course, pisses off Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), the military scientist who sees mutants as a threat to the world's safety. In response, he creates a fuck-massive army of giant robots called Sentinels. (Oh! Those are Sentinels!)
The rest of this trailer is all business: It shows all sorts of stuff with mutants doing stuff and stuff happening and other stuff! It's exhilarating! Ya got your Havocs havocing.. Your Magnetos magnetizing guns.. Your Beasts looking all beasty.. Your Icemen looking all beardy and icy.. We got our Bishops all shooting guns and being all purple and shit. Our Blinks are all helping our Colossuses be all gravity bombs.. Our Wolverines are all bone clawed. We got our Storms being all storm-like and our stadiums are all falling out of the sky. The only thing missing is our snippy one-liner to close out the trailer. Oh wait, we got one of those, too!
Believe it or not, I am SUPER excited to see how Bryan Singer (X-Men and X2: X-Men United) will fix all of the bullshit undoing of his work that the last four movies have put us through. I feel like, "Because time travel." is really the only way, too. In some ways I respect Fox's stick-to-it-tiveness with the series, rather than trying to reboot the series every five years (like some other assholes). This will at least be way more exciting than the last two Wolverine movies, not to mention the fact that it will organically introduce a large cast of mutants rather than just have Magneto hijack a prisoner transport and be like, "Hey, you guys look unsavory. Be on my team. C'mon.. Do iiiiiiiit." Never mind that the Juggernaut isn't even a fucking mutant and is Charles Xavier's step-brother and.. Sorry, got off track there. Yeah, Days of Future Past, though. Am I right? Seriously, this looks dope as hell and I can't wait to dress up in my best Charles Xavier outfit and check it out!
X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) title treatment, movie trailer, and screen shots and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) poster and screen shots courtesy of 20th Century Fox
Carrot Top courtesy of the 1990s
Back to the Future (1985) screen shot courtesy of Universal Pictures
Borderlands 2 (2012) screen shot courtesy of Gearbox and 2K Games
Iron Giant screen shot courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Borg Technology courtesy of the Borg Collective
Artwork depicting X-Men: Days of Future Past poster, a panel from Age of Ultron Vol 1 #9, and a panel from Classic X-Men #17 courtesy of Jeff Finck (@paintmyart)
All credited images (unless otherwise noted) found on Google Images