Days of Future Now
So, I just got back from X-men: DoFP and I loved parts of it. Others left me a little hollow. I suspect this is because I enjoyed XMFC so damn much and thought so much about what happens next -- I was more interested in that than the actual plot. Anyway, more behind the cut.
- First off, the sentinel fights were fairly badass. The kids were slick in the ways they get away from them. And I cringed every time they killed a mutant. There is nothing not to hate about those robots. (which are unreasonably intelligent... when compared to, say, my Roomba) Oh, and Bishop rules.
- That said, Trask was clearly a bad guy, but not one I hated to my core. Sort of ambivalent about him (or Peter Dinklege played him more human than the typical comic book baddie. This is good, but also somehow lacking the catharsis of, say, a Magneto)
- Now where were we? Oh, right, Logan gets sent back - Ummm, was that really one of Kitty's powers? What does it have to do with rearranging molecules in the wall? What did I miss?
- *handwaves* So we're back where I wanted to be all along. I loved, loved, loved the initial scenes at the mansion. Hank was so hank, and Charles was so broken. The serum may have been yet another deux et machina but it lent a wonderful air of choice to their actions. Not to mention flexibility to the character. (I'd be interested to know if Charles keeps it around, just to take a night off from being, you know, Him - every once in a while. Fandom, I'm sure, will provide the stories to answer that question.)
- Did I mention how much I loved those first scenes in the mansion? Hank, get off the chandelier.
- Back in 'nam is where I start to groan a little. Not only because this was Alex's only scene and ... Alex!!! All growed up and able to control his powers was awesome. Me wants more.
- Right. Vietnam. If Origins is to be believed, Stryker was US military and commanding the unit that Logan and Sabertooth fought with at this time. He was NOT working for Trask Industries. The franchise needs to find itself a new baddie to fill those rolls because the Stryker timeline is buckets of crazy. Man must be a mutant to be in so many places/so many ages all at once.
- So Logan knows a guy. Of course he does. PETER! Ummm. I had my doubts when I saw the pictures with the creepy wig. And I'm sure some people will say his Pentagon breakout scene was comically over the top, but I LOVED it. Honestly, second to the mansion and plane ride (next); probably one of my favorite in the film. Even the freaky goggles make sense. The casting was perfect (even if chanelling Evan Peters' American Horror Story persona). Over all, I want more Quicksilver. Also, I apreciate that they are claiming him for Magneto's offspring. Who's gonna write me that story?
- So now we're on the plane. Cards on the table. Eric threatens to crush the tin can in the sky. Charles threatens to barf all over everyone. No, really, I needed them to have that fight. I like that at the end of it, Charles has basically given up his idealism and doesn't feel any better for it. MacAvoy did a great job of playing the whole dynamic. Fassy was, as always, hypnotic. Logan was funny.
- And that's about where the movie lost me, such as it did. I dunno. I wasn't all that invested in the last hour and a half. I mean, it was fun. But I'm not sure I like some of the rules of the reboot. The action kept me interested.
- Oh, except for Charles' breakdown with Cerebro. That was awesome. Except who plopped the 1990's version of Cerebro (ostensibly built by Eric who had been in prison the last ten years) into the mansion basement in 1973? Um. At least Hank's workroom (with all three networks) was less anachronistic. Personally, I just think they were too lazy to build a circa 1968 cerebro set closer to the version in XMFC than what they used here.
- Actually, it was that laziness throughout that kept pulling me out of the movie in general.
- For instance; Logan obviously must have re-tipped his claws in molton adamantium sometime after The Wolverine and prior to cutting Kitty up.
- So, I'm excited that Jean and Scott are back in the picture. But my final thought on ending the movie was: Does Logan have the adamantium skeleton anymore? (I realize this is probably not what the director had in mind, but it's what I took as the point of the story. And the fact that I don't know the answer is not nearly as cool as it was in inception.)
It's like Tony Stark's reactor. Or Wolverine's claws. Magneto's powers (technically he was powerless at the end of X3) It just bugs me when the end of an otherwise cool storyline is to maim one of the major attributes of a character so the whole story can be handwaved away in the next movie.
Contrast to Charles's paralysis which became a major hurdle for his character to overcome in this film. Or Tony's PTSD.
- Oh, and one last thing - APOCALYPSE!
In conclusion, I loved it and I kind of wanted to hit it upside the head. Because apparently I still believe that a world of mutants and superheroes should make sense and be logically constructed, goddamnit. I realize this is a personal failing and I should probably overcome it to continue enjoying myself. But such it is. And the Avengers franchise gets it a little bit better than X-men. At least for now.
Does that even make sense?