Bryan Singer is wearing his heart firmly on his sleeve with X-Men: Days of Future Past. Singer, who is openly gay, has never shied away from the allegorical or sociopolitical aspects of the franchise, but with DOFP he really embraces themes like hate, prejudice, self-loathing, and genocide. The Sentinels, especially those in the future, are nothing less than a death squad, more like the Gestapo than anything else. Seeing them take out mutants is hard to watch, especially because so much of the violence in DOFP is impressively brutal.
Sometime in the future (the year is not specified, but it’s implied to be around 2023), the whole world has been reduced to what can charitably be called a wasteland. Mutants – and mutant sympathizers – are branded and herded into detention camps, if not outright terminated. The Holocaust imagery is on full display here; the shot of bodies tumbling into a mass grave is genuinely shocking.
The war began in 1973, when Mystique shot Dr. Bolivar Trask (an excellent Peter Dinklage); his assassination led Congress to fast-track the Sentinel program. Using Mystique’s DNA, they were able to advance the Sentinels to the point of making them biomechanical, able to adapt to fight any mutant. The plan here is, send Wolverine’s mind back in time to his younger body, have him find Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr, and stop Mystique from killing Trask.
Everyone is on point. James McAvoy plays Xavier as wounded and resigned, taking a serum that restores the use of his legs but blocks the use of his mental powers. Michael Fassbender plays Magneto more fascistic than ever, seeing things in increasingly black and white terms. The two have great chemistry, which is a good thing because Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan don’t get a whole lot of screen time.
Hugh Jackman – who, I’m convinced, was designed in a lab to play Wolverine – could easily phone this in, having played Wolverine in seven X-Men movies in the last fourteen years. But nope, he remembers the debt he owes to the role that made him huge, and he imbues Logan with the ever-present rage that makes Wolverine so dangerous. Also, American Horror Story‘s Evan Peters shows up in a few scenes as Quicksilver, and Peters has a fucking blast. The movie perks up every time he’s on screen, and arguably the best scene of DOFP is a breathless look at what it’s like to be so damn fast. He doesn’t stick around for the conclusion, which doesn’t make sense to me because he’d be totally useful, but screenwriter Simon Kinberg has said that Quicksilver will have a much bigger role in X-Men: Apocalypse. I’m mainly bringing Quicksilver up to mention that he dresses exactly like Kid Vid from the Burger King Kids Club.
Days of Future Past is charmingly earnest, albeit sometimes too much so. But in my opinion it’s refreshing to see a summer tentpole movie that doesn’t blow up the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty. What I love most about DOFP, and why I’m recommending it, is the ending. Surprisingly free of cliffhangers or moral ambiguity, it might be too neat for some, but you know what? Sometimes people deserve a happy fucking ending. I think that’s the point, not only of Days of Future Past, but of X-Men in general.
T. Dawson
X-Men: Days of Future Past