X-Men: Days Of Future Past (2014) review

X-Men: Days of Future Past is the sequel of X-Men First Class (2011) and also X-Men The Last Stand (2006). This time, original casts from the old x-men trilogy and the newer casts from x-men first class were joined together to save the past and the future, which is a super cool concept I think. Also since The Last Stand was a total mess, this movie kinda "undo and redo" everything. Confusing? Yes.

--- SPOILER ALERT ---

X-Men DoFP opened sometime in a future where we met old characters like Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page), Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) and Colossus, along with some new characters Warpath, Bishop, Blink, Sunspot, in a fight against robots called Sentinels which job was to destroy every single mutant. 

At first we saw that the mutants were losing the fight, some of them were killed, except for Kitty and Bishop who were running away. Kitty was then seen performing some sort of a mutant thing on Bishop's head and all of sudden everything was gone. What???

An explanation came later on when the group met up with the X-men gang, Prof. Xavier (Sir Patrick Stewart), Magneto (Sir Ian McKellen), Storm (Halle Berry), and of course Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). Kitty then explained that she got the ability to transfer someone's consciousness to the past. So basically in the earlier event, Kitty was sending Bishop to the past to warn them about Sentinel's attack, so they could run away before it happened, thus preventing the fight to ever happen in the future. 

So we got the premise here. Kitty could send someone's mind to that person's body in the past, let that person change the past hence changing the future. But, once that person came back to their present time which was now different, only them could remember the whole thing, no one else could. 

Based on that, Prof X got the idea to send someone back to 1973, where the whole Sentinel thing started. So in 1973, Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) killed Trask (Peter Dinklage), the guy who created the Sentinel program. This made him a martyr, and made mutants the enemy of regular people. Also Mystique got caught after killing Trask, and her DNA was taken and used to further developed the Sentinels. Prof X's idea was to prevent the killing from happening, thus preventing the Sentinels war versus mutant. 

Prof X was supposed to be the one sent to the past since he was the strongest telepath, however his physical body wouldn't be able to withstand the "journey to the past" so Wolverine was the one to go.  

Waking up in 1973, Wolverine then sought out younger Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) who now lived in the empty mansion with Hank McCoy a.k.a Beast (Nicholas Hoult). After the events in X-Men First Class, Charles was a broken depressed man. He lost his "sister" Mystique, he lost his friend Magneto (Michael Fassbender), and he was paralyzed. Beast managed to make a serum to heal Charles' spine momentarily with the cost of his telepathy ability. Which was fine for Charles since he didn't want to hear others' thought anymore.

After a few moments of Wolverine trying to convince Charles to help stopping Mystique, and persuaded him to free Magneto, who was now a prisoner at Pentagon after being involved in the assassination of JFK (although later we found out that Magneto didn't shoot JFK, instead he was trying to save him by curving the bullet), they began the mission to free Magneto with the help of another mutant called Quicksilver (Evan Peters). 

Meanwhile, Mystique had been investigating Trask and found out about him experimenting on mutant. That's why she planned on killing him in Paris. But Wolverine, Charles, Magneto and Beast managed to stop her plan. Moreover, all of sudden Magneto tried to kill her to ensure that humans would never be able to use her DNA against mutant. Weird, in my opinion, because it seemed like Magneto suddenly remembered that he's a villain.  

The event in Paris sort of increased the awareness of mutant's existence among humans. The US president then approve Trask's Sentinel plan out of fear of mutants. The prototypes were to be unveiled at the White House in Washington DC, but before that, Magneto managed to modify the Sentinels and insert metal in the system (??) so he could control the Sentinels. 

Long story short, everyone was now in DC, Magneto flew a stadium to sort of barricade the White House and used the Sentinels to attack people, Mystique was still trying to get to Trask, while Wolverine, Beast and Charles were trying to stop everything. Instead Magneto stopped Wolverine and Charles easily though. He impaled Wolverine with bars and threw him into a river and Charles was trapped under heavy metal post from the flying stadium.

The president and other important people were hidden in a safe bunker, and Magneto pulled the bunker from underground. He then threatened to kill everyone while being watched worldwide. Mystique, disguised as The President, stepped forward and shot Magneto instead. She still wanted to kill Trask, but Charles talked some sense into her, made her release those people and let Magneto and Mystique flee. The Sentinel program was cancelled thus preventing the war in the future from happening. 

Mystique then impersonated Stryker (a military guy who later did experiments on Wolverine in X-Men Origins: Wolverine) and saved Wolverine from the bottom of the river. Then Wolverine woke up in his present time (the future) but now in the Xavier's school instead of the dark place where the movie started. There he saw everybody alive and happy, including characters that died in the future Sentinel war and X-Men The Last Stand (Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm, Rogue, etc).

--- SPOILER ENDS ---

A few thoughts on X-men Days of Future Past:

• I was initially confused. Why is Prof X still alive in the future?? I mean, it's clear that DoFP timeline is the continuation of X-Men The Last Stand (when younger Charles saw into Wolverine's mind, he could see Jean as Phoenix), and it was obvious that in The Last Stand, Prof X's body was destroyed by Phoenix. Yes, his consciousness was transferred into someone else in the end, but why does he still have his body??

• I googled it, and it turned out that Prof X was using his twin body (or is it a clone body?? Idk) in the Sentinel's war future. I understand that it might be too complicated to explain this in the movie, but as someone who has watched all the X-men movies (except The Wolverine), but not familiar with the comic, it made me confused.

• Since when did Kitty have the power to send someone back to the past? I thought her power was only to go through walls. 

• Really, there are so many inconsistency between Days of Future Past and The Last Stand. Magneto lost his power at the end of The Last Stand, how did he get his whole power back?

• In The Last Stand, the story was built around the Cure from a boy that could suppress the gene X in a mutant so their mutation would become normal, much like Hank McCoy's serum in this movie. But, in The Last Stand, Beast looked surprised about it whereas he was supposed to easily make one himself . Continuity error, perhaps but idk, in my opinion this made the whole story line of young Charles Xavier could walk again after his spine was hit became unnecessary. 

• At the end of this movie, everyone who died in the original X-men trilogy was seen back alive, Jean Grey, Cyclops, etc. That means, this movie basically erased the whole events in X2 and X3 timeline. This is huge, okay. I get it, X3 was a total disappointment, but erasing the whole story, that's new I think. I can't remember other movie franchise that did this kind of thing. But at the same time, it's a bold and genius step. This opens up a whole wide story line and plot possibilities for future X-men movies. Plus this might bring back my favorite mutant, Phoenix, so well played there, Simon Kinberg and Bryan Singer. 

• 1973 Wolverine didn't have his adamantium claws yet, so I assumed the event in X-Men Origins: Wolverine hadn't happened yet. But since the past had changed, that means Wolverine origins would change as well, right? Plus at the end, it was shown that Mystique was the one who saved him, not Stryker. So, yeah, not just X3 that got erased, Wolverine's series would also get alternated. Awesome.

• Despite of the whole timeline confusion, I really like characterization in this movie. Each big character (Wolverine, Prof X, Magneto, Mystique) went through big parts in the story and yet they didn't overshadow each other. Especially Charles Xavier's character growth, from the broken James McAvoy's Charles, seeing him rebuilding his hopes up, until he got his Sir Patrick Stewart's Charles character back, it was great. 

• A great surprise to me came from Quicksilver, the mutant with super speed ability. In my opinion, he was totally the scene-stealer in this movie. At first look, Evan Peters with medium grey hair was weird, but once they got into action, maaan quicksilver was such a fun character. The Pentagon kitchen scene was also absolutely cool and entertaining. 

• On the other hand, Peter Dinklage was really underused. The whole plot was built on  Tarsk's sentinel program and yet he didn't even seem like the villain, like something was missing. Or maybe it's because I'm more used to him as Tyrion Lannister in Game Of Thrones, where Dinklage's act is beyond superb.

• Magneto, still as over-the-top as always. Really, flying with the whole stadium was unnecessary. Clearly his goal was not to conceal what he did at the White House, since he put the camera to record his actions. So, why the stadium?? But then I remember in The Last Stand, Magneto practically flew a whole giant bridge. So yeah, maybe dramatic flair has always been one of Magneto's characters, lol.

• Other than that, I think this movie was great. Bryan Singer is the one who directed X-Men, X-2, and X-Men: First Class, so his style has been proven great multiple times, I suppose. The transition between past and future scenes were also clear, with a contrast difference between bright 70s set for the past and the dark dark dystopian future. 

I give X-Men DoFP 4/5 noise. For a big movie with such a heavy plot, it was executed really well I think. You might need to think hard to understand a few stuffs, especially if you're not familiar with the whole X-men movies and universe. But overall I think it's enjoyable, great action, clean effects, a nice amount of humor, plus seeing old characters back on screen was very nice.

Game Of Thrones 4x07 Mockingbird review

Mockingbird is the 7th episode of GoT season 4. Fyi, it is also the sigil of House Baelish, because yes, Petyr Baelish had a pretty vital story line in this episode. But overall I felt that Mockingbird is one of the most boring episodes in the whole series, tbh. So this might be a really short review. 

--- SPOILER ALERT ---

The episode opened with Tyrion and Jaime talking in Tyrion's cell. Basically Jaime's pissed because Tyrion didn't follow their deal, but Tyrion was glad because he didn't want to see his father's plan work out. Come to think of it, it's true the deal was made to be a win-win situation for Tywin Lannister, and lose-lose for Tyrion. That sneaky old man. 

Now that Tyrion had requested for a trial by combat, he gotta pick a champion to fight Cersei's champion, who turned out to be Ser Gregor Clegane a.k.a The Mountain a.k.a The Hound's brother. We got a scene where he slayed weaker men for some unknown reason. Buuuuut, that scene where Cersei walked over the victim's spilled intestines without even a glance, yes that's how a queen walks. Bow down to Cersei, y'all.

Tyrion initially wanted to ask Jaime to be his champion this time. However, Jaime didn't think he was good enough now that he'd lost his sword hand. 

So Tyrion picked his second best choice, Bronn. However,

Poor poor Tyrion. Bronn was literally his last hope. It was an end to a surprisingly interesting friendship, but it ended well because Tyrion was a good guy and he understood. But now that Bronn refused, Tyrion seemed to lose hope. 

But of course G.R.R. Martin wouldn't let Tyrion fight The Mountain, would he? No. Later on Tyrion got a surprise visit from Prince Oberyn. Here we got a little story from Oberyn, about the first time he visited Casterly Rock when he was little and Tyrion was just born. He told Tyrion (and viewers) how Cersei had hated him ever since he was born, because their mother died after giving birth to Tyrion. He told us about how much Cersei wanted Tyrion dead. And this was Tyrion's response.

Heartbreaking. Really this is such an emotional episode (season, let's be real) for Tyrion, okay. But, a little surprise came right after that. Oberyn told Tyrion about his revenge. About how Oberyn wanted justice for his sister and her baby that were killed by The Mountain. And this lead to him telling Tyrion that he would be Tyrion's champion. We could actually see Tyrion's sigh of relief and this, again, was heartbreaking. Oh Tyrion.

Another big vital story line came from The Eyrie, where Sansa was. We knew from last week that now Sansa was staying at the Eyrie with her Aunt Lysa and Petyr Baelish. First part was between Sansa and Robin, her cousin/to-be-husband. Srsly, what is it with Sansa and shitty arranged marriage? 

Things started off pretty nicely. Sansa was building a snow Winterfell and Robin came and they had a little talk. But then Robin started to be a little brat, destroying the snow winterfell and screaming until Sansa slapped him. Oops. But really this kid is like a younger, not cruel version of Joffrey. Spoiled boys, smh.

You think the slapping brought troubles for Sansa? No. Petyr showed up after the slapping and he, as always, started talking to Sansa in a creepy way. Very uncomfortable scene. Long story short, he ended up kissing Sansa and Lysa saw all that. 

Blinded with jealousy, Lysa then tried to kill Sansa by throwing her through the moon door. 

Petyr came to the rescue, BUT PLOT TWIST.

Damn Littlefinger, let me say it again, you truly are the most dangerous man in Westeros. Goodbye forever Aunt Lysa.

A few other seemingly less important things that happened in this episode.

• Daenerys and Daario Naharis finally did the frick-frack thing (but I really don't get the point of this scene, oh well)

• Ser Jorah, of course, didn't trust Daario fully (also jealous, I guess). He pointed out that Daario killed his 2 captains before joining Dany's team. Then Dany said that she didn't trust him either, so she sent him to Yunkai to slay all the masters there. Cruel Dany was cruel. But then Jorah managed to change her mind, to give the masters a choice, whether to live in her new world, or die in their old one. Well done, Jorah.

• A quite long part of The Hound and Arya's brotherly moment. Seriously they're like a team now, which is cool.

• Brienne and Podrick met Hot-Pie! Funny part of the episode, actually, with Hot-Pie talking nonstop about kidney pie. 

• Brienne told him that they're looking for Sansa Stark but Hot-Pie didn't tell them anything at first. Later on, he decided that he could trust Brienne, so he told her about Arya, and the possibility of Arya being at the Riverrun. But later Podrick thought that the girls might be at The Eyrie instead of Riverrun, since their Aunt was there, so it seemed that there's where they were heading now. Smart Podrick. 

• A few minutes of Melisandre and Stannis' wife (whatever her name was) a.k.a a few minutes of nudity. Basically, the wife didn't want them to take Shireen (Stannis' daughter) when they left Dragonstone. But Melissandre simply said that "The Lord needs her". Plot point? Maybe.

--- SPOILER ENDS ---

I give Mockingbird 2.5/5 noise. Boring. Dull. Emotional perhaps for those who root for Tyrion but other than that, nothing really stood out, except for the death of Lysa and Prince Oberyn volunteering as Tyrion's champion. The next episode will be on 2 weeks from this episode and the Oberyn vs The Mountain battle should be on it, right? I know how it ends, but I'm still excited to see how it will play out on TV, haha. 

Grey's Anatomy 10x24 Fear (Of The Unknown) review

Fear (of the Unknown) is the 24th episode / the finale of GA season 10. A great episode and a great finale, in my opinion, also there's a good surprise at the end of this episode. And yes we finally, officially :( , part ways with Cristina Yang in this episode. 

For the last few seasons, Grey's Anatomy always left us with a big bang, a cliffhanger finale, and more often than not, death (who could forget the shooting at the hospital, or the plane crash incident that killed Mark and Lexie?). So yeah, since we didn't actually know how the writers were going to  "send" Cristina off of the show,  I was kinda afraid that they would kill her as well. 

--- SPOILER ALERT ---

Here are some reasons why:

• The episode opened with a weather forecaster on tv telling the audience that it was gonna be a great day in Seattle. But then, Cristina's voice over countered it with this

• And after that, Cristina told Owen about her needing to go to the mall to get some stuffs. Later in the hospital, there was news about an explosion at the mall. Plus Cristina's phone was dead so Owen couldn't reach her, and yeah you get my point. 

• And one more thing that made me said "oh noooo"

Btw, the mall explosion was the major case in this episode. Basically everyone was panicking because it was suspected to be an act of terrorism. Even the Homeland Security was involved in the investigation (this part was unnecessary, tbh). Moreover, the victims got blisters and rashes on their skin, so it was assumed that the incident was a chemical attack or even radiation.

However, later on it was revealed that actually it was only a gas-main explosion, no bomb, no terrorist, just an accident. The blisters were caused by dry-clean solutions, that's all. Which is good, in my opinion, because I think otherwise it would shadow the main story line for this episode, which was Cristina's departure from Grey Sloan.

Talking about Cristina, yes she survived that accident, since she didn't go to the mall. YAY!!

Apparently Cristina had been stalling her departure to Switzerland because she felt like she's "not finished" there. Whether it's her relationship with Owen, her patients in Seattle, or her friendship with Meredith. 

So this time, Mer helped her. Mer pushed Cristina, because Cristina needed her to, because Mer knew, as we all knew, that Cristina Yang had always been meant for something greater. She needed to go away and move on, and maaaaan I honestly shed a tear at this scene. So beautiful.

Cristina, pulled by Meredith, then said her short goodbyes to some people. A quick goodbye hug with Derek, hugs and one last short talk with the original teachers, Webber and Bailey. And a goodbye to Owen.

Idk what to say about Cristina and Owen's last moment. It was right, it was needed, and yet it was not enough. Owen was in the OR when Cristina came to wave him goodbye from the gallery. No hugs, no kisses, just a smile and a wave, and then a moment after that, Cristina was gone. Somehow I felt like it was what's right for both of them. A distance. Unwanted and yet needed so both could move on. Idk, maybe I'm wrong. 

After the goodbyes, Meredith practically dragged Cristina to the cab so she could go to the airport. Here, Cristina still seemed reluctant to go. 

And I personally also felt that it's not enough for them!!!. They're the dark and twisted sisters. They were the ultimate bestfriends. I needed to see an epic farewell between them. And of course, Shonda Rhimes didn't disappoint. Cristina came back after a few minutes for one last 60 seconds dance out moment with Mer. That's how they finished. 

I love this moment so much. It stirred so many memories from early Grey's Anatomy. The dance was their tradition and it absolutely felt right for them to do this one last time. Also the song used was Tegan and Sara's "Where Does the Good Go" which was used in season 1 of GA. Not to mention the things Cristina told Mer. So many memories, so many feels.

One more thing Cristina said to Mer before she left. 

Derek and Mer were planning to move to DC for Derek's new job. After Cristina's final words, Mer decided that she's not leaving Seattle. Derek insisted that Mer could still do surgeries and research in DC and it's a huge opportunity. But Mer didn't want to be like her father, just a trailing spouse, living under Derek's shadow. This lead to a huge fight between Mer-Der. And this was one of the cliffhangers for this season finale. Will they break up? Will Derek still move to DC, leaving Mer in Seattle? 

Another cliffhanger came from Bailey and Alex Karev. Bailey was pissed because her genome research got cut due to budgeting, so she yelled at Jackson and Webber. Dr Webber then told her that she didn't belong behind the microscope, but in the OR. And since Cristina's seat on the board was now vacant, Webber promised Bailey the seat. Bailey was beyond thrilled.

But at the same time, apparently Cristina had chosen Alex to fill her position. Earlier we got a scene between Alex and Cristina where she told him that he would be wasting away his talent by being Dr Junior Butthole (lol!!), so she left him the seat on the board. He (and viewers) was left wondering tho if Cristina could actually simply do that.

So yeah apparently we will see Bailey vs Alex for board next season. This will be a good drama I think. Both are original characters, both are loved by fans. Personally I think Bailey deserves the seat more than Alex, but well, we shall see.

One last surprise and cliffhanger this finale was her a new surgeon called Dr Pierce. She's the new head of cardio at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. At the end of this episode, she and Dr Webber had a little talk where she revealed that her mother was none other than Ellis Grey. Oops.

Another half-sister for Meredith. And we can almost be sure that Dr Webber was Dr Pierce's birth father. Unexpected story line? Yes, absolutely. Will it be boring and too much drama? Maybe. One thing for sure is that I didn't see this surprise coming at all. 

A few other less important things in this finale:

• Apparently Callie and Arizona would be using a surrogate to have a baby

• Jackson and April were still happy for April's pregnancy. Oh and this time Catherine Avery was actually nice to April. Mothers bond.

• We saw Leah Murphy one last time. Last week it was clear that she'd get fired, but this time, despite of that, she still helped out in the hospital that was overloaded due to the mall explosion. Viewers saw her one last time after a talk with Shane, walking out of the emergency door and that's it. We rarely see an intern leaving the hospital alive, so I guess this is a nice change, haha.

• Speaking of Shane, like I said the actor was not be on GA next season, so I was wondering how he'd leave the hospital. Initial guess was he'd get fired like Murphy. But it turned out that Shane followed Cristina to Switzerland, because she was the one he wanted to learn from. Another unexpected stuff but hey it worked well. 

• One last time we see Cristina Yang. Farewell Cristina. 9 years, 10 seasons of amazing journey and character development, one of my most favorite characters on tv, ever. Thank you Sandra Oh. Cristina Yang will be missed.

--- SPOILER ENDS ---

I give Fear (of the Unknown) 4.5/5 noise. I love almost everything about this episode. The farewell was beautiful, emotional but not overdone. Mention of past characters was bittersweet and the surprises were totally unexpected. A great way to mark 10 decades of a tv show. Well done.