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.