Popcorn Kernels: Sequel-Itis

In which we write mini reviews of films that explore the dichotomy of movie sequels. Both follow flicks released in 2000. One’s a bigger, better improvement and the other is a no good, scum-sucking disappointment that let its nascent franchise wither on the vine.

X2: X-Men United

Year: 2003

Director: Bryan Singer

Cast: Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry 

Run Time: 2 hours 14 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

The X-Men and Magneto’s team of evil mutants must join forces to combat a bigger evil: a crazed colonel hellbent on destroying all mutantkind.

If you remember, Bryan Singer’s 2000 film X-Men was a slight but politically aware superhero movie that was fun but no masterpiece. What makes his followup X2 the pinnacle of the series is that it removes the slightness, but as close as it gets, it’s still no masterpiece. Beefing up the already sprawling number of X-Men with the teleporting Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming, rocking flawless blue makeup), the gender-bent Wolverine Lady Deathstrike (Kelly Hu of Friday the 3th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan – got skeletons in your closet? Let me remove those for you.) and expanded roles for teen polar opposites Pyro (Aaron Stanford) and Iceman (Shawn Ashmore, wistful sigh), the cast is even more cumbersome but the political context is even more charged, coming in the wake of September 11th, 2001.

In X2, America is on the verge of Civil War as humans have become increasingly more aware (and afraid) of the mutants living among them. X2 puts all its cards on the table in the opening scene, in which Nightcrawler attempts to assassinate the president to promote Mutant rights. Not only is it a stunning action sequence on the bleeding edge of film technology at the time, it’s a heady parallel to both Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. The embers of political subtext (namely, gay rights) in X-Men have become a blazing inferno in the edgy paranoid grip of a post-9/11 society.

X2 maintains this social statement from frame one, though its intelligence flags at certain points. It’s astonishing that a film that contains a visual metaphor so complex as the scene where Professor X freezes all the humans at a museum right next to the exhibit depicting motionless Cro-Magnon figurines (indicating that humans are no longer the next big thing in evolution) could also be so wickedly unconvinced of its audience’s IQ that it needs Mystique to flash her eyes yellow in a place where she could easily be compromised just so we can know that it’s her in that dude’s body. But hey, this is Hollywood. Why should they have faith in us? We keep paying to see Transformers movies.

X2’s problem isn’t the occasional pandering, but rather the fact that its eyes are bigger than its screenplay. So many characters are crammed into these 2 hours that major players routinely vanish for half hours a time, and the movie heavily relies on X-Men to provide character backstories. Jean Grey and Cyclops get barely anything to do, Rogue has so little reason to be there that she’s literally tossed out of a plane, and Nightcrawler is shuffled to the back after we learn his tragic backstory, only to be called off the bench when the movie needs some deus ex machina, stat. The only new character given any real depth is its villain, Brian Cox’s Col. William Stryker.

But aside from that, X2 is even more fun and action-packed than the first. The fight sequences show a surer hand behind the camera, and the characters’ powers (especially Iceman) are far more integrated into both their fight choreography and their daily lives (Rogue blowing out ice cold breath after kissing Iceman is a playful, sexy detail that X1 could never have dreamed of). Plus returning arch-nemesis Ian McKellen is clearly having a ball here. His Magneto is alternately sassy, sardonic, and pure evil. He’s a joy to watch, and when McKellen is having a great time, you’re guaranteed one as well.

Rating: 8/10

American Psycho II: All-American Girl

Year: 2002

Director: Morgan J. Freeman

Cast: Mila Kunis, William Shatner, Geraint Wyn Davies 

Run Time: 1 hour 28 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Rachel Newman (geddit?) murders her competitors for a sought-after TA position that will help her get into Quantico.

Could there be a more pointless sequel than American Psycho II? Well, Psycho II, I guess, but by all accounts that one’s actually OK. Let me rephrase that: Could there be a more pointless American Psycho sequel than American Psycho II: All-American Girl? Where the original was a cutting satire of yuppie consumerism and the pointless conformity of Wall Street, the sequel is about a quippy college student mowing down hardbodies so she can work for William Shatner. It might have been more at home in the 90’s alongside the likes of post-Freddy killers like the leprechaun, but it certainly has no place in 2002, poised at the very cutting edge of the torture porn zeitgeist. It’s an unnecessary, silly, and shallow slasher in a way that American Psycho is patently not.

Lucky for me, I have made a life out of enjoying silly and shallow slasher outcasts. Although American Psycho II still isn’t very good when you cut down to the core of it, it’s like Legally Blonde gone berserk, and I have room for that in my black, twisted heart. The novelty of seeing a wet-behind-the-ears Mila Kunis gnaw on a role that she has less than no grip on (her deep psychoses is mostly represented by a bunch of squinting) opposite an earth-shatteringly Shatnerian performance (ol’ Billy hisses every line like a syphilitic snake and It. Is. Sublime.) is certainly enough to power me through the duller parts, which this movie boasts in abundance.

The bloated second act is a repetitive slog of bloodless murder, apathetic alt-rock, and anemic puns livened up only by Robin Dunne as Brian, an entitled rich kid who’s hyperbolically venal and has the ill-advised hots for Mila Kunis. And he’s barely in it. This overly long portion of the film is a damn shame because, without it, American Psycho II would be a bad sequel magnum opus.

The opening act, which features a recast Patrick Bateman (Michael Kremko) being murdered by a little girl (yeah, sure) while Mila Kunis narrates, describing how she thinks they wrote a book about him (ha, ha), is a poppy, exciting chunk of early 2000’s schlock. Mila Kunis prowls the quad in a leather jacket and faces off against a lonely career counselor who has named her cat Ricky Martin. It’s a monster of pure innocence, cluelessly racking up scenes of hideously outdated trends and endearingly dim dialogue (Do you want to catch a bite to eat, maybe some dinner?”).

Then there’s the finale, which majestically unspools for a solid half hour after the plot has already ended, layering twist upon nonsensical twist atop a preternaturally straightforward story like an out-of-control soft serve machine. This is the act where we meet Rachel Newman’s mother, a blithering, incessantly complaining old hag ripped straight from the sweat-soaked pages of The Room (she even has a non sequitur line about breast cancer. What a time to be alive.) The interplay between this banshee and her crusty, leering husband is the stuff of f**king legend, a bad movie gold mine of biblical proportions.

I love so much about this movie’s bookending sequences that I feel bad rating it so poorly, but that middle third is so staunchly unimpressive that it drags its many glittering gems into the muck like a safe tossed into the Boston Harbor.

Rating: 5/10

Word Count: 1272
Reviews In This Series
X-Men (Singer, 2000)
X2: X-Men United (Singer, 2003)
X-Men: The Last Stand (Ratner, 2006)
X-Men: First Class (Vaughn, 2011)
X-Men: Days of Future Past (Singer, 2014)
X-Men: Apocalypse (Singer, 2016)

American Psycho (Harron, 2000)
American Psycho II: All-American Girl (Freeman, 2002)

Fright Flashback: Vacations Gone Awry

Welcome back to Fright Flashback, where every week until the end of summer we will visit an older horror film that is in some way a spiritual precursor to an upcoming new release. This week we are anticipating Jurassic World, in which a dino-themed amusement park experiences yet another deadly malfunction. In celebration, we'll be revisiting The Ruins, which depicts death and carnage on an idyllic Mexican vacation.

Year: 2008

Director: Carter Smith

Cast: Shawn Ashmore, Jonathan Tucker, Jena Malone

Run Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

MPAA Ratng: R

The Ruins is my favorite book. It's a bleak, unforgiving horror novel populated with likable, believable, three-dimensional characters who it puts through the freaking wringer. I try to read it every summer and every time I question why I do this to myself. That's why I love The Ruins. It's a delicately-paced horror story that pushes its characters to the breaking point, a transfixing campfire yarn that chills you to the marrow.

The Ruins is not my favorite movie. Although the screenplay was written by Scott Smith (who also wrote the novel) and it stars my perennial favorite Shawn Ashmore, it transforms a pitch black humanistic terror tale into a generic post-Saw gory vacation flick à la Wrong Turn or Rest Stop.

Luckily, I still like generic gory horror starring Shawn Ashmore, but it's just not the same experience as reading the book, which is like being tethered to a wild boar wearing a coat made of electric eels. So. If you haven't read the book and especially if you know nothing about it, I urge you to ignore the rest of this review and pick up a copy. Don't read a synopsis. Don't even look at your Netflix queue until you're finished. Experience the magic of having your endocrine system ripped out by a paperback. Then you can feel free to watch this movie and/or finish this review.

Welcome back! And I'm sorry.

The Ruins tells the story of a group of college graduates ready for one last adventure before their lives spread them apart. Emphasis on last. Jeff (Jonathan Tucker) is a self-righteous young man, an eagle scout type pre-med student who is bored with lounging by the pool; Amy (Jena Malone) is his girlfriend, a wet blanket piece of work whose favorite activity is complaining and/or attempting to make out with other dudes - she's real fun, this one; Stacy (Laura Ramsey) is her best friend, a smart, capable girl; Eric (Shawn Ashmore), Stacy's boyfriend, is more the fratty type but he's smart and confident, a good match for Stacy.

At their beach resort hotel, they meet a beleaguered German tourist named Mathias (Joe Anderson). His brother Henrich went off to meet a hot archaeologist at a dig site in the jungle and hasn't returned. Dun dun DUN! Along with their Greek friend Dimitri (Dimitri Baveas), they agree to head out to the site and see if they can find Henrich. When they arrive, they find a massive flat pyramid with a mine shaft at the top. It's completely empty, but the second they set foot on the rock, the nearby Mayan forces arrive and threaten them, forcing them up the hill and shooting Dimitri when he tries to leave.

Knowing they're trapped, the friends settle in and ration their provisions, waiting until Dimitri's friends come looking for them or they can come up with a plan of escape. However, a malevolent force on the ruin doesn't want them to leave. [SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT, PEOPLE IN THE DARK PLEASE GO HOME IF YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR YOU] The vines covering the pyramid are sentient and very hungry. They can imitate human speech, dissolve flesh with their acidic sap, and are generally cleverer than you expect your garden variety weed to be.

This sounds dumb. Believe me, I know. But stick with me here.

Do it for the vine.

True, the vines are certainly more showy than in the book, which renders them a terrifying, unknowable menace, but if we were to list every aspect of the film at which the book is superior, we would be here   until Scott Smith releases another book*. So yes, the vines in this incarnation of the story reveal their true nature far too soon, and are a little too active to be insidious and creepy, occupying the spotlight instead of the festering shadows.

*That joke is funny, because Scott Smith has only written four things in his life. Two novels (A Simple Plan in 1993, The Ruins in 2006) and the screenplay adaptations for both those novels. God, I'm clever.

But! Through a heady concoction of seamless special effects work and a truly stunning bit of audio design which layers the rustling of the vines into an indelibly unnerving soundscape, the vines are nevertheless believable as a real menace instead of yet another cheesy horror movie villain attempting to push the envelope but cutting themselves on the flap.

This decently impressive work on the vines in spite of a script too overeager to show them off somewhat balances out the deficiencies of the paper thin characters. Moment by moment ticks by, leaning on the book far too heavily for any suitable emotional substance. It's almost like watching a Cliff's Notes version of the book, peppered with wooden, obvious dialogue and brutal narrative shortcuts.

Amy has not yet learned to lower her expectations when watching modern horror movies.

Unfortunateiy, the acting is about on the same rough-hewn level of the character work. Jonathan Tucker has always had trouble with his enunciation, and his speech - which sounds like he forgot to take out his retainer in the morning - becomes a liability as the stakes get higher. When he gets flustered he sounds rather like Daffy Duck instead of a large and in charge wilderness man. 

Malone and Ramsey are likewise on and off, though Malone more so. The only unmarred performer is Ashmore, who isn't exactly dazzling, but turns in a committed performances that holds the rest of the ensemble together like glue. Or rather, something adhesive but not quite that strong. He holds them together like high grade molasses.

But these flaws are no worse than the majority of contemporary horror, and it is with great pleasure that I can say that The Ruins is still a largely enjoyable experience. There are several downright pretty shots (especially when the cinematographer gets it in his mind to do something with the vast expanse of bright blue sky the setting has afforded), the characters are shallow but they get the job done, there is a heavy focus on shirtless men (which I can appreciate for gender equality reasons as well as... personal ones), and the gore is terrific and hard to watch. 

I see this as a badge of honor, considering that The Ruins came out the same year as Saw IV. It's not quite fun, but as a gory adventure flick for the bloodthirsty Saw crowd, it certainly avoids most of the grimness and despair that that implies. It's not a flick I'd jump to throw on at parties, but in the future I can see myself re-approaching The Ruins without an ounce of regret and some measure of enjoyment. Come on. This was 2008. That's Oscar-worthy praise right there.

TL;DR: The Ruins is a feeble literary adaptation, but a pretty decent post-Saw gore flick.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1238

My Boyfriend's Back

I'm looking into encouraging a lot more people to write - it's just such an incredibly fun experience that nobody seems to get anymore. So, inspired by last week's appearance by my friend Shannon on the pages of this blog, I encouraged my wonderful boyfriend Sergio to submit an article. It has been a running theme on this blog that our tastes are very different and I wanted him to argue for his side of things. He asked me to stick in an editorial here and there so everyone can see how much better his taste is than my own. Enjoy!

It was a fine Spring day when I met Brennan Matthew Klein on the banks of the Mississippi River. He was preparing to board a ferry boat that would take him west toward the Appalachian Trail, where he would begin his journey across all fifty states that would make or break his writing career. I’m of course only fooling, I met Brennan when he (rudely and unapologetically) bumped his chair into me at school, on January 29, 2014. I had no idea when I met this spritely young Irish/German/French lad that I would eventually sign on to what has been the best relationship of my young adult life. Sappiness aside, the boy has a thing for talking pictures and has made me watch my fair share of them since our first date.

[EN: For the record I was not rude OR unapologetic and he immediately ran away.]

Unfortunately for Brennan, he has a VERY specific taste for his idea of a good movie. As you may have already noticed, he loves Horror, which has been the bulk of his reviews thus far. Luckily, I have found ways to convince him to watch movies from other genres and, as a result, add diversity to his bland, blood-soaked palette. Under my tutelage and the use of various weights keeping him tethered to the ground, he has seen quite a few of my ‘indie dramas with strong female leads,’ as he affectionately describes them.

Thanks to his dear friend Shannon, who wrote a lovely piece on date nights and horror flicks, he asked me to compile a list of some of my films to showcase on his blog. Because not all of my suggestions fall under his label, I have dubbed this post "Nine Films for Nine Nonconsecutive Dates". 

Enjoy, Brenbots!

Nine Films for Nine Nonconsecutive Dates

#1 Ghost Town (2008, David Koepp)

With a budget of about $20 million I know this is not by any means an independent film, but with a box office of only $27 million, its net revenue qualifies it as such.

[EN: Sergio, your Econ major is showing.]

Ghost Town is a movie that follows the life of a dentist, Bertram Pincus (Ricky Gervais) who suddenly finds himself with the ability to see dead people. Upon his travels with the newly deceased, he runs into the ghost of a schmuck businessman, Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear) who wants him to interfere with his wife’s (Tea Loni) new relationship. With a runtime of 102 minutes, the movie is a great way to spend an afternoon laughing at Gervais shtick or the comedic stylings of Kristin Wiig, who shines in her small but laugh-packed role. The movie is a heartwarming comedy that can move even the most bloodthirsty horror fanatics to tears (that’s right, Brennan cried) and for five dollars on Amazon, it is most definitely a great buy.

[EN: The movies I decided to watch on our very first "stay in" date were Ghost Town, [REC], and The Devil Wears Prada so don't say I don't have diversity in my tastes. Ghost Town is one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time. And I'm not ashamed to admit it made me cry. Very few films can accomplish this, but Ghost Town and The Sixth Sense are two of them. Don't look at me like that. Also, yes that is a young Aaron Tveit in that screencap. Meow.]

#2 Winter’s Bone (2010, Debra Granik)

The film that launched Jennifer Lawrence’s career into the stratosphere features her as Ree Dolly, a girl who is responsible for her younger siblings and invalid mother in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri. The film starts off slowly, painting a picture of an average day in the life of Ree and her family, but picks up running when Ree finds out that her father has skipped town and posted their family home as collateral for his bail. Ree knows the types of unsavory characters that her father (and extended family) associated with and begins her trek to try and find him. Besides the fact that she is eventually joined by  her uncle played by John Hawkes, that is as much as I will give away about this movie. My only criticism of the film is that there are far too many blue tones. I get it, Missouri sucks.

[EN: This is the one film that Sergio has suggested to me so far that I just can't get into in any way. It's a lovely-looking piece, but I never connected with Ree's journey. I prefer my characters with more personal agency, but I know I'm in the minority with not being a fan of this film. You can read my review here.]

#3 A Single Man (2009, Tom Ford)

Tom Ford’s only movie to date is a little gem that packs great performances by its all star cast. Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Nicholas Hoult, Matthew Goode are featured, and even Lee Pace makes a cameo discussing bomb shelters and setting the mood that is the Cold War era of the early 1960’s.

Ford adapted the film from the novel of the same name by Christopher Isherwood and follows Firth’s character as he attempts to move past the loss of his partner (Matthew Goode). Though not necessarily somber, A Single Man depicts life as a gay male in the sixties as a less than ideal situation. In one scene, an uncreditided Jon Hamm has just delivered the news that Firth’s partner died in a car wreck, and that Firth would be an unwelcome funeral guest due to his being Goode’s Partner. This movie is anything but subtle and in the era of Mad Men it is a welcome addition, adding more emotion in a single still than January Jones' entire performance of Betty Draper.

[EN: I was mystified by the film's ending, but impressed with its un-self conscious and bold aesthetic. You can read my review here.]

#4 An Education (2009, Lone Scherfig)

Carey Mulligan plays a precocious high school senior (or the British equivalent) who is planning on attending Oxford in the fall. She asks herself the sort of questions that all young adults ask themselves at some point or another. Why am I doing what my parents tell me? What is the end goal of all this intense studying? I’m a female in the sixties (yes another one, I’m sorry), my only job opportunities are becoming a teacher or a secretary, why even bother? Ok, that last one is a question that thankfully today’s female youth does not have to ask themselves, but the theme of being young, foolish, and reckless is one that is any young college kid can relate to.

[EN: I honestly have never seen this one and, as such, can have no opinion. Especially considering the fact that I definitely thought this was a Holocaust movie, which it doesn't seem to be.]

#5 Doubt (2008, John Patrick Shanley)

Never have I ever been more afraid of nuns than when Meryl Streep played Sister Aloyisious, a nun who runs her parish with an iron fist. The movie begins with the suspicion that a priest (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) has been more than friendly with one of the students at the Catholic school. Streep is a nun, and like all nuns she answers to the priests of the Parish and must find a way to remove the student from the watchful eye of the priest without ‘stepping out of line’. Featuring additional performances by Amy Adams and Viola Davis, the movie leaves you guessing as to who you hate more: Meryl Streep for ruining a man’s career without a shred of proof, Hoffman who is the potential pedophile in question, or Davis for essentially being a mother who is willing to sacrifice her child’s innocence if it means he advances academically. I left Amy Adams out because no one can hate Princess Gisele.

I warn you that this movie is not for everyone. Described as “Streep porn,” if you found yourself in the audience that disliked August: Osage County, then I suggest you go another route and watch The Exorcist. It has nuns and guts, what’s not to like about that?

[EN: Ah, the first time I can chime in seeming like an expert. Unfortunately The Exorcist has neither nuns nor guts, but it does have doubt, a priest, and the unparalleled exorcism scene that you've seen poorly recreated in (insert modern possession movie here), so I highly recommend it. You can expect a review of Doubt coming soon, as Sergio is sending in a high pressure front to convince me to watch it.]

#6 Weekend (2011, Andrew Haigh)

Writer/Director Andrew Haigh hit a homerun when he released this earnest yet gritty gay indie film. What makes this film special in the world of LGBTQIA cinema (I’m sure there are more letters but I’m just not that progressive), is that at its core, the movie is a love story where the main characters happen to be gay. That’s it. There is no gripping coming out process, no ‘woe is me’ attitude, just two men with fantastic facial hair who fall in love in the course of a weekend. I will warn you that the film features graphic sex scenes between newcomers Chris New and Tom Cullen, but if you’ve seen Game of Thrones or Orange is The New Black, then you have been adequately prepared for the beauty that is man-on-man sex.

[EN: Weekend was a great film! I watched it over a year ago with our guest star, so its unfortunately outside the scope of this blog until I watch it again and have it fresh in my mind, but I agree with Sergio and highly recommend it. It's like a gay Once without the music.]

#7 Insidious (2010, James Wan)

Fun fact: This is the first horror film that I showed Brennan. He, of course, had many things to say about everything and I of course adore him for his criticism of James Wan.

With a budget of only 1.5 million dollars, the movie manages to pull off scary while avoiding cheesy… mostly. The film follows the ruggedly handsome family guy Patrick Wilson and his beautiful wife Rose Byrne as they settle into their new home with their average looking kids when things start to go awry. According to Mr. Klein, P.I. (Paranormal Investigator) the film follows in the footsteps of Poltergeist and The Exorcist, but I find it delightful just the same. Whatever your take on his filmmaking, Wan provides you with a cheaply made movie that will sustain your interest far more than the Michael Bay’s Robots Do Things.

[EN: I'm so lucky Sergio liked horror films before I met him. He's obviously more low key than Yours Truly, but I'm grateful for his contributions. And he's right. Insidious is an immensely derivative haunted house film - much like Wan's 2013 effort The Conjuring - but like The Conjuring, is a terrific example of the classic form utilizing its influences to elevate the material. And it's one of the scariest horror films rated PG-13 you'll find this side of 1960. You can read my review here.]

#8 In a World... (2013, Lake Bell)

A film that Brennan begged and pleaded to go see last year, this is a gem of a film featuring the crowd-pleasing Lake Bell who starred, wrote, and directed the entire production. In a World... follows Bell as she attempts to break into the voice-over world, which is primarily dominated by men. It’s a quirky feminist comedy that delivers a breath of fresh air into a room of old man dank. There are multiple definitions for the word ‘dank’ and this one encompasses them all, that’s just how smelly that room is. It might be too late to catch this movie on RedBox but you always find it On Demand or borrow it from Brennan. He will be only too happy to spend hours discussing it with you and what a fool (with your pants on the ground) you are for having waited so long to see it. You have been warned.

[EN: For the record, you are not a fool, but you do need to see this movie. It's my number 3 film of 2013 and a delightful comedy that I can rewatch endlessly. You can read my glowing review here.]

#9 Paranormal Activity (2007, Oren Peli)

This one is purely for Brennan. I hated it, but it is an independent film where the main actress kills everyone and if that doesn’t qualify it as an ‘indie film with a strong female lead’ than I don’t know what does.

[EN: I'm a big fan of the franchise despite my immense (and supported) hatred for PA4 and my intense (and divisive) dislike for PA3. I'll have to do a retrospective of the original trilogy soon. Let me know if that sounds like something you'd be into.]

That's it. I'm done. I hope that you found I have convinced you better than I have convinced Brennan to try out new movies. This has been a blog post by me, Shawn Ashmore. Hah, Brennan wishes.

[EN: What? Shawn Ashmore? Wherever would anybody get that idea? Clap clap for Sergio. Thank you for your contribution! So everyone? Do you agree? Do you disagree? Do you think I'm a fool for ignoring Meryl Streep's expanded filmography? Please let us know in the comments!]
Word Count: 2346

Time And Time Again

Year: 2014

Director: Bryan Singer

Cast: Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman

Run Time: 2 hours 11 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

The X-Men film franchise has been going strong since its inception in 2000 with two sequels, two Wolverine spinoffs, and a quasi-prequel in 2011's X-Men: First Class. Because of the preponderance of alternate universes in comic books, which provide the source material for these films, First Class and its sequel Days of Future Past take place on an alternate timeline, which helps clear out some of the muck that has backed up over the years.

First Class was an interesting action exercise setting the origin of the X-Men into a historical context alongside the Cuban Missile Crisis. According to the sequel, this sort of mutant Forrest Gumping has continued for the following decade and our favorite heroes and villains have been involved in everything from the Vietnam War to the assassination of JFK.

And the invention of the lava lamp (probably).

All of this meddling has inspired the mutant-hating Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage) to create the Sentinel Program, a highly advanced robotic system designed to trace the X gene and wipe out the mutants before they bring upon the extinction of humanity. When Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) murders him in his office in 1973, instead of stopping his intolerant menace, it merely proves to the government that mutants are a threat and they use her DNA to create Sentinels capable of adapting to any mutant attack.

This sets off a chain of events that leads to more or less the destruction of the entire mutant race and the planet. On the Earth of today, cities are desolate wastelands and the mutants roam the rubble in hordes, constantly on the move to escape the Sentinels that track their every step.

It's a bleak and grey world, but the return of some of the original X-Men cast brings me too much joy to be as disappointed in the state of the planet as I should. Although the roles hardly amount to more than glorified cameos, we get Magneto (Ian McKellen), Professor X (Patrick Stewart), Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page), Storm (Halle Berry), and Iceman (Shawn Ashmore, my one and only) back together again. 

It is enough to make any fan of the original trilogy weep tears of joy that wash away any and all traces of the emotional wreckage that X-Men Origins: Wolverine left in its path.

More than enough.

Kitty Pryde must use her newfound time traveling powers (if you have a complaint about this, please lodge it with Shannon) to send Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back to 1973 and patch things up between ex-lovers friends Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) to unite them in preventing Mystique from carrying out her murderous intentions against Trask and setting the world on a course that leads to ultimate destruction.

But time is limited, you see! The central conceit of the time travel this time around is that Wolverine is sent into a former consciousness, which means that he technically hasn't traveled backwards in time, merely into a shadow of his former self. So as time progresses in 1973, it does so in equal increments in the present day as the Sentinels draw closer and closer to their prey.

This is a genius way of creating a sense of urgency and raising the stakes, although it doesn't quite take until the second act, when cross-cutting becomes more of a prominent phenomenon. Although I do wish we could have spent more time with the original X-Men, this is a devoted sequel to First Class, remaining faithful to that film's characters, themes of discovering one's own identity amid the broad stokes of history, and sizzling homoerotic tension.

I'm serious. You can't make this stuff up.

The film is largely a success, deftly navigating through crackling action sequences and pithy humor with sure footing. In fact, the best scene of the film is a combination of both as the newly introduced Quicksilver (Evan Peters) uses his super speed to greatly amusing and powerful effect. 

Before the film's release, it was doubtful whether Peters would be able to hold his own when performing alongside such giants as Jackman, McKellen, Stewart, and Fassbender, but the kid seamlessly inserts himself into the universe as an important and necessary comic relief. The American Horror Story darling isn't about to get an Oscar nomination any day soon, but he's certainly proved that he is worthy of being respected as a character in his own right and not a one-off annoying cameo.

And that outfit doesn't look as stupid when it's within the context of 1973.

The film as a whole doesn't quite bring itself up to the level of First Class thanks to its reliance on generic screenwriting platitudes to drive the plot forward (there's lots of mumbo-jumbo about hope and the course of time and good vs evil and it's all been done before) and a penchant for overemphasizing certain plot points to make sure the audience gets it. But that doesn't mean that it's not an exciting and viable entry in one of the strongest (and longest-running) comic book film franchises of the century.

But before we go, a quick question. When did CGI get crappy again? We've been coasting along fine for years, but all of a sudden these last couple X-Men movies have been beholden to some truly questionable visual effects. It's not enough to take one out of the story, per se, but it's something to think about.

Let me just say that I am absolutely happy with what we got. A rad mutant power is a rad mutant power. But studios have gotta make sure they render before they export or something, because in a couple years, those plasticky-looking sentinel insides are going to get quite a laugh when viewed on Ultraviolet-restored Mega HD BluRay laser processors, or whatever the hell technology is coming down the pike.

But hey. It's X-Men. Sit back and enjoy the ride.

TL;DR: X-Men: Days of Future Past isn't quite as good as the movie that spawned it, but tells an exciting time travel narrative with compelling characters.
Rating: 7/10
Should I Spend Money On This? Definitely, if you're a fan of the X-Men. If you're not, go catch Godzilla instead.
Word Count: 1053
Reviews In This Series
X-Men (Singer, 2000)
X2: X-Men United (Singer, 2003)
X-Men: The Last Stand (Ratner, 2006)
X-Men: First Class (Vaughn, 2011)
X-Men: Days of Future Past (Singer, 2014)
X-Men: Apocalypse (Singer, 2016)