X-Men: Days of Future Past - 2014

"X-Men: Days of Future Past" - 2014
Dir. by Bryan Singer - 2 hrs. 11 min.

Official Tralier

by Clayton Hollifield

Although it's been played out over a longer span of time, we're about as deep into the "X-Men" cycle of movies as we are the "Avengers" cycle.  And while the Avengers movies have been more consistent, the X-Men movies have had some great moments, nearly all of which involve director Bryan Singer.  "X-Men: Days of Future Past" is his return to the franchise, his first film since 2003's "X2."  It's a welcome return, considering the source material and actors are generally the same from film to film.  Here, we get the opportunity to see some of the actors from the first batch of films come face-to-face with their younger counterparts, from "X-Men: First Class," and it works well.  Not "Avengers" well, but still well.

At some point in the future, the Sentinels have taken over, hunting down mutants and killing them whenever they get the chance.  The Sentinels are giant robots, programmed to identify and kill mutants, the pet project of Dr. Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage).  The mutants are down to their last few, including Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellan), as well as Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Storm (Halle Berry).  They've figured out what the point in history was that unleashed support for the Sentinels as a government project, and have the ability to send someone's consciousness back in time to do something about it, but only Wolverine has the ability to physically survive the trip.  Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) sends Wovlerine back into the 1973 version of himself to unite the then vehemently-opposed Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and Xavier (James McAvoy), to stop Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from killing Trask.

The story itself is kind of complicated, probably more so than it needs to be, so it's better to just focus on the broad strokes than trying to figure out all of the science-fiction elements.  I feel like, if you were so inclined, you could pick apart the story.  But this is also a pretty enjoyable movie, so the real question is whether or not you, as a viewer, want to get in the way of your own enjoyment.  Thankfully, the story itself doesn't go in for treating another era as the basis for a series of anachronistic jokes (that's pretty much limited to Wolverine dryly being "impressed" by a system that's set up to record "all three" networks).  There's bigger fish to fry, and once again, the issue is the ideological battle between Xavier and Magneto.  For me, the most compelling material in the film involved young Xavier's struggles.  To some degree, seeing Xavier struggling with literally everything in his life, and having turned somewhat nihilistic over the events from "X-Men: First Class," is heartbreaking and a fascinating peek at Xavier's journey, as a character.  Patrick Stewart's Xavier is a full-on God - he's in control, has a vision, and is seeing it through.  He's more than capable of helping others, a true role model.  He's Yoda in the second "Star Wars" film, a guru that the others look up to.

James McAvoy's Xavier, on the other hand, is broken; his dreams have been crushed, he's physically a wreck, and has no hope or confidence.  He doesn't know where he's going anymore, and doesn't seem to care.  As a fan who's watched every film in the X-Men cycle, it's hard to watch someone who ends up such a strong, confident character who is a source of hope to many around him, and is nearly always presented as such, flailing around, rendered impotent by drugs (literally), failure, and the loss of those close to him.  The greatest success of "X-Men: Days of Future Past" is that the thing that needs to happen for the hero to save the day remains very much in doubt for the bulk of the film.  It feels impossible that Xavier can become what he needs to in order to do what needs to be done, and his barriers are very human and relateable.  Xavier has a real journey in this movie, and it's great stuff for people who have been on the X-Men ride for a while.

I'm not going to claim that this "X-Men" movie is a complete success.  It's pretty good, and I'm sure I'll watch it again.  But a lot of the focus is on long-term repercussions of one's actions, and that's something that's hard to make an action movie about.  I felt like it was explained enough, and the foundation of the idea was successful, but I also feel like correcting one error in history doesn't mean that everything's smooth sailing afterwards.  So maybe there's room for more installments down the road.  There was one thing that Xavier said in the film that really resonated with me, and even though it came out of a time-travel movie, is something that people now need to hear.  In a time where saying one wrong thing on the internet means that a great number of people will instantly, and forever tune someone out, Xavier provides the ideal: "Just because someone stumbles and loses their path, doesn't mean they're lost forever."  It's a timely message, one that the people who most need to hear it, likely won't.

3 / 5 - Theatre

Prometheus - 2012

"Prometheus" - 2012
Dir. by Ridley Scott - 2 hrs. 4 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

I think the bottom line with a film like "Prometheus" is whether or not it was a cool film.  And yeah, it was a cool film.  There are essentially two kinds of films: ones that are story-based and ones that are experience-based.  "Prometheus" is the latter, almost by default.  That's not to say that there isn't a story here, there certainly is.  But in a movie that devotes so much attention to its visuals, or to put it another way, sheer spectacle, parsing the film for plot points misses the point.  It's like this: sure, a spaceship lands on a foreign planet.  Is that the point?  No, the point is that the ship looks awesome, and the reveal of the alien planet isn't something that can just be conveyed by telling someone that there were mountains and stuff.  You need to experience the reveal itself in order to "get" what the filmmakers want you to get.

So, what exactly is "Prometheus" about?  I'll sketch that in broad strokes.  A pair of archaeologists, Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green), discover a set of 35,000 year old cave painting in Scotland, which happen to depict something that has also been depicted by other primitive cultures, ones that couldn't have had any contact with one another.  They take that as an invitation to the stars, and ten years later, they head a commercial space expedition shrouded in mystery, with a Weyland Corporation representative (Meredith Vickers, played by Charlize Theron) in ultimate charge.  And then a bunch of other things happen.

I'm not sure to what degree it's a spoiler to mention that this is an antecedent of the "Alien" franchise.  "Prometheus" stands on it's own, and honestly, there's only the most minor of connections made explicit.  As far as to whether or not it ties directly into the other films, that falls into the "I don't know/I don't care" category.  It's been a number of years since I've watched any of the other films, and I'm not watching four films in preparation to maybe glint another line or two out of "Prometheus."  One thing I can tell you is that the visual design sense of H.R. Giger (the artist who's work was the basis of the franchise) is present (and still spooky).

Breaking down the plot or analyzing the acting wouldn't do much good here.  The story hits all the points it needs to in order to get out of the way and let visually interesting or harrowing events to be shown.  If a film is not going to be able to manage to break new ground in terms of story, that's about the best alternative.  What is important is that the story is told with a maximum of visual flair.  Two scenes among many stand out: the initial scene set at a waterfall is spectacular, and there's a computer-generated scene of what appears to be the creation of the universe that is equally breathtaking.  Those aren't the only winners, but without spoiling things (and part of the joy of this film is one visual marvel after another), let me use that word "cool" to let you know that your eyes are going to be very, very happy while watching "Prometheus."

I liked this film a lot.  It's tense, visually interesting, and the run time flew by.  The "Alien" franchise isn't one of my personal favorites, so that wasn't really a factor in my enjoyment.  And I don't think that it would be fair to view "Prometheus" as an "Alien" prequel, as you don't really need to know anything about those film in order to appreciate this one.  If you're going to see "Prometheus," be sure to find the biggest screen in your area that you can.

3.5 / 5 - Theatre

X-Men: First Class - 2011

"X-Men: First Class" - 2011
Dir. by Matthew Vaughn - 2 hrs. 12 min.

Official Trailer

I was not entirely on-board for an X-Men reboot going in.  There are several reasons, chief among them that I already paid for and watched three X-Men movies (with varying results), and just like with the Spider-Man movies, I feel like there's not a good creative reason for a reboot.  Granted, there's been literally thousands of comics books made of these characters, but the entire point of doing movie versions is to cherry-pick those stories and hit a grand-slam every time you commit two hours of film to one of them.  The second you start to dip your toes into sub-excellent material, it's better to wrap things up.  I guess the best way to put it is that if Marvel is going to start re-telling stories they've already made into films, I'm done.  Tobey Maguire is my generation's Spidey for good or ill, and I'm not that interested in starting the hero's journey over again with someone I've never heard of.

Another big source of my hesitation: the trailers didn't do a lot for me.  Honestly, I don't even remember them, which is kind of sad.

So let's get into the things that helped me enjoy this movie.  First, it's more of a soft reboot, in that it serves as a prequel (and one that's set many years back, instead of being a direct prequel with cheaper actors).  That definitely helps deal with seeing different actors playing the characters that have already been established over the other three X-Men movies.  Second, as it turns out, sharp suits, rad cars, and mini-skirts with go-go boots go a long way with me.  I can't stress this enough, we all dress like complete slobs now, and even the teenagers here look sharp as a tack (and in a believable way, too).  It's not just a product of the time, it's the very existence of dress denim as a concept that's the problem.  A little style goes a long way, and "X-Men: First Class" has more than a little style.  Even Kevin Bacon, as the main villain Sebastian Shaw, always cuts a dashing figure, regardless of the evil he's up to.

Another thing that helps here is that the movie has a flawless structure (and realizes it, and then doesn't mess with what's always worked in the X-Men comics), in that the emergence of mutant-kind is really all about the civil rights movement.  Placed in the context of the 1960's in America, and with the viewers having knowledge of everything that's ensued since then, a heavy cloud hangs over the rhetoric exchanged between Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender).  There's always been a comparison that Xavier was Martin Luther King, Jr., and Erik (Magneto) was Malcolm X, but where this movie really succeeds is showing how each man arrived at their philosophy, and not condemning either view.  And it's made clear that the two men achieve more working together than they do separately, which is a statement for modern times if there ever was one.

I won't bother with a plot recap, other than to say this is a version of the original X-Men origin story, explicitly using Cold War tensions to advance the story (which is a million times more interesting than the standard action movie plot of a baddie stealing some virus which will kill mankind).  While there is a good guy/bad guy plot, there's also the matter of whether or not people with very different ideas about how to live can work together in any meaningful way.  This story came together in a believable, tense way.  For a movie that I was nearly completely unexcited to see, I ended up really liking what I saw.  From bringing some much needed fashion-sense to geekdom, to a really great cameo for the folks who have seen the other three X-Men movies, to not being afraid to give voice to both Malcolm and MLK, it all works, and it's a really good movie.

4 / 5 - Theatre