Don't let the rating fool you. This is a pretty good movie. It certainly is entertaining and thrilling, but it lacks a certain...gravitas, for lack of a better word.
Days of Future Past (from now, DOFP), is the new installment in the admittedly checkered X-Men franchise. The plot centers around two key characters, Wolverine and Mystique. In the future, our merry band of mutants have been virtually eliminated because of a key event that happened in the past. This event gave rise to the anti-mutant killing machines, the sentinels. Wolverine is sent back to the past to try to change this key event and prevent the future war. (If this plot is beginning to sound a tad familiar, then "I'll be back!"). That's pretty much it without giving away any spoilers. But it does reunite the old 90's cast with the newer, younger cast from First Class, a move that was both fresh and imaginative.
But is the movie good, you ask? Well, actually, it is. This movie has, to an extent, redeemed the franchise, with the awful X3: The Last Stand being an incredibly disappointing, almost end to the franchise considering the strength go the original source material. The X-Men series is actually an odd part of the movies of the Marvel universe. Marvel Studios has actually done a superb job over the last 6 years with the release of the original Iron Man in 2008. They have deftly woven a complex set of stories that can be viewed individually or collectively with just as much to the viewer without making any one story too dependent on the other. This has been a masterful stroke, but it wasn't always so. When Bryan Singer started the franchise in 2000, there were no other models to go by other than a couple lesser known characters like Blade, and he showed it was possible to make great Marvel movies, because at this point, there was only Superman and Batman which had both careened horribly off the rails. The X-Men started a new optimism in super hero movies in that they could be good and entertaining. Now, when compared to Iron Man or The Avengers, it seems downright creaky, but at that point, this was the only competition...
...so there was nowhere really to go, but up. The problem was, they got sequelitis and they just got worse and worse. The other odd thing is that the X-Men live in a curiously detached universe since Marvel doesn't really own them, similarly to Spider-Man. So, while this great franchise got worse and worse, it was losing its vitality, Wolverine movies aside, which I kind of enjoyed.
Reenter Bryan Singer. With First Class (which he had nothing to do with), and now DOFP, the children of the atom got the shot in the arm they so desperately needed. There's a long way to go, but this is a great start in the right direction. Now, it's not perfect. The plot doesn't make too much sense when you really think about it, but let's face it, what superhero movie does? But that is no excuse foe laziness. The movie also seems to suffer from some post-production editing gone awry, further adding to some confusion. There are some muddled scenes and some that don't make much sense except for spectacle. But there is great characterization and ties the older and younger casts and their plot lines seamlessly and beautifully. This new discipline in the X-Men universe, similar to that in The Avengers is heartening, and hopefully we will see more great things from Xavier and his School for Gifted Youngsters.
The reason why the Marvel universe works so well in movies is that the characters in the source material were specifically written as metaphors to real issues with their readers, and these mythologies translate well dramatically. We can't really relate to Superman, an alien god, or with Batman, unless you are a billionaire whose parents were gunned down in a robbery in front of you. But Marvel characters have real problems we can relate to: gawky teenager, being ostracized by your birth characteristics, duality in nature, alcoholism, responsibility, etc. it is the stuff of great drama, and I hope this upward trend in storytelling will continue. I like this newfound respect Hollywood has given to superheroes and to those us fans in the audience. No more are we seeing lazy, give-'em-crap-because-they'll-watch-anything attitude we saw in Batman & Robin (Yes, Akiva Goldsman, I'm looking at you. How do you still have a job in Hollywood?). Hopefully, Days of Future Past is a precursor of things to come. I think the X-Men franchise has been revitalized and off to a good, new start.
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