The Tramp Reviews: X-Men: Days of Future Past

It's tempting to begin this review with a recap of the previous films. However, I've already done that here, and even X-Men: Days of Future Past itself assumes that its audience will be reasonably familiar with the series' convoluted narrative, offering virtually no explanation of who the extensive cast of characters are and their relationships to each other. However, despite the wilfully stuffy confusion of some reviewers, only a cursory knowledge of previous X-Men titles is really necessary to follow the time-twisting plot, although it's true that long-term fans of the series are the most likely to enjoy this episode fully. As always, since I'm writing this review several days after the film has been released, expect major spoilers. If you haven't yet seen the film, stop reading now, but if you're looking for a recommendation, X-Men: Days of Future Past is one of the best entries in the series and you should see it as soon as possible.

One of the most interesting elements of Days of Future Past is its numerous allusions to dystopian science fiction cinema, particularly during its futuristic first act. The earlier films clearly owed a debt to the genre, but here there are specific visual and narrative homages to its forbears. The captured mutants being marched down bleak corridors are reminiscent of the workers in Metropolis, and the bodies of the dead recall the imagery of both The Terminator and Soylent Green, all piled up in a hellish landscape that reminds us of Blade Runner, The Matrix and Tron. Disturbingly, these scenes are suggestive also of the holocaust sections in some of the other X-Men films, and are undoubtedly some of the darkest and most challenging sequences of the entire series. In another director's hands, these scenes could very easily have felt derivative

and even tasteless, but with veteran Bryan Singer at the helm, they feel like the logical, nightmarish conclusion to the themes of the series.

Storm's onscreen time is limited but memorable.

Where the visual references of the future scenes are necessarily science-fiction, the scenes in the 1970s are more likely to recall the political thrillers of that decade; an approach which also worked extremely well in this year's Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It's one which functions simultaneously as a visual contrast to the future sequences, and as an extension of the film's political and social themes. Singer and his production team deserve recognition both for combining two potentially disparate aesthetics into a coherent style, and for creating a visual design distinct from both the millenial blue of the original trilogy, and the technicolour 60s fantasy of X-Men: First Class.

Perhaps the most consistent criticism that has been levelled at Days of Future Past is its convoluted narrative, jumping, as it does, from future to past and back again. To paraphrase one review of another superhero film, there is indeed more plot here than story. Moreover, the future scenes very much feel like the action-packed finale of a different film - the last few minutes of a movie edited to punctuate the 70s-set narrative. As a result, most of the future characters get only a few lines each, if at all, and not really anything approaching characterisation. That said, the future cast succeed at making us care about characters who are, to be generous, sparsely written, and Singer's narrative economy here is admirable. Imagine if Peter Jackson, with his inability to cut the fat from a story, had directed Days of Future Past, and it's easy to see the sense behind Singer's decision to keep the future scenes to a minimum. The director shows us only what is absolutely necessary before moving us on to the real meat of the 70s-set story. And it's here that the real emotional development comes, primarily in a neat reversal of the student / mentor dynamic between Wolverine and Xavier. Predictably, the main cast are all on form: Jackman has for years been inextricably associated with Wolverine, and is at complete ease in the role, whereas Fassbender and Lawerence both bring welcome depth and pathos to Magneto and Mystique. Indeed, more so than any other instalment, this X-Men film blurs the lines between heroes and villains.

Despite the strong performances and impressive narrative plate-spinning, it is fair to say that Days of Future Past exists primarily to tidy up an increasingly complicated and frequently contradictory backstory. The events of the disappointing third instalment, The Last Stand, are conclusively and overtly written out in the film's final scene with the unexpected but welcome return of some of the series' missing characters. Similarly, the repeated appearances of a young William Stryker feel unnecessary and extraneous to Days of Future Past's story. However, somewhat forgivably, his inclusion conflicts with the timeline of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, effectively erasing the events of that film from the series canon.

Arguably the strongest set piece of the entire series.

Days of Future Past's greatest strength lies in its action, which offers the best set pieces of the series as well Inception-flavoured finale which combines past and future showdowns with the terrifying, mutant-hunting sentinels. Incidentally, the film contains some seriously grisly violence and really pushes the 12A rating; if The Last Stand was unafraid to dispassionately kill off major characters, Days of Future Past forces us to witness the suffering of a cast ripped apart by robotic drones indifferent to their roles as series favourites.

as several sequences that feel fresh and innovative in a genre bloated with epic spectacle. The best of these is newcomer Quicksilver's showpiece, in which he whizzes around security guards in one of the most preposterously enjoyable jailbreak scenes ever filmed. Honourable mention also goes to the

With spectacular flair, distinctive visuals, and a strong, if somewhat convoluted story, X-Men Days of Future Past offers what may be the best entry in the series. This is also the darkest episode in the ongoing saga, but balances that darkness with perfectly measured levity and humour, deriving from an extremely polished script and strong central performances. If, as with all X-Men films, some of the characters feel a little-short changed, and the plot bounces along a little too quickly, it is only because of Singer's insistence on keeping a tight focus on the type of story he wants to tell. Similarly, much of the dialogue functions as simple exposition, but with a narrative that keeps the thrills coming thick and fast, it hardly matters. With an unprecedented run of three good films, after fourteen years it seems that the X-Men have finally found their footing, and it really couldn't be stronger.

"What Kind of Monster Are You? The Wolverine!" X-Men: Part Three

Few would dispute that since the release of Iron Man in 2008, Marvel's series of Avengers films has become, at least from a business and financial perspective, the most important modern blockbuster franchise in Hollywood. Moreover, Marvel's model of an expanded universe, with a potentially limitless web of interconnected films will undoubtedly define the mindset of major studios for the foreseeable future. However, I would argue that 20th Century Fox, owner of the X-Men series, has its own share of responsibility for the current state of Hollywood superhero franchises, not only because the original X-Men kick-started the prevalence of  modern comic adaptations, but also in its almost-accidental creation of a shared universe with a haphazard collection of sequels, prequels and spin-offs. In my final post on the X-Men series, I want to suggest that both the Marvel and Fox expanded universes, while ostensibly deriving inspiration from their comic-book roots, actually mirror much of what Universal achieved in the 1940s with their series of monster-mash up horror films. 

What I find particularly interesting about the X-Men series in general is the way it plays with concepts of otherness and monstrosity, refiguring the monsters as heroes. It’s well documented that the X-Men, both in film and comic form, with their freakish abilities and position as marginalised and often feared outsiders, are effectively thinly-veiled monsters reconstructed as superheroes. In fact, I argue that in paying homage in one scene to the 1931 version of Frankenstein, James Mangold not only makes a passing reference to this reading of the X-Men, but more importantly, draws an intriguing comparison to the production of modern superhero franchises, and that of the Universal horror cycle of the 1930s and 40s. In a cinematic landscape awash with conservative vigilante fantasies (Batman) and government backed, super-secret strike forces (Avengers Assemble), the X-Men films are unique in their continuing story of the fight for mere acceptance. Furthermore, The Wolverine is particularly interesting with regard to monstrosity in the way that at one point it makes overt reference to the Frankenstein monster, perhaps the greatest example in pop cinema of the misunderstood and feared 'other'. For example, during the scene where Wolverine tries to extract the robotic device in his chest, the laboratory setting and his position on an operating table alludes to the creation of the monster in Frankenstein. In contrast to the Frankenstein monster lying unconscious as the mad scientist operates on him,Wolverine operates on himself, asserting an autonomy and self-direction usually denied the monster in cinema. Shingen's question to Wolverine in the same scene, 'What kind of monster are you?', and Wolverine's furious answer, 'The Wolverine!' hammers the point home. Unlike Frankenstein's creation, however, this monster has a name, as he unambiguously asserts as 'The Wolverine!', before dispatching Shingen in a characteristically brutal fashion. Wolverine's answer here acts both as the reassertion of his lost identity, as well as a play on the trope of the monster without a name. In a series that, at its best, is about the discovery and assertion of identity, this is a great, if rather unsubtle, moment of pop bildungsroman. 

Compare and contrast: Frankenstein Meets The Wolverine

The Wolverine's allusion to Frankenstein in this scene reminds us that even though the Avengers series feels fresh and innovative in its approach to story-telling (having itself been influenced by the early X-Men films), universe building across connected franchises is nothing new in Hollywood.  We’re encouraged to think that Marvel and Fox’s current shared-universe approach to their franchises is experimental and innovative, and to an extent that’s true, but it isn’t the first time that this has been attempted. Universal studios performed an almost-identical trick over seventy years ago, when they began to combine their horror series together, most notably with Frankenstein, Dracula and The Wolf Man. Beginning with silent films such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1923 and The Phantom of the Opera in 1925, the so-called Universal Horror Cycle moved into the sound era with Dracula in 1931, the success of which meant it was quickly followed by James Whale's Frankenstein in the same year. Both of these received their own sequels with Dracula's Daughter (1936), and Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Son of Frankenstein (1939). 1941 saw the release of The Wolf Man, starring Lon Chaney Jr., who would then play the monster in the fourth Frankenstein picture, the abysmal Ghost of Frankenstein, released the following year in 1942, as well as the ubiquitous Count (or is that his son? There seems to be no consensus) in the second (sort of) sequel to Dracula, entitled - of course - Son of Dracula, released in 1943. With Chaney starring in Universal's three major monster franchises, it seemed to make sense to mash them together and see what happened. So, 1943 also saw Chaney return to his werewolf role with the release of Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, an enjoyable slice of trash that simultaneously served as a direct sequel to The Wolf Man and the fifth Frankenstein film.

Similarly, just as The Wolverine is the second Wolverine film, it is also a sequel of sorts to the third X-Men film, and yet is somehow the sixth X-Men film overall. Following Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, House of Frankenstein was released in 1944. This one features Dracula as well, this time played by a delightfully hammy John Carradine, making it the third Wolf Man film, fourth Dracula film and sixth Frankenstein. 1945 saw the release of House of Dracula, featuring all three monsters in a confused mess of a mash-up, that serves as part-sequel and part-reboot to the previous film: no mention is made of the deaths of either Dracula or the Wolf Man from House of Frankenstein, but the film goes to lengths to explain the resurrection of the Frankenstein monster, who also met his end at the end of the last one. Similarly confusingly, X Men: Days of Future Past will serve as a direct sequel to not only The Wolverine and The Last Stand, but also to First Class, making it a direct sequel to three (!) different films, the second direct sequel to The Last Stand, and the seventh installment in the series overall. This means that if we were numbering the films, Days of Future Past could be legitimately called X-Men: First Class 2, X-Men 4, X-Men 5, X-Men 6 or X-Men 7. And that's before we consider that X-Men: Apocalypse, set in the First Class era, and another Wolverine film, almost certainly set before the events of Days of Future Past are both in production, which if we're numbering the films based on their internal chronology (and after all of this, why the hell not?), it means that Days of Future Past, the seventh in the series, might as well be called X-Men: First Class 3, X-Men 8 or X-Men 9. This beats even the Universal series for sheer convolutedness, and I know of no other film series whose sequels, like the tendrils of some Lovecraftian monstrosity, knot and tangle over each other so excessively, and yet so beautifully.

Sequels such as Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman and House of Dracula are little more than cheaply produced cash-ins, made to ride on the coattails of their successful forbears, but they do demonstrate that the concept of successful (financially at least) shared filmic universes is nothing new. It's fascinating to me that a film like The Wolverine, which in many ways is an average comic book action film, existing only to keep a variable franchise afloat until the arrival of its next 'proper' installment, can unlock many of the relationships its parent series has with the past and ongoing history of cinema, even if those relationships mainly lie in the confusing and artistically dubious nature of sequels. I hope that it is not too much of a stretch to suggest that that the release of Days of Future Past, a film about returning to the past for the survival of the future, foreshadows what lies ahead for the superhero genre as a whole: looking to the past, whether by paying homage to James Bond and gothic monsters, or by unconsciously mirroring the insane mash-up-sequel-logic of the Universal Horror Cycle, has reaped rewards for the X-Men franchise, a series which, if nothing else, seems to excel at reinvention and rejuvenation. Perhaps, then, if the superhero genre is to find its place in the future history of cinema, then it must look backwards, to its forbears, to do so.

What Would You Prefer, Yellow Spandex? A Look Back at The X-Men Trilogy

This is something that I've been brewing for a while, and with a new trailer out today for X-Men: Days of Future Past and its already-announced follow up, Apocalypse, I think now is as good a time as any to do this post. Released in May this year, Days of Future Past will be the seventh film set in the X-Men universe, following last year's The Wolverine, which was itself the second attempt at a standalone Wolverine film. Overshadowed initially by Sam Raimi's Spiderman films, and more recently by the superfluous Avengers series and the Dark Knight Trilogy, the X Men franchise has quietly trundled along, releasing installments every two or three years since the first film came out in 2000. Not only does this make it the longest-running comic book film series ever made, but it also has become one of the most variable, interesting and important film franchises of the last fifteen years.  At the risk of becoming as unwieldy as the X series itself, over three posts I'm going to do summaries of both the original trilogy and what I'll call the 'spin off' trilogy, which consists of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men: First Class, and The Wolverine. Secondly, I'll look at the extent to which Days of Future Past is an attempt to tie all the films together, but more importantly, the production of the newer X-Men films bear an increasing resemblance to not only the Avengers franchise model, with interconnected continuities across different storylines, but also, to Universal Studios' commercial strategy in the 1940s of combining its Frankenstein, Dracula and Wolf Man properties into a single monster-mash up franchise.

X-Men (2000)
There are only three years between the first X-Men film and 1997's abominable Batman and Robin, and yet they are worlds apart in almost every respect. Indeed, where Joel Schumacher's bat-nipples and neon overload represent the bloated, self-parodic death knells of the 90s superhero, Bryan Singer's slick, smart and engaging X-Men very much signals the rebirth, Phoenix-like, of the superhero genre as the new dominant form of action cinema. X-Men has been superseded by recent, more assured entries into the genre, including Avengers Assemble, The Dark Knight, and even the 2011 X-Men: First Class, and as a Marvel comics adaptation was preceded by Stephen Norrington's 1998 Blade. However, much like the 1931 Bela Lugosi version of Dracula, we shouldn't underestimate the importance of Singer's first entry in the series, especially as the birth of the modern superhero action film. And much like Dracula, as well as being rather talky and a little lacking in spectacular set-pieces, this first entry establishes some important tropes for the series, and the genre as a whole: the gruff, gritty hero in the shape of Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, the tense friendship / enemy dynamic of Magneto and Xavier, and the looming threat of civil war between humans and mutants. It's interesting to remember that we're introduced to Wolverine through Rogue; indeed, for the first act or so she acts as the film's protagonist, the fish-out-of-water Luke Skywalker to Wolverine's Han Solo. Even as Wolverine takes centre stage, the film plays with audience expectations by misdirecting our attention away from Rogue and the fact that it is in fact she who Magneto wants.

X-Men pioneers not only the high-concept, pseudo-realistic take on comic-book mythos that would later inform The Dark Knight Trilogy, but also the ensemble casting of Avengers Assemble, and the affectionate nods towards the source material that define most contemporary superhero films. What X-Men lacks is the confidence of the later installments, and after the compelling first act, struggles in search for a strong plot with high stakes. In addition, the climax, despite being set atop the Statue of Liberty, is lacklustre, feeling flat and somewhat restrained. That said, X-Men's focus is on character, and it's here where it shines, with James Marsden's bland Cyclops and Halle Berry's questionable turn as Storm proving exceptions to the rule. Ian McKellen's Magneto, in particular, gifts us with one of the genre's most charismatic villains, and arguably the film's strongest suit is the friend / enemy relationship played out between Magneto and Patrick Stewart's Xavier: a dynamic played with throughout the series, and forming the central plot in 2011's First Class. Moreover, the score, composed by Michael Kamen, is a fantastic mix of strange textures and arrangments, fitting perfectly with the feel of the film, while the main theme is bold and exciting, comparing favourably alongside the likes of Danny Elfman's Spiderman score. Newton Thomas Sigel's cinematography and John Myhre's production design date the film, situating it unmistakably in that early-millenial, post-Matrix era of early-noughties science fiction cinema, but on its own terms the film looks terrific, presenting the mutant characters with a cold, inhospitable world with which to contend. What this first film lacks in confidence and bravura action sequences, it more than makes up for in great characters, charm, and personality, not to mention laying much of the groundwork that Chrisopher Nolan, Matthew Vaughn and Marvel studios would later build on.

X 2: X-Men United
X 2 is where the series really takes off; Singer finds the directorial confidence lacking in the previous film with some fantastic set pieces, the broad cast of characters all get a fair shout, with the main mutants' relationships deepening and the auxillary characters getting satisfying satisfying arcs, and even Storm is less annoying this time around. With the possible exception of First Class, X 2 is undoubtedly the series highlight, which sadly compounds the later disappointments of The Last Stand and Origins: Wolverine. By introducing Colonel William Stryker as the main baddie, X 2 manages to further explore the fraught relationship between Xavier and Magneto, building on the previous film's suggestion that the two are separated by only a very thin line, and despite their conflicting agendas, still consider each other friends. The opening scene, a thrilling sequence in which a drugged Nightcrawler teleports through the corridors of the White House, effortlessly neutralising security before almost assassinating the President, hands-down beats any of the previous film's set-pieces. Berry's Storm is significantly less irritating this time round, though neither the writers nor director can figure out what to do with James Marsden's Cyclops. Ice Man gets a slightly beefed up role this time, with a neat sub-plot about coming out as a mutant to his parents, and the entire production just feels bigger, better, and more polished. Additionally, Stryker's brutalisation of the mutants under his duress, and the White House's tacit approval of his methods not only lend credence to Magneto's deep-seated suspicion of humanity and advocacy of pre-emptive action, but also situate X 2 as a post-9/11 film five years before Nolan presented super villains as terrorists in The Dark Knight.

X Men: The Last Stand
Having re-watched The Last Stand for this post, I would suggest that it isn't quite as bad as we all remember. Like that other infuriating Marvel trilogy misfire, Spiderman 3, it is more of a great opportunity squandered, rather than an unmitigated and irredeemable disaster. Undoubtedly, X 3 is by far the weakest of the original three films, suffering from an overabundance of new characters, the abrupt deaths of others, and the departure of Singer as director, who left The Last Stand to make the cooly-received but underrated Superman Returns. However, it could have been a lot worse; the plot about a mutant 'cure', while handled with none of the subtlety of X 1 and 2, is a natural extension of the themes of the series, while feeling sufficiently scaled-up for a trilogy-closer. Indeed, the deaths of Cyclops, Professor X and Jean Grey suggest that The Last Stand really does mean business, and the scenes with shady government agencies, the army and Secretary Trask create the sense that tensions between humans and mutants have finally come to a head. The proof, however, is in the pudding, and this is where we come to that squandered potential. Cyclops, always underused in the other films, is given even shorter shrift here, finding himself a grumpy wastrel after Jean's death in X 2, before being summarily dispatched in the first fifteen minutes by a newly-resurrected Jean. Cyclops' death, I think, neatly summarises director Brett Ratner's misguided and impatient approach to character in this film. Ratner expects an emotional gut-punch by killing off one of the main characters so early on, but instead he merely creates frustration. The focus of the scene should be on Jean's return - if she's going to kill someone it should be an extra or minor character - not a character with whom she's had a two-film relationship. That's not to say that she couldn't have killed Cyclops at all - indeed, that could have been really effective in the second act - perhaps around the point where Jean kills Professor X. Moreover, Jean as The Phoenix, exhilaratingly teased at the end of the last film, is a real disappointment, wasted as Magneto's stand-in after he inexplicably leaves a 'cured' Mystique after she sacrifices herself for him. And that moment is itself is another of Ratner's missteps; the Magneto of Singer's films would never abandon his loyal friend so callously and needlessly - especially given the intelligence she has on Magneto, which she ultimately uses against him in an act of revenge. Ratner's vision is far too binary for the murky ethics of the mutants, and mistakes the principled, angry Magneto for a simplistic bad guy. And even the action suffers: The Last Stand offers nothing of the quality of the Whitehouse-Nightcrawler or Magneto jail-break sequences of X 2, nor even the small-scale yet satisfying Statue of Liberty showdown of X 1. Sure, there's plenty of action to go round, but Ratner proves that he just hasn't got the chops to make it worth it. There are two exceptions to this: Magneto's attack on the convoy carrying Mystique and Juggernaut is nicely paced and sufficiently tense, and the Golden-Gate bridge is a satisfying spectacle. Ultimately, however, it all feels like so much nothing: spectacle created to mask a lack of depth or real engagement with the audience, and the underwhelming climax succeeds only on the basis that Ratner finally unearths some actual emotion from Wolverine and Jean's final confrontation. To return to my original point, what perhaps is most frustrating about The Last Stand is that it is not irredeemable, but that the errors in judgement on Ratner's part cripple what should have been a nuanced and emotionally mature film, giving us what is instead a serviceable, but ultimately disappointing and shallow action film.

Join me next week, when we'll be looking at the Spin-Off Trilogy, namely X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men: First Class and The Wolverine.