Ill try to keep this short (I kid, I kid). X-Men: Days of Future Past is my vote for film of the year so far. Yes, it had a lot riding on it, and it has the past, present, and the future cramped into one film - alongside every major mutant from the franchise you can think of - but everyone gets to shine. No one is wasted, or superfluous, and everything comes together perfectly. The biggest star of the show? Yes, as expected, Magneto / Xavier / Mystique have the best showcases, and Quicksilver is unexpectedly awesome. But everything comes down to director Bryan Singer. Long before Joss Whedon had gathered Earths Mightiest Heroes, Bryan Singer ventured into ensemble superhero movies with 2000s X-Men. This was a time when superhero movies were dead in the water, and this unexpected hit proved that if done right, comicbook movies could make big bucks globally due to their visual flair and good versus evil themes. Studios realized that they had decades of comicbook mythology to mine for good stories and the advancements in CGI had finally made it possible to visualize and unleash the unhindered imagination of comicbooks in live action. X-Men, alongside 1998s Blade, hence ended up kicking off the golden age of cinematic superheroes. Singer returned for 2003s X2: X-Men United, which was superior in every way, and a big hit once again. For the trilogy closer, he left to work on his passion project Superman Returns (we know how that turned out). The X-Men franchise still moved forward without its original architect, but had significantly lost that special lustre. It was still a fun, engaging series with a beloved fixture in Hugh Jackmans Wolverine, but no one considered it a viable universe from which a bigger scope, spinoffs, and individual stories could be extracted. Concurrently, ever since Marvels self-made cinematic universe exploded and changed the game, Fox (with their properties X-Men and Fantastic Four), Sony (Spider-Man) and of course DC have been trying to emulate and expand their universes the same way - with little success so far. So as the one studio that started it all, what does Fox do with X-Men? For the seventh film in the series, it decides to go all-out, bringing old and new characters together, with a past, present, and future collision, as shepherded by the guy who started it all 14 years ago. Singer lost his touch after X2, and hasnt made a good film in 11 years. Everyone had pretty much written him off as a has-been (myself included). But after all these years, he comes back swinging and proves that the X-universe is worth saving and building upon. What a classy comeback! With this mind-bending, emotionally wrenching thrill ride of a film Singer lets everyone know that hes still got BIG plans and he is far from done. I dont think anyone else without a sense of attachment to the first films could have done what he has achieved here. Besides delivering a riveting film which is epic is scope, charged with emotion and social commentary, Singer also manages to fix all the wrongs of the past with one film - yes, were looking at you, X3 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The future has never looked brighter (bleaker?) for the merry band of mutants. Also: stay for the after-credits scene. It may not make a lot of sense to someone new to the series, but it is still awesome and rivals Thanos reveal at the end of The Avengers in being purely badass. Bring on X-Men: Apocalypse! And Deadpool. And Wolverine 3. And Gambit (?). And X-Force! Nimra Asad Sardar Xin Khan Sufian Javed Hafsa Zahid Umar Aizaz Sadiq Jamayal Tanweer Omar Tajuddin Asad Shaykh Maheen Shaiq Zainab Qaiserani
Posted on: Mon, 26 May 2014 07:19:30 +0000
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