By now you’ve seen “X-Men: Days of Future Past” if you had any intention of seeing it. It has done well critically and commercially. It’s the X-Men movie fans have been waiting for. It has hardcore mutant action sequences, the best actors from both sets of films, and retcons the more unfavorable aspects of the franchise.
Sure, Director Bryan Singer’s first “X-Men” films proved it was possible to make a good comic-book movie and ignited a frenzy over superhero movies that’s still going strong today. But he left the franchise in the lurch and took one of the core actors to go ruin the “Superman” comeback. Like a pre-schooler who wants their toy back, Singer is back to crap all over the franchise after the success of “X-Men: First Class.” There’s a nasty aftertaste of his unique blend of pretension and starfucking. There’s also the elephant in the room of his alleged sexual proclivities that call into question his casting choices. The movie is enjoyable, but Singer’s unique stamp does put the future of the franchise at risk.
The problem with Singer is he’s a starfucker. He wants to use the best characters, actors, and storylines and sort of shits all over them. He relegates major characters from the comics to glorified extras. He brought in Colossus (Daniel Cudmore), but despite appearing in three films, he’s averaged three lines. He introduces great mutants in “Days of Future Past,” like Bishop and Blink, but they’re in the future and can’t be used again. Halle Berry returned to the franchise after her Oscar win, which means producers, Singer included, had to expand her role. In the most recent film, they had to downplay her role to deal with her pregnancy. They could have just found an actor with more dynamism, presence and the ability to do a convincing African accent to play a convincing Storm (paging Lupita Nyong’o!).
Singer brings back the entire roster from his franchise for a secondary future storyline, but leaves out the amazing actors from “First Class.” He kills many characters off, and then this leaves five mutants to take out the villainous Sentinels, and rather than an epic action sequence, it’s more of the bland debate that overtook the first two “X-Men” films. Do people go to see “Spider-Man” or “The Avengers” to brood over the character’s politics?
Singer seems to love the “X-Men” in interviews, but makes weird decisions that have no bearing on the films or the comics. “Days of Future Past,” in the comics, finds most of the X-Men dead. Rachel Summers, the psychic daughter of Cyclops and Jean Grey, sends Kitty Pryde’s consciousness back in time to change history. Clearly this wouldn’t work with the current cast, so he chose Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) to bridge the two timelines and franchises. That’s fine, but in what world does it make sense that Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page), a mutant who can become intangible, would be able to make people’s consciousness travel through time? Wouldn’t it make more sense to have future Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart), a powerful psychic with years to hone his abilities able to do this?
Instead, Stewart spends the majority of the film wheelchair-bound acting. Furthermore, if you’re going to just invent abilities or secondary mutations, why not have Wolverine able to fly? Sure, this version allows Page to play a pivotal role, but they could have been smarter about it. A young General Stryker, the villain from Singer’s “X2: X-Men United” appears as an antagonist in this film despite being portrayed by an older actor in “X-Men: First Class,” which takes place 10 years before this film. Singer chose to jump ahead rather than explore how lovable Jennifer Lawrence’s version of Mystique became the silent killer portrayed by Rebecca Romijn in the original films. It seems like Singer just wants to make his original franchise look better. You want to yell at him like he’s Gretchen Weiners and just say, “Stop trying to make this happen!”
Outside the films, there’s the charges Singer would love for us to forget. He is implicated in a suit where a young actor alleges Singer sexual abused him when he was underage. However, this isn’t the first time Singer has been accused of impropriety by teenagers. Extras from the set of “Apt Pupil” alleged that the director asked that they film their scenes nude, and they were under 16. Regardless of whether these allegations are true, his casting choices are questionable.
“Days of Future Past” culminates in a major teaser for the next film which will feature one of the most powerful X-Men villains, Apocalypse. Usually shown as a huge mammoth creature with distinct facial tattoos, this film shows him as a cherubic teen boy in white makeup. It seems completely unnecessary to have a gratuitous flashback to his tween/teen years. Is this a sign that Singer’s more focused on being a chicken hawk than telling a good story? We may never know the truth but this image of Singer with the teen actor just feels creepy.
This film does deserve its praise. It gives you everything you’d want epic action sequences, a great performance by James McAvoy and Jackman’s bare ass. It fudges the sci-fi logic of the world, the great casting of prior films and seems to serve Singer’s childish need to prove he did it best. But in a pinch, just pretend Brett Ratner directed it and pray Singer doesn’t direct “X-Men: Apocalypse.”
Christian Cintron is a contributing journalist for TheBlot Magazine.
