'X-Men' Clean Out the Closet

FacebookXPinterestEmailEmailEmailShare

DF-21662R_rgb

X-Men: Days of Future Past (out now on Blu-ray and DVD) pulls off a great trick: the movie stays true to the overall storyline of the Marvel series and figures out a way to wipe out the plot disasters of X-Men: The Last Stand.

Bryan Singer is back as the director after Matthew Vaughn revived the series with X-Men: First Class in 2011. Singer and writer Simon Kinberg have come up with a time travel story that features both adult and young versions of most of the characters (except Wolverine. Wolverine always stays the same).

DF-04508_rgb

There's even one scene where young Professor Charles Xavier (played by James McAvoy) meets up with his older self (Patrick Stewart) as the X-Men try to change the course of history and win the war against the Sentinels by preventing them from being created in the first place.

%embed1%

The script dials down the trippy time travel elements in favor of straight-ahead action. Wolverine travels back to 1973 and tries to convince the younger versions of the X-Men to foil Mystique's assassination of the scientist who invents the Sentinels. Magneto is incarcerated in the Pentagon basement for allegedly killing JFK, but the newly-sprung Magneto insists that he would never kill Kennedy because he was also a mutant.

DF-07401_rgb

The '70s scenes are shot like a '70s movie and the contemporary scenes have a futuristic look. It makes for a nice contrast. X-Men: Days of Future Past does not contain any Moody Blues songs on its soundtrack, but it does push a few of the same musical buttons as Guardians of the Galaxy with Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle" and Roberta Flack performing "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face."

Fans of Major William Stryker from the comic books (and X2) will be glad to know that his younger self makes an appearance in the flashback scenes and he seems to be set up as a major character in the inevitable sequel.

The extras are serviceable but not necessary. Fox has come up with a solution to the Digital copy problem. You can now get an iTunes version OR an UltraViolet version as your digital copy. They don't offer both like some studios but you now at least have the opportunity to own the Apple version if that's what you prefer and the Fox digital website actually works in a non-complicated way.

Story Continues