Another comic book movie has released which means it’s time for another Comic Bastards group review! Each of the participating writers/reviewers will give their score for the film followed by thoughts on the film. First here’s what X-Men: Days of Future Past is about according to Fox: The X-Men send Wolverine to the past in a desperate effort to change history and prevent an event that results in doom for both humans and mutants.

Samantha: 5/5

I was excited to see this movie, but First Class sucked, and I didn’t want one of my favorite comics to get hit in the balls again. But man I enjoyed the hell out of this movie.

Some things that had me worried that worked. Well first I thought Singer was trying to shove too many characters in this movie. It felt like he was trying to recreate the magic from the first and second X-men.  In DOFP, it was actually pretty awesome. Everything made perfect sense. It looked like the other movies were thought of when making this. The future was visually cool and having all those favs from my childhood made it all the better. There is nothing like seeing Storm glaze her eyes over. The second was pushing back the date for X-Men. It is never a good sign, but having coming out Memorial Day weekend, it gave me plenty of time to decide when to the see the movie. Since I wasn’t that excited I thought I may never get around to it, but having the extra time allowed for more people to give this movie the time of day. And I think this movie deserves that.

Some things that blew my mind. Wolverine’s butt… duh. And Mystique’s body... even bigger duh.

But seriously, it was amazing how awesome Magneto was in the past and future. He has always been a fan favorite. Michael Fassbender brought it! This dude owned Magento and was an equal with Ian McKellen. I couldn’t get enough of it. Quicksilver was pleasantly good too. He didn’t annoy me and added some humor (Probably the funniest X-men yet).

Overall, it was a good movie. The writing worked well. The story added some twists. And the after credit scene will likely lead to another great movie. Thank you X-Men for restoring my belief.

Nick: 3/5

Days of Future Past sort of doesn’t give a shit if its internal logic doesn’t make sense. It knows you’re gonna see it anyway. There’s a lot about sending consciousnesses into past bodies through time and you can only time travel if you’re asleep and for some reason the Sentinels in the future look just like the Destroyer from Thor. It’s another X-Men movie that manages to make itself entirely about Wolverine, the single most overrated comic book character in the history of time and paper, even though the source material made the whole story about a teenaged girl.

It wasn’t a terrible time at the movies. It’s visually impressive, even though Wolverine’s bone claws look insubstantial. It also has a really messy first and second act on the way to a pretty damn impressive third act. You know how you sometimes forget what a badass a villain is until they do something rad? You forget how awesome Dr. Doom is until he becomes Doom the Annihilating Conqueror, and you forget how rad Magneto is until the last half hour of Days of Future Past.

You don’t get much in the theater you wouldn’t get at home, so I can’t in good conscience recommend that you go drop 10 bucks on a ticket. Subscribe to Netflix and wait for it to happen, use the change to buy a comic book.

I will freely admit though, the post-credits scene got me pretty hype. Apocalypse totally rules and he always has.

Erik: 4/5

Someone should write an article about X-Men: Days of Future Past, and call it ‘The Evolution of a Film’. And if you haven’t instantly caught on to my meaning (I can overdramatize things from time to time), what I really mean is that by the end of the movie, an entirely new universe will be created using pieces of an already existing one.

The dictionary defines evolution as “any process of formation or growth”.

That is exactly what this film did. It grew. It found a way to cast off the unnecessary things created in the film adaptations of the X-Men comic books, and gives us something that is completely original. I’ve never been much of a fan of the comic book by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, I just didn’t get what all the fuss was about. If they had made a movie that matched that plot exactly, it would have been boring. A good read, but a boring movie. That’s what comic book fans and moviegoers refuse to understand. Some storylines just don’t make good movies. Which is why comic book movies are so successful. You can be a fan of the movies, not having ever read the comics. And vice versa.

I guess that I haven’t really said whether or not I like it. Well I did. But not for the reasons that I had originally thought that I would. It took a while to really get going, but there is a lot of story to tell here. A lot. But I’m sure Logan would be able to smell the haters coming a mile away.

Carl: 2/5

So far I have read glowing reviews for Bryan Singer’s return to the X-Men franchise.  I went into the film with great expectations, and I was summarily let down.

Bryan Singer made only one good movie in his life.  Every other film has been a rip-off of another story.  X-Men 2 plays as homage (nee plagiarism) of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  Superman Returns borrows so liberally from Richard Donner’s Superman and other comic book movies that the film is more pastiche than movie.  X-Man:DOFP should be called The Matrix for how it plays off with its conclusion where the Sentinels attack.  Notice how the name applies in both situations?  As a side note, the Beast character Hulks out like the Hulk, so we have another character copied for the sake of the story.

Worst of all, Singer rips off Brett Ratner’s fan and critically maligned X-Men:The Last Stand.  In TLS Magneto picks up the Golden Gate Bridge so the mutants could cross the bay and attack the evil research facility.  In DOFP Magneto lifts up a baseball stadium for no discernible reason other than some half-assed way of trying to impress fans with the lack of logic and distract them from the issues arising.

Granted, the story does an outstanding job of weaving in the two worlds of the X-Men film universes: Singer and Rattner’s triumphantly mediocre first three films and Matthew Vaughn’s exemplary First Class.  While the continuity somewhat follows the last film, the promise of the same theme of X-Men as a period piece as established in First Class falls by the wayside.

My problem with the film is that I never once wanted to cheer due to intense action, smile at smart jokes, nor nod my head in fascination.  The Quicksilver moments come off as tragically comedic and breaks the tone of the film.  Additionally, he has no role or function in the story other than to run fast.  I feel that this was more a shot to steal the thunder from a Flash project than to help out with a key part of a storyline.

Overall, this is a strong film with some good moments.  Nothing about this film, however, is great or new.

Dustin: 1/5

I’m not going to lie, at the time of their release I like the first two X-Men films okay. The action was terrible and I didn’t know why a dramatic director was picked for an action film and then when I saw it I realized it didn’t matter because he turned it into a drama with hiccups of action. It’s been downhill for this franchise ever since.

X-Men: First Class looked promising. It looked like a fresh reboot… but then it wasn’t a reboot, it just mudded up the continuity created by the films and cherry picked from the comics harder than any other comic movie had before or since. I didn’t hate First Class, but I didn’t like it either. After our podcast this week I thought about the last time I watched the film and it was just my original theater experience with it.

Let’s not pretend that Days of Future Past is actually based on the comic book. It uses the premise of an X-Men traveling back in time to stop a dystopian future from occurring and uses the name because any comic fan will tell you… that’s a badass name. That’s it. To compare it otherwise would be pointless.

Days is a film that knew it’s ending, worked backwards from there and every time it hit a snag it made up some bullshit to get past it. The entire “future” aspect of the story is pointlessly show over and over just to remind you of the old cast. They’re not interesting, they don’t do anything and you never fear for their lives. Of all the things I could say and believe me after sleeping on this film for a few days I want to obliterate it for being the piece of trash cinema it is, but instead I will just point out the fact that never once do you sense the danger that the film presents. Not in the future, not in Wolverine’s race against time in the past, not even when Magneto is bringing the White House down. The only real danger is to your bladder due to the run time… I felt that for sure.

Oh and don’t try to piece together the time line of the movies… it’s pointless, this is a reboot so none of it matters.

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Director: Bryan Singer Writers: Jane Goldman, Simon Kinberg, Matthew Vaughn Studio: 20^th Century Fox/Marvel Studios Run Time: 131 Min Release Date: 5/23/14