ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

Female Film Critics 24/375

General Archives Reviews Women on Film 

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST – Review by Susan Granger

Susan Granger 0 Comments , ,
0 Flares 0 Flares ×

When is a sci-fi sequel also a prequel? When Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) time-travels 50 years into the past in a desperate effort to alter the course of history and thwart what could be doomsday for humans and mutants like. Read on…
Sometime in the dark, desolate, dystopian future, an army of gigantic killer robots, known as Sentinels, has almost succeeded in annihilating all the mutants and their human supporters. Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and his longtime friend/rival, Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto (Ian McKellen) are hidden with their few remaining allies in a remote Chinese safe house. Their only hope is to use Kitty Prude’s (Ellen Page) mental powers to project Logan/Wolverine’s (Jackman) consciousness back to 1973 to erase the Sentinel program from history.
Catapulting through world history, including JFK’s assassination, the Vietnam War and Richard Nixon’s Presidency, cutlery-fisted Wolverine must convince reclusive, mentally/physically crippled Young Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), who’s with Hank/Beast (Nicolas Hoult). And with the help of Wolverine’s agile pal Peter/Quicksilver (Evan Peters), they manage to infiltrate the Pentagon, free anarchistic Young Magneto (Michael Fassbender) from incarceration and foil angry, blue-skinned, shape-shifting Raven/Mystique’s (Jennifer Lawrence) plan to kill villainous, mutant-hating Dr. Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), since that would only accelerate the Sentinel program.
Loosely adapted from Chris Claremont’s comic book with a story by Jane Goldman, Simon Kinberg and Matthew Vaughn, the confusing, convoluted screenplay is credited to producer Simon Kinberg and adroitly directed by Bryan Singer with lots of astonishing CGI and visual effects. To keep track of the characters/timeline, it would certainly help to have seen all the other previous installments. With such a large cast, not everyone gets equal time – like Storm (Halle Berry), Rogue (Anna Paquin), Havok (Lucas Till) and Iceman (Shawn Ashmore). New additions include Blink (Chinese star Bingbing Fan), Bishop (Omar Sy), Sunspot (Adan Canto) and Warpath (Booboo Stewart).
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “X-Men: Days of Future Past” is a suspenseful, satisfying 7. Stay to the end of the credits for a glimpse of the next mutant-centric installment.

0 Flares Twitter 0 Facebook 0 0 Flares ×

Susan Granger

Susan Granger is a product of Hollywood. Her natural father, S. Sylvan Simon, was a director and producer at R.K.O., M.G.M. and Columbia Pictures; her adoptive father, Armand Deutsch, produced movies at M.G.M. As a child, Susan appeared in movies with Abbott & Costello, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Margaret O'Brien and Lassie. She attended Mills College in California, studying journalism with Pierre Salinger, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, Phi Beta Kappa, with highest honors in journalism. During her adult life, Susan has been on radio and television as an anchorwoman and movie/drama critic. Her newspaper reviews have been syndicated around the world, and she has appeared on American Movie Classics cable television. In addition, her celebrity interviews and articles have been published in REDBOOK, PLAYBOY, FAMILY CIRCLE, COSMOPOLITAN, WORKING WOMAN and THE NEW YORK TIMES, as well as in PARIS MATCH, ELLE, HELLO, CARIBBEAN WORLD, ISLAND LIFE, MACO DESTINATIONS, NEWS LIMITED NEWSPAPERS (Australia), UK DAILY MAIL, UK SUNDAY MIRROR, DS (France), LA REPUBBLICA (Italy), BUNTE (Germany), VIP TRAVELLER (Krisworld) and many other international publications through SSG Syndicate. Susan also lectures on the "Magic and Mythology of Hollywood" and "Don't Take It Personally: Conquering Criticism and other Survival Skills," originally published on tape by Dove Audio.