You can put away your time machine kids — there’s no need to figure out a way to jump through the space-time continuum and into the future, because “X-Men: Days of Future Past” is finally here.
Bridging the storylines of previous installments with the actors involved in each, director Bryan Singer’s return to the franchise has been percolating the buzzbox for weeks now, with comic book fans and action movie enthusiasts chomping at the bit to see just how the criss-crossing storyline — one of the most popular in X-Men history — translated to the big screen.
Focusing on a dystopian present wherein the mutants are under government attack, a plan is hatched that involves sending Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back in time to stop the catalyst event that turned everyone against our powerful friends.
Related: Confused about the post-credits scene? We explain everything you need to know
And as one would expect with a summer blockbuster of this magnitude, critics had a lot to say! With big screen comic book-based adaptation films a dime a dozen these days, it’s hard to really impress a crowd — let alone a bunch of film critics.
Is the “X-Men: Days of Future Past” complicated, time-traveling storyline too much for audiences? Does the mash-up of mutants young and old feel like a gimmick? Are the 70s hairstyles of Peter Dinklage and James McAvoy too distracting or not prevalent enough?
We waded through the myriad opinions out there to provide you with the a well-rounded look at what all those professional movie-watchers had to say about the sequel. So read on, below!
It Goes Deep
“The series has always been about the characters’ humanity, and that resonates even more powerfully with this richly detailed installment. Audiences get a visceral understanding of the mutants’ emotional experience.” — Claudia Puig, USA Today
The Bromance is Strong with This One
“As they did in ‘First Class,’ McAvoy and Fassbender make an electrifying duo here, doing full justice to the emotionally complicated swirl of love, anger, kinship and betrayal that binds Charles and Erik, and rendering the kinder, gentler interplay between Stewart and McKellen all the more poignant by comparison.” — Justin Chang, Variety
Quicksilver Steals the Show
“Perhaps the film’s standout sequence features the much-discussed new addition of Peter Maximoff, aka Quicksilver (American Horror Story regular Evan Peters). … His super-speed skills are conveyed by shooting at 3,000 frames per second, notably when Peter runs around the walls during a fabulously staged Pentagon break-in, whimsically accompanied by Jim Croce singing “Time in a Bottle.” With his silver shag, Pink Floyd T-shirt and mischievous sense of humor, Peter is a terrific character who breathes playfulness into the movie, and many will be sorry he doesn’t stick around longer.” — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter
Let’s Do This Time Warp Again
“I know all of this sounds like a tangled thicket of cosmically Big Ideas. But Simon Kinberg’s marvelous script makes it all move with a Swiss jeweler’s precision and hum with internal logic. It’s complex without being confusing. When Wolverine wakes up in a waterbed next to a lava lamp as Roberta Flack plays on the radio and President Nixon attempts to bring an end to the Vietnam War, the film takes on a giddy time-warp thrill.” — Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly
It’s Geeky Comic Book Gold
“X-Men: Days Of Future Past is the first Marvel movie to truly embrace comics-style storytelling. Context-less and origin-story-free, it presumes that its audience is familiar with all relevant character traits, continuities, and fantastic elements. It returns the genre to its geek roots; depending on the viewer, it has the potential to be the most narratively satisfying and fluid entry in the X-Men film series, or the most alienating.” — Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, A.V. Club
What did you think? Let us know your take on the movie in the comments below!
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