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Mini - Review - As few spoilers as possible
The original Days of Future Past comic book story arc lasted two issues (Uncanny X-Men Volume 1 - Issue 141 and 142) although if you were to purchase the bound edition today it includes issues 138 through 143. The story has been officially adopted three times for the various animated television shows and now Bryan Singer has brought the story to the Big Screen.
As a fan you will walk into the theater with big expectations and I fell that when you walk out you will fell very satisfied. X-Men: Days of Future Past is a very good, solid, well crafted movie. Bryan Singer and his ensemble cast behind the cameras have done a phenomenal job of creating one of the best Super-Hero movies of all time. This crew behind the camera has tackled many of the challenges presented with the various X-Men Cinematic Universe stories thus far.
The Audience is immersed into a saga on the grand stage. A dystopian future and gleaming past on the brink of failure. You will feel attachment to the characters that are wonderfully brought to life by a collection of actors who were meant to play them.
I don't envy the task that Simon Kinberg had in adapting Chris Clairmont's story to the screen, not only is there the usual challenges of dealing with Mutant "super-powers" but the repercussions of time travel, or at least the ability to send a consciousness back in time in a way that the not regular readers of the comics would understand and follow. In a recent interview Simon Kinberg described the process of using eight multi-colored index cards to keep track of what's going on where in the script.
One of the challenges with such a large ensemble cast is giving everyone a purpose and ample screen time. There are a number of characters you want more from, some because they are cool, other because they awesome, and others because they are Sir Ian McKellan. The film was edited down to 2 hours and 11 minutes, Kinberg has suggested that as much as 30 minutes of additional footage was filmed and left for extended director's cut, hopefully that addresses this problem.
Veteran cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel has carefully selected color palettes to allow viewers to better keep track of where they are in the story line. The cinematography of this film is good but not great. You cannot help but wonder if some of the choices for Framing and Lens Selection was overly cautious because Sigel and Singer weren't 100% positive of what would work with modern/current CGI techniques.
As has been the case with most of Bryan Singer's works John Ottman composed the sound track for
the film. He also performs double duty as the films editor. After seeing the movie once I don't feel as emotional attached to the music as I did to John Powell's music in X-Men: Last Stand. That may not be a bad thing.
In X-Men: Last Stand Brett Ratner went for Epic and failed in his fight sequences, Okay Kitty Pryde and the Juggernaut was pretty good, but it wasn't good for the most part. Bryan Singer is the mastermind of using Mutants power to their best effects in fight sequences, he may not have an equal amongst modern directors. The only question a long time viewer may have, are they epic enough? It's not a question if they are good, but of Epicness.
My usual gripe with most Fantasty/Sci-Fi movies is there run time, generally there is more story that could be added and more story that could be removed. Peter Jackson does a superb job of trimming down the Lord of the Rings Trilogy to tell a focused story. Bryan Singer and company here aren't as clear cut on the focus, again its not bad that he wants to tell, demonstrate, or just plain show off, his love of the X-Men but a more focused movie could have been 10 minutes shorter and more detailed movie 10 minutes longer, its this idea of the middle ground that bothers me.
As of May 20th on rottentomatoes.com the Movie scores a 93 which is about where I am rating this movie. Bryan Singer had the challenge of creating a prequel, a sequel and a bridge between 6 movies as a stand alone movie and they succeeded on the grand scale. There are some nitpicky things that could have been better but those are more a question of my taste vs. your taste kind of thing.
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