dvd of the week
In Bryan Singer’s latest X-Men movie, his third and the franchise’s seventh since 2000, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is sent back in time to 1973, when shape-shifting Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) is going to kill Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), the inventor of mutant-hunting robots called the Sentinels. The film includes every single X-Men character ever used on screen, overstuffing it with superheroes, plotlines and timelines. But Singer and screenwriter Simon Kinberg manage it well by making sure that only the drama in 1973 has any emotional heft, and giving the future’s characters barely any lines. James McAvoy’s Professor X, who must find a way to escape wallowing in self-pity to save the world and mutankind, is the only character with a believable arc, since Michael Fassbender’s Magneto changes his mind for unwritten and perplexing reasons, Mystique’s motivation never wavers and Wolverine is always the same: kick ass, save the world, smoke a cigar and have mournful thoughts about his dead, unrequited love Jean Grey. Despite the thinness of the characters and the continued bastardization of the X-Men’s best stories, X-Men: Days of Future Past is still a pretty great action film, and undoubtedly the best of the franchise. Singer and Kinberg keep the adrenalin pumping from the first scene and only let up for scenes of exposition that are probably only too short for film critics. I have a hard time cheering for Singer, who is embroiled in sexual assault allegations that few in gay Hollywood find remotely surprising, but X-Men: Days of Future Past is a triumph for him, his best film since his classic The Usual Suspects.
