Alright, as always start with my point of view so you know how to take this…

Casual appreciation for the X-Men, I’ve seen all the films of the current generation and the spinoffs.  In terms of the comic books themselves, I hadn’t read this story going in, the last X-Men comic I read was ‘Old Man Logan’ which would be another great one off movie.

As far as this film goes, X-Men: Days of Future Past is, in my opinion, a great attempt to tie together all the strands of the X-Men films of the 2000s. The storyline of the movie, where it’s Wolverine who is sent back to the 70s to stop an assassination, is a perfect opportunity to bring the ‘young’ and ‘old’ X-Men casts together.  I’ve already seen some criticism about logic holes, but at least for me, once you throw out ‘time travel’ as the main push for your story, I instantly assume ‘parallel universes’ and ‘alternate realities’ and all that stuff, unless you try to gloss over something so major I can’t look past it on the first viewing.

So my casual, ‘want a fun summer, popcorn movie’ self loved this one.  The um, 20th Century Fox version of Quicksilver stole the movie and had a scene stealing sequence that should put the Flash to shame if DC gets their stuff together (another argument for another day).  There was a cute reference to the JFK assassination that could have been an eye rolling turnoff (see Watchmen), but because of the ‘who’ I completely bought it in this superhero universe.

Now let me talk about Jennifer Lawrence for a minute…

One of my aces asked me about her randomly a couple years ago; ‘What do you think of Jennifer Lawrence?’  (That he had to ask was foreshadowing for where this is going).  I thought she was cool in Winter’s Bone, in Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle she’s great. In the queue for a year but haven’t gotten to Hunger Games yet (foreshadowing).   I’m stealing this analogy from Bill Simmons, but for my nerd generation, a large part of her appeal is, in interviews and awards season, she comes across as ‘a cute girl you can hang out with who happens to be a movie star.’  It’s a personality thing, complimented by not being hard on the eyes.

I say all that to say, sitting in a crowded movie theater filled with a bunch of 12 year old boys, I finally caught on to ‘that other’ demographic that’s driven her up the A list say fast.  Every time Mystique showed up on screen, you could just feel the puberty in the air.  It was hilarious (and a reminder to me on who almost all studio movies are made to cater to).

Anyway, long story short, best X-Men movie I’ve ever seen.  I think this genre has peaked out, but still, in my adult life, this has been amazing:

A Dark Knight Trilogy based on my life that raised the expectations on what comic books films could be…

A tight Avengers film that’s as close to a live comic book as I’ve ever seen…

Those great Superman films that…

(oh…)

(trying not to laugh…)

No I kid, I kid.  He started it all.  There have been great Superman films.  I’ll still stop channel surfing when I see that one sequel come on that I thought was fun.  What year was that made?

(Checking IMdB…)

Oh…1980…