-(Patrick Stewart as Professor
Charles Xavier)
The Michael
Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence fan in me just had a visual frenzy.
I have finally made it to the theater to see X-Men: Days of Future
Past, and I was not disappointed. Considering the huge letdown
that X-Men: The Last Stand was to comic book fans everywhere,
I was overjoyed to see some of my favorite characters killed off by
Brett Ratner brought back to life by Bryan Singer.
The film begins in
the distant future (perhaps 10-15 years from where The Last Stand
left off), revealing familiar characters such as Kitty (Ellen
Page), Bobby/Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), Professor X (Patrick Stewart)
and Magneto (Ian McKellen). After Seeing Stewart and McKellen on
stage at the Berkeley Rep in their breathtaking performance of
Pinter's No Man's Land it was fun to see them back on the big
screen as these iconic characters. I have always attributed fatherly
characteristics to Stewart's Professor X, seeing him as the center of
all X-Men plots despite the series often being nicknamed “Wolverine
and Friends”. Perhaps we should rename it “Professor X: Badass
with Gifted Pupils”. Whatever the movie is called, I am a very happy camper to see him returned to the screen in one piece after Phoenix blew him up.
I was pleased with
some of the new characters introduced into the series, such as
Quicksilver (played by “American Horror Story” actor Evan
Peters), Blink (Bingbing Fan) who is the Portal of all X-Men
characters, and Warpath (Booboo Stewart) who I embarrassingly
recognize from the Twilight Saga. Quicksilver was a terrific
comic relief throughout the first half of the film, lightening the
mood at appropriate times with hilariously written scenarios. He also
seems to stash away a lot of Hostess© products, which I wish I could
relate to. I was very fond of the scene in which he goes around
rearranging all of the security guards limbs at the Pentagon into
amusing positions that knock most of them out while “Time in a Bottle” plays in the background.
Michael Fassbender
is quickly becoming one of my favorite actors, primarily because of
his role in Inglorious Basterds and Prometheus. His
portrayal of a younger Erik Lehnsherr truly channels the pain of
being a young, Jewish child in the Holocaust, losing his parents, and
then losing many of his mutant friends. The anger pours out of his
eyes upon realizing the current President (Nixon) has turned against
his kind years after he attempted to save JFK, who Erik states was
“one of us”. He is also, of course, a devilishly attractive man
and plays a psychotic very well.
I
find James McAvoy's young Charles Xavier to be even more believable,
and can truly see him growing up to be Stewart's Professor X. He is
compassionate, heart broken, and eventually comes around to realize
what he must do to keep the war on mutants from occurring. When he finally gives in to his injuries and accepts that he must live in a wheelchair in order to utilize his gifts the movie really began for me. I was less than enthused about sad, mopey, Charles and much enthused when he hooked into Cerebro.
I can't wait to see it again. Will write more later!
I can't wait to see it again. Will write more later!