***
Humans and mutants alike are
being hunted by the Sentinels, apparently sentient and ruthless beings set on
destroying everything. In a desperate attempt to save mankind, the remaining X-Men
decide to send Wolverine back in time to stop the Sentinels ever being created.
Well, this is a completely ridiculous
film, even more so than a radio-active lizard and, perhaps more importantly, the
other X-Men films. Whenever time travel becomes a major plot point, massive
loopholes open up and this film is just not good enough to distract the audience
from these issues. The script leaves much to be desired – there is rather a lot
of forced exposition at the beginning, and later on we have some seriously poor
one-liners that sent ripples of amusement through the audience when they were
meant to be inspiring and heart-felt. There is also a bonkers side-note about
the assassination of JFK that never should have made it into the final cut, but
there it is, sticking out like a sore thumb. With so many characters (those
from the present day and those from the 70s) it is of course impossible to give
them all the screen time they deserve, and some literally just flick in and
out, like Storm, which is a real shame because she was one of the main roles in
the original three films. Also, the older versions of Xavier and Magneto (Patrick
Stewart and Ian McKellen, respectively) don’t have a great deal to do, but just
sit around in the gloom looking concerned. It is also not nearly as tense as
the trailer makes it out to be – it being a blockbuster and part of such a
massive franchise, the threat levels are instantly reduced and it is therefore
hardly emotionally engaging.
Apart from all these issues
though, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it. These are characters that we have spent
a lot of time with now, and it feels familiar to be back in their company once
again. There are some very good set pieces as well, particularly the scenes
with Quicksilver, but these are few and far between, with rather a lot of
talking scenes taking up the majority of the film, which had some members of my
audience get up and leave. James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender (resuming their
roles from First Class as the younger
Xavier and Magneto) should be applauded for giving their all in every scene and
really trying to make the script seem better than it is. McAvoy in particular
does an excellent job of playing the lost, heartbroken, drug-addict version of
Xavier, but disappointingly there are very few scenes where he and Fassbender
are together and their chemistry was one of the joys of First Class. The star of the film, however, is undoubtedly Peter Dinklage,
the man who designed the Sentinels in the first place. He is slimy and slippery
without being a caricature but, again, we don’t get enough character
development to really understand and appreciate him. I was relieved that there
wasn’t any of that dreadful comic book humour that sometimes crops up in the
Marvel films, and the film is so ludicrous anyway that humour may have tipped
it over the edge into an unintentional comedy.
It isn’t a bad film, I just felt
that it suffered from a poor script and being overly ambitious – at times it
feels as though there are just too many different elements all fighting for a
chance in front of the camera. It is enjoyable, but I wonder if that is more
down to the fact that we have already grown to know these characters rather
than this film itself being any good. I wouldn’t wholly dismiss it, however,
and would watch it again as there are elements that work well… it just doesn’t
quite function as a whole.
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