Trailer Trashin’: Marvel’s Mutants are Attacked in X-Men: Days of Future Past
Happy April, dear readers! The snow is almost entirely gone, the weather is warming up, and we can go outside without putting on coats. Best of all, this Friday finally sees the release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and by all accounts it’s awesome. And fittingly, this week’s installment of Trailer Trashin’ examines another of this year’s movies based on Marvel Comics – X-Men: Days of Future Past.
Premise: The X-Men ensemble fights a war for the survival of their species across two different time periods. Following the events of X-Men: First Class, Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) has disbanded the X-Men, and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) is continuing his war against humanity. In a dystopian future, Xavier (Patrick Stewart), Magneto (Ian McKellen), and the surviving members of the modern-day X-Men decide to change the past by sending Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back through time to inhabit his younger body in 1973. He will have to join forces with Xavier and Magneto’s younger selves in a desperate battle to save their future.
My take: In my two years of writing the Trailer Trashin’ column, I’ve discussed no less than twelve different films based on comic books, and there’s many more coming in the future that I’m sure I’ll also be writing about. It’s pretty amazing to think how far comic book movies have come in the last two decades. They’ve gone from being punchlines to one of the most reliable tentpole releases for Hollywood. After Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the next comic book movie I’m anticipating this year is X-Men: Days of Future Past, the next cinematic adventure based on Marvel’s team of mutant heroes. Recently, we got a new trailer for X-Men: Days of Future Past, and it’s definitely got me excited for the film.
The movie has a huge cast, made up of both veterans of the X-Men film franchise and newcomers. As has been the case for all but one film in the series, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine is our focus, and I’m sure he’ll be great in the role as usual. It looks like James McAvoy’s young Professor X is going to be put through the emotional wringer, and I’m curious to see where he ends up at the end of this story. Michael Fassbender is one of the coolest actors working today, and I’m so happy to see him as young Magneto again. It’s great to see Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen back as the older Professor X and Magneto, in what will most likely be their last time playing these roles. Given the huge success of The Hunger Games films and her Oscar win for Silver Linings Playbook (2012), it’s no surprise that Jennifer Lawrence, who is back as the shape-shifting Mystique, is much more prominently featured than she was last time. I’ve never been a fan of Halle Berry as Storm, but she is front and center of the biggest “holy crap” moment of the trailer – her apparently about to be impaled by a Future Sentinel. We also see a bit more of Peter Dinklage as Bolivar Trask, creator of the Sentinels. Dinklage is a great actor, and I can’t wait to see more of him in the role.
In terms of other returning characters, we also see some more of Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde, Nicholas Hoult as Beast, Shawn Ashmore as Iceman, and Daniel Cudmore as Colossus. While I’m not a fan of the look of Evan Peters as Quicksilver, I do like that he’s wearing a Pink Floyd t-shirt under his jacket. There’s only one shot of Lucas Till as Havok, and from what I’ve heard, his role is pretty minor. We do see a decent amount of some of the new mutants in the future scenes, including Omar Sy as Bishop, Booboo Stewart as Warpath, Fan Bingbing as Blink, and Adan Canto as Sunspot, and they all look pretty cool. But I expect that they’ll have small supporting roles as most. And on an interesting note, the credit roll at the end of the trailer does list Anna Paquin, despite reports from a while ago that her scene(s) as Rogue had been excised from the final cut of the movie.
Shawn Ashmore, Hugh Jackman and James McAvoy in “X-Men: Days of Future Past.”
© 2013 – Marvel and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.
Compared to the first trailer, this one shows off a lot more action. We finally get to see some of the Sentinel robots in action, and they look pretty cool so far. There’s both the original 1970s Sentinels, which have a more clunky mechanical look, and the Future Sentinels, which look a bit like the Destroyer from Thor (2011). It’s clear that big action stuff happens in both the past and future eras, which makes me wonder how much of the film takes place in each time. The design of the future scenes looks cool, although admittedly it does evoke the dystopian landscapes of both the Terminator and Matrix series a bit. I love the moment of Sunspot going all Human Torch-meets-the Balrog and blasting a Future Sentinel with flame. And not only do we get to see Iceman in his iced-up form, which was briefly shown in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), but he’s finally getting to do his ice sliding/surfing thing, which I’m sure longtime fans of the comics will appreciate.
The X-Men film franchise has definitely had its ups and downs, but it’s back in a good place now. This is the biggest X-film yet, and if it lives up to its potential, it could be one of the best. When late May rolls around, I’ll definitely be checking out X-Men: Days of Future Past at my local theater.
Starring: Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Halle Berry, Anna Paquin, Ellen Page, Peter Dinklage, Nicholas Hoult, Shawn Ashmore, Omar Sy, Daniel Cudmore, Booboo Stewart, Fan Bingbing, Adan Canto, Evan Peters, Josh Helman, Lucas Till, and Evan Jonigkeit
Director: Bryan Singer
Writers: Simon Kinberg, Matthew Vaughn, and Jane Goldman, based on Days of Future Past by Chris Claremont and John Byrne
P.S. I was about halfway through my writing when I realized that this week’s column marks a total of one hundred installments of Trailer Trashin’. And since I’ve reached that milestone, I want to take a moment to thank everyone for their readership and support.
P.P.S. Unfortunately, this past Friday saw the passing of legendary screenwriter Lorenzo Semple, Jr., who died of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles, just one day after his ninety-first birthday. He wrote such films as Pretty Poison (1968), The Parallax View (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975), King Kong (1976), Flash Gordon (1980), and Never Say Never Again (1983). But Semple’s biggest legacy is his work as head writer and executive story editor on the 1960s Batman TV series starring Adam West and Burt Ward. The Batman character would not be as big of a fixture in pop culture as he is without that show, and Lorenzo Semple, Jr. played a huge role in that. My thoughts and prayers go out to Mr. Semple’s family and friends.
Timothy Monforton
